Page 44 of Iron Fist

But if I’d stayed away from this party — hadn’t gotten tangled up with Wrecker — I wouldn’t be in Brody’s bed right now, either. Wondering what just happened between us, and whether it meant anything to him.

Because it did to me.

Now that I’m sitting here without him, my heart squeezes a little. I wish more than anything time could have just stopped last night as we were falling asleep. It can’t, though. Brody will come back in here after his meeting, and he’ll be Rogue again. The man who doesn’t want to be married to me. The man who wishes I had never come back to Ironwood.

And I bet he wishes that even more now.

There’s a familiar ache between my legs, one I haven’t felt for a long time. To be truthful, I never enjoyed sex much after Brody and I broke up. With him, it was always so magical. I loved him so much, and sex with him always felt like we were two people merging into one. With that as my first sexual experience, it’s no real surprise no one else ever seemed to measure up. But last night with him, it was better than good, it wasmagical. Like being with the Brody I’ve remembered for years, but somehow even better. Back then, we were just fumbling kids, learning together. Now, to have this older, more experienced version of him touch my body… well, it’s like coming back to the instrument you learned chopsticks on, and playing a concerto.

Being with him like this has been a time warp of past and present. Memories of us from way back — things I haven’t thought about in years — come flooding into my mind as I sit here without him. Back then, we always used condoms. But we both knew we wanted kids eventually. I knew he would be a great dad. And I could hardly wait to be the mother of his children.

But then, I got pregnant with someone else’s child.

When he found the pregnancy test, I almost did something horrible. I almost lied to him. My brain started pinging around in my head, trying to figure out a story about how the condom must not have worked, hoping that I wouldn’t have to lose him.

But in the end, I couldn’t stand it. I had to tell him the baby wasn’t his.

I still didn’t tell him the whole truth, though. After I saw the pain in his eyes when I admitted he wasn’t the father, I couldn’t bring myself to go one step further. I couldn’t tell him that the person who had gotten me pregnant was his best friend, Thorpe Summers. I knew that he had to either find out that his wife or his best friend had betrayed him. I couldn’t bear to destroy Brody’s heart by telling him both of us had.

But there was another reason I couldn’t stand to tell him everything. A more selfish one. I was afraid he wouldn’t believe me when I told him I didn’t remember it happening.

I remember the party. It was at the house of some random friend of his. When I got together with Brody, we started running with his crowd more than mine. To be honest, I didn’t have much of a crowd, anyway. I had been popular by virtue of being rich, but my heart had never been much in it. The girlfriends I had in high school had been shallow, the boys, immature muscle-heads who spent more time lifting weights than they ever did on anything else. They were like dumb twelve-year-olds in eighteen-year-old bodies.

Brody was out of town that weekend with his dad, for some reason related to Mr. Hicks’s landscaping business. We were already married, and living in a studio apartment the size of my walk-in closet at my parent’s house. I was bored, missing Brody, and turning around in circles in the small space, which was the reason I decided to go to the party in the first place.

The party was walking distance from our apartment. When I got there, Brody’s friend Thorpe was instantly at my side. He got me drinks, hung around me, and seemed to be playing the role of my bodyguard while Brody was gone. At the time, I remember wondering whether Brody had asked him to do that. The thought bothered me — for a brief moment, I wondered if somehow Brody didn’t trust me. But I didn’t brush Thorpe off, because he was actually being nice and funny, and I was enjoying his company more than I usually did.

After I finished my second beer, I was heading to the kitchen to grab myself another drink when Thorpe appeared at my side.

“Hey, let me get you a refresher on that,” he said, grabbing the cup from my hand. He was gone before I could reply. I turned back to some girls I was talking to. A minute or so later, he returned with the refilled cup and handed it to me.

A few minutes later, I started to feel woozy. It was hot in the house, and the music was booming, so I figured I’d just had a little too much to drink. I decided to go outside for some air. But by the time I reached the front door, I was stumbling, and almost unable to see in front of me. My eyelids didn’t seem to want to stay open.

“Hey,” Thorpe’s voice said next to me. “You look like you need some help.”

His hand wrapped around my bicep, his arm around my shoulders. I was so relieved that I could only thank him as he led me out of the house. He told me he was taking me to his car.

Then, as far as I can remember, I fell asleep.

I don’t know how long I was in Thorpe’s car. I don’t know how long I was passed out. All I remember is that when I finally woke up, he was dragging me through the front door of my apartment building, and that my clothes weren’t on right. He pulled me along as far as to get me inside our studio, then left me there on the floor, tossing my keys and my purse next to me.

The next morning, I woke up on the floor with the worst headache of my life. I found my cell phone in my bag. It was turned off, which I knew I hadn’t done. When I turned it back on again, I found about a dozen text messages from Brody and three calls that had gone to voicemail.

Pulling myself upright, I stumbled to the bathroom to pee. When I pulled down my underwear, they were sticky and wet. I realized with a jolt what the substance had to be.

I spent most of the morning on the bathroom floor, crying and hyperventilating.

When I finally managed to calm myself down enough to call Brody back, I told him I had fallen asleep early that night and didn’t hear my ringer. He accepted the lie because he trusted me.

I tried to block out what happened. Part of me was screaming inside, screaming at me to tell Brody. But I didn’t know how. I didn’t remember what happened, and all I had to go on was the sticky wetness on my underwear and a dull ache between my legs the next day. I loved Brody so much, and I wanted to trust him, like I always thought I would have trusted him with my life. But still, there was a part of me that was afraid he’d blame me for what had happened — or worse, think I’d seduced Thorpe and was lying to protect myself. After all, it would be his best friend’s word against mine. I hoped Brody wouldn’t be like that, but I couldn’t be sure, and I was terrified of losing him.

So, as the days and then the weeks went by, I tried to block it all out. I hoped that if I tried hard enough, eventually I could just convince myself that the whole thing had just been a nightmare and it would simply recede into the background. I’d forget about it. I’d be able to go on with my life — the life I always wanted, with Brody.

Then, one day I realized that I was late for my period.

I’ve sometimes wondered what would have happened — how my life would have turned out — if I hadn’t miscarried. I had always assumed I’d be a mother someday, but with Brody as the father. After we split up — after I left town — I sort of gave up on the idea of having a family of my own. Or even a lasting relationship, really. Maybe that’s why I never went ahead filing for divorce. I knew things were over between me and Brody, but making it official felt like pretending I could actually turn the page, and eventually have a new relationship. One that might lead to marriage and a family with someone other than him.

That just never seemed possible. So I didn’t bother.

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