Page 135 of Under the Bed

My mind races a million miles a minute. Worrying about what she’s doing out there is eating me alive.

You already know.

Fuck. Damn it. I don’t want to know. Except I do.

At this moment—when I suspect she might be doing what I think she’s doing—I’m done being a man. A person. I’m feral. An animal.

A hunter.

I stalk over to the main street where the pharmacy is.

Where I suspected she’d be.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t wrong.

My sweet little sister is here, wearing her own clothes. A pair of light jeans, a gray coat over a black shirt. Her hair is wet and hanging in thick waves down her shoulders.

Her head is bowed down as she leaves the pharmacy. A futile attempt to go incognito. To hide herself from the world.

From me.

It might work on everyone else. The people who pass her by will never notice this hidden gem.

I will. I do.

That bag in her grip. That plastic fucking bag and the water bottle in her other hand. I wish I never knew what was in that bag.

I wish it were Tylenol or Nyquil. An allergy med or what-fucking-ever.

No. None of that.

She bought Plan B.

A sharp pain slices through my head.

God. Fuck.

Fuck.

I get it. Wrong place and wrong goddamn time to have a kid.

Being on the run while pregnant is the definition of reckless. A woman could suffer morning sickness. She could need bed rest. There’s no telling where we’ll be in a month. A year. If the baby would need help.

I have a solid plan, true. However, there’s always a chance that things could go wrong.

We could lose the baby while we’re trying to claim our lives back.

I don’t want that. I’d be crazy to want that.

I might be fucked in the head. An abomination.

I’m fully aware that waiting for our life to be less chaotic is the right thing to do. One hundred percent.

But damn it all to hell.

Understanding her doesn’t make it any less painful. The pounding in my head won’t listen to reason.

This pill. This fucking pill. I have to rip it from her hands before it lands on her tongue.

---