AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yeah. The way you had your hand placed protectively over your belly when Deck did what he did earlier told me all I needed to know. And not to mention you’ve got your hand resting over your belly now.”
Neither one of us said anything for a long while.
Knowing this was the moment, the moment where everything I’ve ever known was going to change, I gathered up the courage I needed and said, “I can’t do this anymore, Gaston. I can’t fight the memory of a ghost; one I didn’t even know about. I can’t give someone all of me and have him call out her name when he’s inside of me. I can’t keep on getting hit when I say something he doesn’t like. I can’t keep on being belittled because I forgot to grab the ketchup, or the fast-food place didn’t give him the right number of sauces. I know I made my father a promise, but… I don’t think he would want me to keep it and have kept it this long.”
Gaston had his hands on the side of his desk, clenching the wooden frame as he nodded his head, “Your father had me promise that if he wasn’t treating you right, no matter what, I’d get you free of him.”
I felt the second genuine smile of the day hit my lips, “He did?”
“Yeah. You got a plan in place already?” he asked thoughtfully.
I shook my head, “No, I need to tell Deck about the baby, then I need to go from there.”
“Admire you, Savannah. Not all women would.” And with that, he stood from the desk and asked, “Want me in here when you tell him?”
“Please,” I tried to hide the fact that I was utterly terrified of how he would react, but I couldn’t.
He stepped around his desk, walked over to me, placed both of his hands on the arms of the chair, made sure he had my eyes, and said, “I’ll kill him, he tries anything. Always seen you like a daughter, darlin’. Felicia and I were never blessed to have a kid, but I see you as mine.”
And with that, he stood after shocking me because he’s never told me that before, walked to his door, opened it, and hollered for Deck.
I kept my eyes glued to the picture that sat behind Gaston’s desk of my father and the brothers with their blue jean kuttes that they had made. The ones they still wear too.
And then I heard, “She has something she wants to tell you.”
I saw Gaston walk to his desk, but he didn’t step around to the back of it and sit down. No, he leaned against it so that he was slightly in the middle of Deck and me, should Deck do something that Gaston would need to shut down.
I watched as Deck stopped, looked over at me in a barely there glance, took a swig from the bottle of vodka he held, and then he asked with a pinch to the bridge of his nose as if this was an inconvenience to him, “What’s going on, Savannah?”
Seriously? Steeling my spine, I started, “You remember the last time you fucked me? You slammed your hand over my mouth so I couldn’t speak. You stopped me from trying to tell you that we needed to use condoms because I had to start a different form of birth control.”
“Yeah, so…” He waved his hand for me to continue.
“I’m pregnant, Deck,” I said with courage I didn’t possess.
“So what? Get an abortion. I don’t want it,” he said matter of fact.
I should be shocked at his answer.
I should be floored.
I should be sickened by the man he is. The man that my father stupidly chose for me.
But I wasn’t.
No, I was… relieved.
“I’m not doing that. I’m having this baby. When I give birth, I want you to sign over your rights.”
“Fine by me, bring me whatever I need to sign,” he said as he took a swig from the bottle of vodka as he held it by the bottleneck with two fingers.
“Never wanted to kill a brother more than I do right now. If I didn’t admire your fucking father… Get the fuck out of my office and don’t let me see your face for the rest of the fucking night,” Gaston roared out.
Without a look at me or anything more, he turned and left the room. Drinking from the bottle the entire time.
Gaston breathed in and out, trying to get his temper under control before he asked, “Plan?”
Knowing this was it, I said, “Sell my parents’ home and move. I don’t want to be here anymore.”
