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This being that I can’t.
Catch it I mean.
Or at least not as easily as I would’ve liked.
Because my arm is stuck. Both my arms are stuck.
And while they’re stuck with enough of a give that I do manage to solve my blanket predicament, my main problem still remains: both my arms are stuck to the bed.
No, they’re tied to the bed.
With a rope.
Looped around my wrists and those slats that we were talking about last night.
I stare down at them for a couple of seconds. Trying to make sense of what I’m seeing. Trying to determine whether or not this is real.
Even after attempting to understand it though, I don’t.
I have no clue as to why I’m seeing what I’m seeing.
So I look up at him in confusion. “What… What is this?”
He, on the other hand, looks calm. He looks completely unaffected, the opposite of confused. He even goes so far as to lean his hips against the dresser, crossing his arms across his muscular chest as he replies, “A rope.”
The fact that he’s so blase about everything is making me even more confused.
And scared.
Then twisting my tied-up wrists that I can only bring forward slightly, I ask, “Why is it tied around my wrists?”
“You shouldn’t do that,” he says.
“Shouldn’t do what?”
He jerks his lightly stubbled jaw to point to my wrist. “Twist your wrists like that. The knot’s loose enough not to leave any marks but you shouldn’t push your luck.”
Right.
Okay, so he’s giving me advice about the rope.
It makes me even more scared.
Because I don’t think…
Oh God, let me breathe for a second.
I don’t think this is an accident or a joke or done without purpose.
“My luck,” I murmur, dread squeezing my heart.
“Yes.”
“Can you explain to me though, how I pushed my luck anyway so that I ended up tied to your bed?”
Something menacing flashes through his eyes. “You ended up tied to my bed because I don’t want you to go anywhere.”
“And where is it you think I’m going to go that you had to tie me up?”
“That’s what I intend to find out.”
Okay.
Okay, just relax.
I’m sure there’s a good explanation for this.
Although so far he hasn’t given me any.
But it’s okay. It’s fine.
Just stay calm, I tell myself.
Then, clutching the sheet tightly under my arms, “Ledger, what the fuck is going on?”
Needless to say that didn’t sound very calm just now.
But I don’t really care.
I need him to give me a straight answer or I’m going to lose my mind.
“Sucks, doesn’t it?” he murmurs then, his voice soft. “Not knowing.”
“What are you talking about?”
His jaw clenches, his biceps flexing. “I’m talking about the truth.”
“What?”
“That you still haven’t given me.”
I flinch.
Then deflate.
As if with his words, he’d popped a balloon inside of me and all my anger fizzes out.
The only thing that remains is the guilt.
Which I think is easy for him to notice on my face. Because he says, “You haven’t, have you?”
I swallow and shake my head. “No.”
He moves his jaw back and forth, watching me and watching me. Then, “So let’s hear it then.”
So this is it.
The time is here to tell him the truth, and I realize that the guilt is not the only thing that is inside of me.
There’s also sadness.
Abject misery.
A deep, dark well of it.
Because once I tell him, this will be over.
This thing between us.
Because he’s going to hate me, isn’t he?
I’m the girl who was going to use him.
I was going to make a fool out of him and leave him behind when my purpose was over. And even though I’d already decided not to do that, I still should’ve told him before we had sex.
I got selfish and greedy and God, I deserve his wrath and hatred and whatever else he chooses to give me.
My heart twisting in my chest, I begin, “Well, you already know that I want a baby. You know that I want to move on and live my life. Free of you, I mean. Free of heartbreak and sadness and… and all that. But I… I wasn’t going to tell you if and when I got pregnant. I wasn’t going to tell you that there’s a baby. Ever.”
Pin drop silence meets my confession.
Which isn’t what I was expecting at all.
I don’t know what I was expecting exactly, but him watching me with a blank expression was not it. It’s as if he didn’t hear me at all. Or maybe he did but didn’t really grasp the meaning of what I’m telling him.
So I go on, insisting, “I was going to lie to you. The second I found out that I was pregnant, I was going to break off our relationship and leave. And never ever, not ever, tell you that we made a baby together. I-I was going to disappear for a while and come back when I had the baby. And I was going to…” I’m cringing, absolutely fucking cringing, on the inside, “pass it off as another man’s.”
