AllFreeNovel
Share Us
ALLIE
“Oh my God,” I whispered, grasping the sink counter to steady myself.
Out of all the damn freaking ways that this could’ve played out with Harlan Harbor, this was the worst-case scenario. Mom was pregnant by him. Pregnant! He would never let her go now, no matter how damn hard Jace and I tried to peel her away from him. Jace or Poison would need to kill him, like they had talked about.
“Honey, I’m so sorry,” she said, gripping the hanger.
When I glanced at it, I doubled over and clutched my stomach, unable to hold myself up anymore. Pain shot through my body, my heart aching. “Mom … Mom, how could you even think about us-using that?” I asked, knowing that she had only brought it to the bathroom with her for one reason and one reason only.
To try to stop this pregnancy.
“Baby,” Mom said, crouching down beside me, tears spilling down her cheeks. “Don’t cry.”
I placed a hand over my mouth to muffle my sobs. If she needed to get an abortion, then she needed to get an abortion, but … not like this. This could kill her. If I hadn’t found her before she did something to herself, she could’ve … she could’ve died. Just like Dad.
“Mom,” I sobbed.
She sat on the ground next to me and cradled me in her arms, gently stroking my hair and rocking us back and forth. And while she tried to be strong behind me, her chest heaved back and forth too. “I’m sorry,” she said through the tears. “I’m so sorry.”
“Why?” I asked, grasping her arm and lying in her lap. “You could’ve died.”
While she didn’t respond right away, she held me tighter in her arms and continued to rock us, like she used to do on the couch when I was five, when we used to talk to Dad over video chat while he was deployed, her cheek against mine and a big smile on her face.
But I hadn’t seen her smile her real smile for years now. I didn’t think I ever would.
“Do you want to leave me too?” I asked, unable to stop myself before the words decided to tumble out of my mouth.
We hadn’t been on particularly great terms since she’d married Harlan, but I didn’t want to live without her too. It had been hell, trying to get over that I would never see Dad again, but Mom too? I didn’t know how I’d be able to survive with both parents gone at such an early age. It’d be so damn difficult.
“Don’t you dare say anything like that again,” Mom said, voice tense. “I love you more than you think I do. I was doing this for us. There isn’t any other way about it. I don’t want to be stuck with him forever. If I have his baby …”
I turned in her hold and pushed the tears from her cheeks. “There has to be another way. You can’t do this to yourself.” I ripped the hanger from her hand and placed it on the counter. “Promise me that you won’t ever attempt to do that yourself. You can shove it up into you, hit an artery, and bleed out within minutes, Mom.”
Her lips quivered. “Honey, there’s no other way.”
“Go to the doctor. Please, Mom, go to the doctor.”
She shook her head. “I … Harlan won’t let me out of his sight. And if I tell him that I’m pregnant, he won’t let me get an abortion. He’s fucking psychotic, Allie,” Mom whispered. “He’ll kill me before he ever lets me abort it. I … I can’t have a baby with him. I’m afraid he’ll hurt it or … or kill it.”
I sat back on my heels, trying to come up with any sort of plan. We were stuck in a corner that we couldn’t get ourselves out of, and Mom was right. Harlan liked to control. I had witnessed that firsthand when he brought me into his office and forced me to watch as he burned that fake file.
The stupidest idea popped into my head, but it could work. Could.
“What if … what if you make an appointment for me to go to the gynecologist?” I asked, brows furrowed together and an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. “What if you tell Harlan that I need to get on birth control?” Because I still hadn’t yet. Jace and I had been relying solely on the pull-out method and the day-after pill. “I’ll tell him that I want you with me because I’m scared of having them shove an IUD up my uterus.”
Mom swallowed hard and shook her head. “I don’t know if that’ll work. Putting an IUD in only takes a few moments. Abortions can take hours. Harlan isn’t stupid. He’ll put two and two together.”
I swallowed hard, my heart racing. “Tell him that I’m pregnant then. You can’t use a hanger to do this, Mom. Please, tell him that I’m pregnant and that I want to get an abortion, so I can focus on my studies. He knows that I have goals and work hard. He’ll believe it.”
After taking a deep breath, Mom rubbed her forehead. “You can’t tell anyone the truth. This can’t leave this room,” she said to me, pressing her lips together. “Please, this is beyond dangerous to even consider doing this. You know how insane Harlan is.”
“I promise that I won’t say anything to anyone,” I whispered.
But I knew that I’d break that promise at some point. If Mom told Harlan that I was pregnant, Jace would find out, and he would freak. Being pregnant at Redwood Academy was like digging your own grave and slipping down into it. High schoolers were ruthless pieces of shit sometimes.
Mom gnawed on her lip. “Okay,” she finally said. “I’ll tell Harlan that you’re pregnant and make an appointment for you at my gynecologist.”
