Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 115737 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 579(@200wpm)___ 463(@250wpm)___ 386(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115737 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 579(@200wpm)___ 463(@250wpm)___ 386(@300wpm)
‘Jack, what’s the matter?’ I don’t like his despondency. It’s overshadowing my relief that he’s here.
He pulls his own chair out, and I watch in silence as he lowers his arse to the seat, his elbow going straight to the table, his head resting on his palm. ‘I need to tell you something.’
My entire body locks up in response. I don’t want to ask, because I’m sure as hell going to hate whatever he’s going to tell me. I don’t like the space he’s purposely put between us either. My head is screaming the question that I refuse to ask out loud. What could possibly have him so flattened? Has she hurt herself again? Has she got into his conscience, churned up guilt?
‘She’s pregnant, Annie.’
I jolt in my chair, as if something has come from nowhere and physically taken me out. My heart starts to pump painfully.
‘She’s been throwing up,’ Jack says quietly. ‘She did a test.’ His eyes close. ‘It was positive.’ He doesn’t want to believe it either.
‘No,’ I whisper, pushing myself back in the chair, the room starting to spin. The beats of my heart slow with each painful second that passes, and my limbs are beginning to lose all sensation. She’s pregnant. He’s tied to her forever. She’ll be in the background of our lives forever. Our lives? I look across the table at Jack’s beaten form. Our lives. ‘You’re not going to leave her, are you?’
Jack’s heavy head gradually lifts until his grey eyes meet with mine. The life in them has completely gone. They’re empty. ‘I can’t leave my child, Annie.’
My throat closes up on me. I feel like I’m slowly dying. Desperation is telling me to scream my confession, to tell him that I’m pregnant too. But Jack goes on before I can straighten out my head and release the words. ‘I can’t believe this is happening. She knows I don’t want a baby.’
My announcement falls to the pit of my stomach and rots. He doesn’t want a baby. I’m becoming more numb by the second.
‘This is fucked up.’ He slams his fist on the table. Fucked up. He’s right; it is. All of it. I don’t want him to be with me out of pity like he will be with Stephanie. I don’t want to stoop to her level. She’s manipulating him. This is just another form of her fucked-up manipulation. Another symptom of her screwed-up way of thinking. I refuse to force him to be with me. I can’t do it to Jack and I can’t do it to myself. I’m not begging. I’m not falling to my knees. I’ve lost enough integrity already. I can’t ask him to abandon his child – the child Stephanie is carrying – any more than I could ask him to leave his wife for me.
That’s it.
Done.
I’m on my own.
And I’m suddenly furious. I’m furious with him for being so fucking careless, for giving her the opportunity to trap him like this. ‘You were sleeping with her.’ I look up at him.
His face falls. ‘Not for months, Annie. And she was on the pill.’
‘Then how?’
His head drops, ashamed, confused, sorry. ‘She forgot to take a pill here and there. That’s all it takes. She must be over four months now, because that’s how long it’s been since we were—’
‘I don’t need to hear it, Jack.’ It doesn’t matter how far gone she is or how it happened. It’s happened. Nothing can change that. ‘Go.’
I’m fighting to keep my world together. I feel let down, and I have no fucking right to. And I’m now damning myself to hell for being so careless too. ‘Just go, Jack.’ I speak levelly. It’s a far cry from how I’m feeling on the inside, yet my objective now is to bat the devastation down. I feel like all the life has been sucked out of me. I feel empty.
Jack’s head shakes mildly. ‘Annie . . .’ He reaches across the table for my hand but I pull it back, placing it with the other in my lap, keeping my gaze low.
‘Don’t make this any harder than it needs to be.’ Keeping my breath steady is taking everything I have. ‘Please,’ I add, closing my eyes on a swallow. This is going to be the challenge of my life. But at least I don’t have to spend the rest of my days with someone I don’t love. At least guilt isn’t dictating my future. It is for Jack.
I push myself up from my chair, being sure not to look at him. Detachment. Close down, shut off. It’s done. ‘You should go.’
‘Annie, please, lis—’
‘Is it going to change anything?’ I ask, and despite myself, I look at him. I find a face invaded with pure misery and hopelessness. I flinch and glance away. ‘If I listen, will it change anything?’