Page 3 of Worth of Waste

She just wanted one more minute of his time—a few passing seconds—to ask the one question she should have demanded he answer over and over again.

What would he even say now?

I’m a criminal.

I don’t live a good life.

I lied to you.

I love you.

Pushing those awful fucking thoughts from her mind, Karen grabbed the remote and shut the television off, hoping it would rid the image from her mind. It didn’t; she should have known better than to try.

Like that first time they’d met, this was no different.

Dino’s black soul had imprinted itself inside Karen’s heart without even trying. He should have warned her, maybe, given her a chance to run when she could have, before she got too mixed up in him.

Deep down, she didn’t want that at all.

And in a way, he had given her that chance.

Tell me to leave and I’ll go, he’d told her again and again.

She hadn’t ever told him those words because she hadn’t wanted to. Not when she knew something was wrong with him, not when she knew he was hiding things from her, and not even when he’d hurt her by walking away when she needed him to stay.

Karen didn’t say things she didn’t mean, after all.

That didn’t mean it was easy, or that she understood where all of this was going to lead her in the end. She had the distinct feeling nothing would make sense or feel particularly good until she had the chance to sit down with Dino once and for all to get the answers she craved, to questions he had refused to entertain over and over again.

But she would get those answers … eventually.

Karen had long since decided on that.

She just had to figure out how.

Well, actually, Dino would have to wait a short while longer. She had something more important to deal with, or rather, figure out what in the hell she was going to do about and how she was going to make it work.

Her baby, that was.

As much as she wanted to go and demand answers from Dino, as deep as her need was to simply talk to him and hug him, even if she was angry with him, she had something else to take care of and she didn’t think he would mind.

That was never more apparent to Karen than when she flew off the couch and headed for the bathroom faster than she thought was possible, her hand thrown over her mouth in a shitty attempt to keep the spilling vomit inside for those last few feet.

Thankfully, she made it in time. That didn’t necessarily make vomiting any more fun.

Morning sickness was a bitch.

The books all said the sickness would probably wane by the second trimester, but Karen still had weeks and weeks to go for that just yet. Her stress and worries weren’t helping her sensitive stomach in the least, considering the worse she felt mentally or physically, the sicker she became.

It was almost like her morning sickness was reflecting her moods, if that were possible.

It wasn’t just Dino she was worried about, either.

It was also herself.

She lived in a too-small apartment with only one bedroom. The place didn’t have nearly enough room for all the things a baby needed. Not that she had the money to actually go out and buy the things the baby would need, because she didn’t have any money at all. All the savings she had managed to accumulate over the years was a dwindling pile of cash—now that she had quit her job at Dino’s restaurant—and she needed to fund herself and keep herself housed and fed until another job popped up.

But who was going to give a job to a woman with a taste for photography, bookkeeping skill, and a baby on the way?