Page 15 of Until Delilah

At least Beckham’s at school and didn’t have to witness this. She’s been fighting me since the second we dropped him off.

Her hands go to the curve of her hips and it has me imagining what it would feel like to have my hands on her supple curves. “You’re doing it again.”

What can I say? I can’t help myself.

Instead of saying something that will probably piss her off more, I keep my mouth closed and help her finish putting her things into the one bag she has.

“Is that it?” I ask once she’s stripped the bed.

“I know it’s not much, but yeah, as of right now that’s all of our earthly possessions.” She looks down at the bag and then up to me with a sadness in her eyes that wasn’t there earlier. “It’s sad, isn’t it?”

“It’s not sad. I find it very commendable you took control over your life. I know it couldn’t have been easy for you, especially with a young child and being pregnant. If you want, I can ask around about who’s the best doctor for you and your baby.”

She places her hands on her flat stomach. “That would be really sweet of you. Once I find a job and save a little, I want to see a doctor.”

I don’t tell her there’s no way I’m going to make her wait to receive the care of a doctor until she can afford it, since I know all it will do is start another fight. Even though I like that she’s a little spitfire, I understand Delilah and her pride.

Delilah leaves with the bedding and comes back empty-handed. For a moment, she looks around the room with a small smile on her face. “I’m ready if you are.”

I feel a sense of pride radiating off her and she should. Delilah took back her life when she left that asshole.

We both go to pick up her overly stuffed bag, but I push her hands away and take it. There’s no way I’m going to let her carry something so heavy when I’m standing right here. She narrows her eyes at me, but there’s also a slight uptick of her lips. Instead of fighting with me, she picks up a stuffed polar bear and hugs it to her chest.

“I’m surprised Beckham didn’t wake up in the middle of the night looking for this guy. He normally can’t sleep without him,” she says as she follows me out of the room. She waves to a few people but doesn’t say goodbye to anyone.

Still, she did tell them she’s leaving and didn’t say she’ll be back, so that’s a step in the right direction. That is, until I stop her from opening the truck door.

“Let me be chivalrous, woman,” I laugh down my nose at her.

“And here I thought chivalry was dead.” She laughs with me as she lets me help her up into her seat.

“You know, if you want to look for a job, I have an extra car in my garage you can use. It will help you save money instead of taking Ubers everywhere.”

She turns in her seat to look at me. “I was walking to most of them, and maybe that’s why I didn’t get the job because they saw me walking. Either that, or the bruising on my face, or the fact that I’m pregnant and will only be able to work for several months before I have to take maternity leave. Anyway, if we’re staying at your house, there’s no way I can walk anywhere, so I might just take you up on your offer.”

I smile to myself. It’s nice when she gives in easily.

“If you tell me what type of job you’re looking for, maybe I can help you.” I shrug.

She lets out a defeated breath. “Anything, really. I need to make some money before this baby is born. They’re not cheap.” Turning to look out the window, she rests her forehead against the glass as she speaks. “I had plans to go to college but got pregnant at eighteen. My boyfriend at the time joined the Marines and told me he’d happily take care of his family. I stupidly moved away with him all so I could stay home and play the part of the little housewife instead of going to college. The next thing I knew, Jacob was dead, and I was alone at the age of nineteen and a single mom.”

Fuck, that couldn’t have been easy. It has me thinking if she was eighteen when she got pregnant that had to make her twenty-five to my thirty-two years of age.

“Did you love him?” I hear myself ask.

“I did love him, but I was never in love with him if you know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t.” I turn to look at her and find her staring back at me. “Can you explain it to me?”

“You know how if you’re around someone long enough, you begin to love them. Even if it’s a friend. After years of being friends with someone, you can love them. Well, that’s kind of what happened with me and Jacob. I got pregnant the summer after I graduated high school and while my parents didn’t demand anything of me, I wanted to show I was responsible, so I left with Jacob. I thought I was doing the right thing, even if it did break my heart and the hearts of my parents and sister with me moving to Biloxi.”

She wipes a tear that escapes as it starts to trail down her cheek. “I never got the chance to fall in love with him. He was deployed not long after we moved. I love him for giving me Beckham because he’s my everything. I had severe postpartum depression after I had him, and to learn that the father of my child was dead sent me spiraling.”

“Didn’t anyone know?”

“My parents had their suspicions, but I told them I was fine when I wasn’t. If I could do it all over again, I would have gone back home to live with them after Jacob died, but I still wanted to prove myself. If you ever meet my parents, you’ll wonder why I made the decisions I did and all I can say is I was young, dumb, depressed and wanted to show them I could be something.”

She’s right. Her situation doesn’t make sense to me. “Why do you have something to prove?”

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