AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She turns to me as we’re leaving and says, “I’m giving you a boy. Happy?”
“Yeah, I am.” Would’ve been just as happy with a girl, too. “Are you?”
She scoffs. “You’ll probably turn him against me. Make him hate me. At least I could’ve bonded with a girl.”
What the fuck? “Lila, I ain’t going to turn my baby against you or make him hate you. And you can bond with him just as well as you could a girl.”
She swivels to face me as we’ve reached the driver’s side of the car. “Why should I believe you? Don’t think I haven’t noticed you’ve pulled away. We don’t kiss or hold hands like we used to. You won’t have sex with me anymore.” Her hands rest on her stomach. “I give you a baby and you give me nothing in return!”
“We’re supposed to be working on our issues, remember? I seem to remember you saying you wanted to be better, but I’ll be damned if I’ve seen you try.”
She doesn’t even try to slap me. She punches me in the jaw. Right there in public in full view of the couple getting into their car two spaces over. My fists clench and unclench as she lets the hysteria take over. “How dare you say I haven’t I tried! I stay at home and take care of the house.”
“Because that’s the decision you made without me,” I remind her.
“We don’t drink anymore,” she continues. She still tries once a week to get me to relapse. “I’m letting you choose this baby’s name!” All of a sudden she talks as if she’s crying, but there’s not one fucking tear on her face. “I’m doing all I can to make you happy, but you don’t care! You don’t even close the shower curtain after your shower!” She shoves me away, turns and gets into the car.
By the time I walk around to the other side, she has it cranked and she begins to back out. I slam my hand on the roof. “What the fuck are you doing?” I shout.
She cracks the window. “Find your own way home, FC!” Then she punches it. She barely stops in time to prevent hitting a car in the row behind her and burns rubber as she peels out of the parking lot.
I call my mom as I walk over to sit on the curb. All I want right now is something with tequila in it. I can’t do this anymore. Surely, four months of documentation of her abuse toward me is enough to prove she shouldn’t have custody of my baby once he’s born. But I don’t trust her not to start any bad habits if I leave. I think the only reason she hasn’t been drinking, that I know of, i
s because I try to watch her like a hawk when I can.
“FC? Is everything okay?”
“I can’t do this, Mom.” My eyes squeeze closed when I hear my voice crack. “I’m at the end of my rope. I want to come home.” It’s too hard to keep doing this by myself. I don’t even want to go home. I want to see Idaline.
“Oh, FC. What happened?”
I recount the stupid argument, or whatever the fuck that was, with Lila and how I’m currently stuck outside the doctor’s office. “I’m tired, Mom. I’m fucking tired and I want a drink.” I run a hand down my face. “A bar sounds better than home, anyway. Anywhere does, really.”
Mom’s voice is soft and reassuring as she speaks. “I know this is so unbelievably hard on you, FC, but you can’t leave yet. We know how she treats you, but we don’t know how she’d treat the baby.”
“Mom,” I interrupt, “she doesn’t want him. Her excitement has completely disappeared and all she does is bitch. She says it’s my baby, all the time. Not hers or ours, mine. He’s already an inconvenience to her and he’s not even here yet.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, FC. Except you absolutely don’t need to go to a bar or anywhere else to get alcohol. You’ve been sober three months now; don’t mess that up. Maybe get a ride back to the apartment, get your car, and spend the night at a hotel since you keep a spare bag in your trunk.”
“I’ve already had to spend two nights in a hotel room this week, Mom. I’m tired of paying for it.” I thought she kicked me out a lot before? Ha. I’ve been kicked out far more frequently since she’s been pregnant. And let me say, frequent stays in a hotel room is a definite hit to the bank account. I’ve spent two hundred fifty dollars just this week. How can I best save for a lawyer when I’m constantly blowing my money on a hotel room?
“Tell me where you’re staying and your father and I will pay for tonight.”
“No, Mom, it’s fine. I’ll figure something out. Worse comes to worst, I’ll sleep in my car.” She makes a disapproving sound, but I say, “I need to find my way back to my car. I’ll text you later.”
She relents and we hang up. I am not staying at the apartment tonight and I’m not staying at a hotel either. It’s Idaline’s or my car. It’ll be good to see her. I haven’t seen her since we went to the fair, though we talk as regularly as we can. Her grandfather’s disapproval always lingers in the back of my mind when I think about escaping there instead of to a hotel room. Plus, she’s almost constantly with Justin or having a hard day with her mental health. Not to mention, the chemistry between us is hard to deal with and I stay away for that, too.
There’s plenty of reasons for me to not text Idaline about coming to crash at her place, but there’s only one reason of why I want that matters and makes me text her regardless.
I miss her and I could use some of her sunshine to get me through yet another rough patch.
Me: Please tell me you don’t have plans with Justin tonight.
I still don’t like him. Idaline doesn’t ever seem all that excited about him either. I mean, he’s in her life and she seems happy, but I don’t know if that’s good enough.
Idaline: Does Faris Caddock miss me and want to crash at my place again?
I bust out laughing. My name definitely isn’t Faris Caddock. See? One text from her and I already feel a little lighter. Only a teeny tiny itsy bitsy bit, but that still feels like a hell of a lot when things are normally a constant hell.
