Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 71476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
When the blinders were off I saw through Violet’s lies easily. If I’m completely honest I saw through them before that. I knew from day one that Vicki’s words were nothing but lies. Fuck, I had to lock her up in a damn room and have her monitored by a doctor constantly just to make sure Ryan didn’t come out hooked on the shit she put in her system. Rory… Jesus Christ, I want to believe her.
Worse.
I think a part of me does believe her.
What in the fuck do I do with that?
If she’s been telling me the truth all this time… then, I’ve crushed her.
Fuck.
I look at the wall our bedrooms shared. Her side was silent, but I heard her get into bed earlier, I knew she was there. Even if I hadn’t heard her, I would know somehow. It was almost as if I could feel her. I move deeper into the bed, reaching so I could put my hand on the wall, stretching my fingers out to cover more space.
“Gorgeous.”
I spoke against the wall, half hoping she could hear me and half hoping she was asleep. I’m so fucked up in the head, so much rushing through it, I honestly don’t know what I want…. Except for one thing.
“Rory, I… I’ll talk to the doctor tomorrow. I’ll have them check me out. I’ll find out if the vasectomy took. I… I’ll talk to them,” I tell the wall.
I lay there after that, waiting to see if she’ll reply.
She doesn’t.
“If… if what you’re saying… if you’re right, Rory. I’ll fix this. I’ll fix it. I promise,” I vow.
Again, she doesn’t reply. She does get up from her bed though, I can hear her moving around. In a few minutes, I hear the shower turn on in her adjoining bathroom. I lay there and listen the entire time. She takes an hour, maybe longer to shower. Then I hear the water turn off and she’s moving around in the room again. Eventually, silence takes over.
Not once does she try to talk to me.
Not once.
If she’s telling the truth… I deserve that. I deserve her silence and more. If the tests come back and she’s telling the truth I have a lot to fix.
A fuck of a lot to fix.
I just hope she lets me…
41
Rory
“… If what you’re saying… if you’re right, Rory. I’ll fix this. I’ll fix it. I promise.”
Some words are meaningless. They’re spoken, but they have no purpose. They don’t fix anything, they can’t. Sometimes what is broken can’t be fixed.
Hearing Noah’s muffled words through the wall are exactly that.
Empty words.
Yet, it seems that even empty words have the power to hurt. I feel tears gathering, and I do my best to suck them back. I don’t want Noah to hear them. I don’t want him to know that he still has the power to hurt me. I get up and slowly go to the shower, turning on the water and making it as hot as I can get it.
There’s part of me that hopes the water manages to burn my skin off and makes me feel clean. It’s not physically possible, at this point in my life, I’m pretty sure I’ll never feel clean. It’s never something I’ll stop wishing for, however.
I let the water wash over me, sinking to the floor and replaying Noah’s words to me. I can’t quote them—not verbatim, but only because I don’t want to. It’s just one word that keeps repeating in my head.
Abortion.
I place my hand on my stomach and just let the tears fall. The great thing about showers is that they help hide the tears. I’m not very far along, but I swear I can feel him or her inside of me… growing… living… surviving.
If it wasn’t for my child, I think I would be weak enough to take Noah back if he apologized. I really think I would. But, he didn’t say he believed me. He didn’t say he was sorry for anything and he didn’t beg me to forgive him for even mentioning that ugly word around me and my unborn child.
Abortion.
I’ve been reading pregnancy books and most truly believe that an unborn child can hear what is going on around them. They believe they hear music and studies show they react to it. Could my child hear its own father suggest an abortion? Even if he or she doesn’t know what that means, just the word alone is… ugly. Maybe, that’s a choice for some women, but it’s not for me. My child is a part of me and I will not give it up.
I move my other hand up and now they both rest on my stomach, I close my eyes and concentrate on the life inside of me. It’s all that is important now.