Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 55860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
“I meant to tell you goodbye tonight,” she says, her voice shaky and thin.
“I know, baby,” I say, and I realize I’ve backed her up to the wall, pinned her with my body. I rock against her, let her feel the friction of my hardness notched just where she wants it. She whimpers, spreads her legs for me. I could have her right here against the wall in the back of a bar. Needy, she’s restless in my arms, wants more as she rubs her body against mine.
“Take me home, Jack,” she pleads.
Home.
She knows we’re going to my apartment. Excitement roars through me. Serena calling my place ‘home’ probably doesn’t have the kind of meaning to her that I felt when it landed. Either way, I like it way too much and have to admit, if only to myself, that I want her there. I’m mad as hell she had to give up having her own place so she could dump her wages into the bottomless pit of her father’s gambling debts. She deserves independence and choices, the chance to go and do whatever she wants, to find herself. But here I am, tempted to try and keep her all to myself.
She could move in with me. We could be together all the time. She’d wake up in my arms. I could have her with me, make her laugh, remind her to take a break from studying so I can rub her shoulders and coax her into watching some action movie on Netflix. I want every single day with her, to be able to have her anytime I want.
By the time she’s seated in my car, a shudder rolls through me, a delicious promise of having her all night long at my apartment. On the way there, we don’t bother with small talk. She and I both know where we’re headed. We’re on our way home.
13
SERENA
It feels like I’m dying—like this secret is burning me from the inside like a corrosive acid. I want to break into tears every time he’s nice to me, which is often. I can’t keep the secret hidden for much longer. Time marches on, and it will start to be obvious. The last thing I should be doing is changing my mind and trying to hold on to Jack.
He loves me.
What am I supposed to do with that? It’s impossible. We can’t be together long term. He has a life that celebrates his community and extended family, tight knit and loyal, who happen to make a living in violence and fear. I don’t fit in there and never will.
He told me that he loves me.
When Jack said those words, I wanted to scream, howl, climb up on the roof or something. It was an odd combination of joy and regret. Of excitement and doom. It can never work.
Like it or not, I know how this is going to turn out. My father will lie and say he’s quit, that he goes to meetings. He’ll hide it from me for a while, until the next bad losing streak. Eventually it will be more than I can handle, and then he’ll lose the house. I’ll pay for some crappy apartment and give him the bedroom. I’ll work two jobs and sleep on the couch. He’ll act like he’s looking for work when really, he’ll just fall deeper. More betting, more desperation, probably more drinking. It will end badly. I’ll be thirty and still trying to finish nursing school and hoping I can graduate before my credits expire. I’ll be waiting for my life to begin, and it never will because I’ll throw it all away just trying to prop up my dad on his downward spiral.
I wish, not for the first time, that I had a brother or sister. Someone to share the responsibility, both the dilemma and the grief. Another person who had the same impossible knot of gratitude, guilt, disgust, and love tangled up together.
Or, better yet, I wish I could be the callous type of person that just didn’t give a shit. The type of person who could walk away and let my dad suffer for his own shitty choices. But that’s not me. It never will be and I know that.
For the first time since we lost my mom, I’m not alone. It isn’t Jack Marino either, although it’s because of him. I’m carrying his child. Our baby.
Even though nothing could make this a sensible decision, I knew my choice before I so much as considered any other path. The stir of his baby inside me is like a tiny candle, the flame flickering and waving in every breath of air, fragile and bright. My child, the baby we made together.
Whether I was a fling for a good time or a love affair for the ages, none of that matters compared to this pregnancy. I am going to be a mom, and every cell in my body feels a primal connection to the miniscule heartbeat inside me. I know without one shadow of a doubt, that I will protect this baby with my last breath.