Page 65 of Read With Your Heart

Emily and I remain quiet, and I ignore the hammering in my chest. Is Leon here? Is he nearby?

“I told him everything, and he lost it when he found out about Hector. I mean, he went berserk.” Her hands motion by the side of her head like his head exploded, and I don’t think that’s hyperbole on her part.

I fear for Leon. His thoughts. What he intends to do . . . but I know nothing about him and his way of life. I know he loves his bike and basketball. He memorized Shakespeare. He loves to draw. He works on cars. His hands on me were the most incredible thing I’d ever felt, but I live with my demons, and I can’t measure his.

“What will you do with the baby?” I question.

“I don’t want an abortion.”

My coffee turns sour in my stomach with the thought. It’s her right if she had decided in favor of one, but I’m relieved she’s decided against it.

“Will you keep it?”

“I think I should give the baby up for adoption. My parents wouldn’t need to know. Leon found out they aren’t coming back anytime soon. They’ve been deported.”

Good Lord, could this family catch a break?

“I’m so sorry, Lena,” I say, reaching for her, but her hands remain under the table. “What will you do next?”

“I can’t go back to Elk Lake City. It’s just not for me. I want to stay here.” I understand, but I don’t see how an eighteen-year-old child can stay in this city. Pregnant. Alone.

“So you saw Hector.” I swallow around the name, sick again that this child got mixed up in adult games and slept with someone almost double her age. The same someone who killed a brother she never knew.

“He denies it’s his. He doesn’t want anything to do with me.” Lena’s voice saddens with the defeat of a kid in a grown-up world. “I was so stupid.”

I sense Emily bite her tongue as I do. How do you tell a girl you agree when you also wish to show sympathy?

Taking a deep breath, I keep my eyes on her when I speak.

“I know how you feel. I’ve been stupid in the past. I thought I loved a man, and he hurt me.”

“Leon?” Lena questions. Her brows lift in concern, and I smile weakly, shaking my head. Her brother is a different kind of hurt, but not one she needs to know yet.

“My husband hurt me. Physically.”

Emily’s hand comes to my forearm, but I don’t look up at her. My eyes lower to the table before me. “See, when I was a girl, I wanted to hang with the boys. Girls were sissies and only worried about makeup and such. That wasn’t me. I played sports, and I was competitive. I had my guy pals, and I liked them. But when I grew older, the girl in me wanted to be seen as a woman, and one guy eventually noticed me—or so I thought. He liked me, and I married him.” I sigh with the memories, recalling we were just two awkward twentysomethings. He was a horny, immature man, and I mistook his physical attraction for love.

“It was subtle things at first. An insult disguised in a joke. He was kidding, but it hurt. Then a firm grab of my arm or a twist of my wrist. A pinch to my waist or a slap of my thigh. He treated me like I was one of the guys because I hung with them so much, and I wanted to belong. I wanted a home.”

Lena stares at me.

“But it wasn’t right, and even though I knew all the signs, Lena, I still stayed. He didn’t mean it. He loved me. Those were the first lies I told myself after he said them to me. When I finally accepted it wasn’t right, what he was doing to me, I didn’t know how to get out. How had I been so stupid? I was a smart woman. I knew better. I’d never get myself into that kind of relationship, yet there I was. I mean, this is the kind of stuff that you curse at other women about. You shake your head and say, ‘I’d leave him with the first slap.’ But would you? Would you really when the man you think you love apologizes and swears he loves you back?”

A tear falls from Lena’s eye, and I realize my own are clouded.

“I was embarrassed.” I look over at Emily, who watches me with concern and compassion written on her face. “I knew better. I should have left after the first touch, and I didn’t.”

Emily nods as if she understands, and I turn back to the child who’s officially a woman before me.

“I wanted a baby,” I admit. “For some silly reason, I thought having a family would help. More absurd thoughts from an intelligent woman.” I shake my head, admonishing myself.

Lena stares at me, another tear falling.

“A baby would be the answer, right? I’d show him we could be a family. Only, he didn’t want kids. He resented raising Levi, his younger brother, but I figured a child of his own would be different.” My own eyes prickle, and I swallow the lump in my throat.

“Trent conceded the idea after my dad died, and I think he did it just to shut me up.” When my father suddenly passed, my interest in a child seemed to double. I was thirty at that point, and Trent and I had been married eight years. My dad knew I wanted to be a mom more than anything else. He died without knowing the grandchildren I hadn’t given him. “When I got pregnant, Trent wasn’t happy.”

“Oh my God,” Emily gasps, her fingers tightening on my forearm.