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Dominik doesn’t look at me once the whole way home. He always drives fast, but this time it’s so erratic that it feels like he’s trying to communicate with me through it. He’s furious, and he wants me to know it before he has the chance to tell me with his whole chest.
24
DOMINIK
Idon’t even give Mika a chance to say a word before I drag her from the car and throw her over my shoulder.
For the first time in weeks, I actually see her old self radiating through as she punches me in the back, eventually trying to pull my hair and kick me in the ribs. It hurts, sure, but she’s nothing compared to the blows I’ve taken and still walked away from. She could use her full punching force on my face and it would probably just be sore for a few days.
“God damn it! Put me down!” she screams, the pitch of her voice rising as she begins to realize that she has no control over the situation.
“Mika, shut the fuck up,” I warn, holding her tighter over my shoulder in an effort to subdue her. I know she’s headstrong, but she’s been so sick for the last two weeks that I doubt she would even have the strength to run away from me again.
I walk her all the way up to her room, locking the door behind us before I throw her onto her bed. I can't slam the door behind me, and having to show this much restraint when I’m seething with rage is a challenge I wasn’t prepared for.
“I don’t know what the fuck you think you’re doing, but you’re going to get us both killed if you keep pulling shit like this. What if your father found this note before me? What would that look like to him?” I say, pulling the note out of my pocket and slapping it onto the bed in front of her.
“I was trying to warn you so that you don’t have to deal with any of this bullshit anymore! I was trying to do you a favor!” she shouts.
Putting my hand over her mouth as I grab her head, I look deep into her eyes, hoping to find someone behind them who is willing to be reasonable with me.
“Mika, shut up. You are going to get us both killed. I don’t think you understand how serious I am about this. So, I’m only going to take my hand off your mouth if you promise to cooperate with me. Do you understand?”
She glares at me, and I realize that I’m fighting a losing battle.
“If your dad finds out about any of this – us, the note, you running away – he’s going to lock you in a dark basement for the rest of your life. I am not exaggerating. You need to understand how big of a fucking deal this is,” I continue.
She takes a deep breath, rolling her eyes at me.
“If I take my hand off your mouth, youneedto stay quiet. No more shouting under any circumstances. I’m going to ask again, do you understand me?”
Reluctantly, she nods, and I remove my hand.
“Dominik, I’m pregnant.”
The word sound so loud in the dense silence of the room around us.
My body reacts before my mind has a chance to understand. My blood pressure drops, and I feel my pulse begin to race in my neck.
I want to believe that there’s no way, like we were so meticulous and careful to prevent this from happening, but I know that we weren’t. We did nothing to even lessen the possibility. Pregnancy is the evolutionary conquest of sex. What were we expecting to happen?
“No, you’re not. That’s not fair. You can’t just say that to gain the upper hand here. You did something wrong and you need someone to tell you that,” I say.
If I don’t believe it, it won’t be real. How could she even know she was pregnant?
The dots start to connect in my head, and the most intense sense of dread pools in my stomach. She’s been sick for all this time because of pregnancy? The vomiting, refusal to eat, fatigue… It all points to pregnancy.
How did I not recognize this?
I’m not an idiot, and I’ve seen women become sick as soon as they get pregnant. My sister and cousin were both violently ill every day for three months, and at the time, it justmade sensethat they were sick because they were pregnant.
I’ve never looked at Mika and saw a mother. She’s always been a petulant brat, and trying to raise a child with her would likely be the biggest mistake of my life.
“I’m not fucking lying, Dominik! Why the fuck would I lie about that? Do you think that this is a problem that I want to have right now?” she replies, raising her voice a bit.
“Mika, stop fucking shouting!”
“No, really, I’m wondering what you think I could gain from lying about a pregnancy. Eventually it would be obvious that I wasn’t, so what good would that do me?” she says as her voice breaks from the tears forming in her eyes.
