“I fell.”
“You’re lying.”
A ridiculous, ill-timed laugh bubbled out of me. “Of course, I’m lying! I’ve been lying for years, just to keep some kind of hold on my sanity.” I stepped back. “I don’t know what love really is. Not one single clue. I was a paycheck to all twenty-three of the foster homes I was in. That’s it. I wasn’t someone they cared about! I lie because I need to survive.”
“He does hit you, doesn’t he?”
His question was painfully straightforward, and I didn’t have a clue how to lie about it.
“Yes.”
“Is there nowhere you can go?”
“Even if I had somewhere, which I do not, he’d hunt me down, drag me back. I’m not strong enough to leave.”
“You are, though. You have to be. If you want this baby, you’re going to have to take your shit and get out before their born. Because once they’re born, it becomes a whole new ballgame.”
“Where am I going to go?” The laugh was back. “There’s nowhere for me to go. A battered women’s shelter? He’ll find me.”
“A friend?” He looked hopeful, but I crushed that with a shake of my head. “Family?”
Another shake of my head. “If I had family…”
He considered me, again. “If I can find a safe place for you to stay, would you leave?”
“Leave…everything I have?”
Reid shook his head. “What do you really have there, though? Someone who orders you around like you’re not even worth the time? Someone who controls you so well you’ve fulfill his request three times to end your pregnancy when you wanted them? Things can be replaced, stuff is just stuff. You cannot be replaced, Paige. That’s what I’m trying to protect right now.”
“I’m not worth—”
He covered my mouth with his hand. “If you say you’re not worth anything, I will kick your ass from here to Timbuktu. You are worth everything, and you need to believe me when I say that if you can’t really believe it yet yourself.”
Stepping back, he released me. “But you’re not ready to leave yet, are you? You still need to try one more time to see if you can get him to care. Or respond. Or even be indifferent to you.”
“Alain is all I’ve ever had.”
He put his hand softly on my flat stomach, that wouldn’t be flat much longer. “He isn’t. Not right now.”
Reid hung his head a moment. “I will make you a deal. Think on what we’ve said here. Just think on it. If you ever want to get out of this shit situation, you call me, and we will get you out. But soon. Babies make it harder.”
I swallowed.
A life without Alain?
Terrifying and exhilarating—but I didn’t know how much of each.
Fischer
The three kids were pumping their legs like mad, trying to get as high as Ellie was on the swing. She was cackling like a mad woman and I thought that maybe, just maybe, she’d achieve everyone’s goal on the swings.
Get over the cross-support bar.
Physics didn’t allow it, but we all tried anyway.
Tim and Bits—she’d really liked that nickname way more than Tabi—were doing pretty good. They were about half her height.
Ben was struggling. He hadn’t had enough time to really build his overall body strength.
Walking over, I grabbed his seat on the backswing.
“Hang on, man.” I grinned. I lifted him back, over my head and then jumped and pushed to give him as much momentum as I could.
Three-quarters of Ellie’s height, and the biggest laugh I’d heard out of him yet.
I latched on as he came back again, and did the jump-push once more. He flew forward and was almost nearly parallel to his sister.
“Not fair!” Tim screamed.
Lincoln appeared next to me, behind Tim and Bastian appeared behind Bits. Linc’s grin split his face. “Race yah?”
“Hell yeah.” I laughed, and grabbed Ben’s swing again. The three of us backed up, and I could hear Wren laughing at the picnic table. “Ready, set, Go!”
Whipping Ben down and forward, we jumped and pushed and grabbed and shoved the kids’ swings as hard and as fast as we could. The three of them were screaming in delight, yelling at us to get them to swing over the bar.
Ellie was losing height, she was laughing so hard. So, on her next swing up, she dismounted. “I’m judging this contest! Highest one gets me to clean their room next weekend!”
Ooh, a chore prize!
“Hell, I’m getting on that swing,” Bastian called.
Ellie looked him dead in the eye. “Hell no. Hell no. I don’t want anything to do with your room.” She stared at Lincoln and me as well, and repeated herself. “No. Thing. Nuthin’. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Negatory. You’re not in on this contest. Capise?”
That was the danger of a sexually awakened sixteen year old. She knew what went on in those rooms, and she was grossed out by the idea of her parents doing anything other than holding hands. We avoided being open around the kids, but Ellie was a strange middle ground sometimes.
“Ellie! Who’s winning?” Tim screamed.
Taking a few steps back she watched the kids and pretended to think about it. I knew her pretty well, and she was also judging us. “Looks to me like Bits is winning!”
“You picked her because she’s a girl!” Ben yelled.
“I picked her because she’s winning!”
Bastian fist pumped at exactly the wrong time and got nailed in the forehead with Bits’ swing seat. He groaned and put a hand to his head, but managed to recover on the next swing.
“That’s gonna leave a mark.” Lincoln laughed.
While Ben swung forward, I leaned over and poked him hard just under his ribs, and he twisted away in time to miss Tim’s back swing.
“Now Ben’s winning!”
“Because Fisch cheated!” Lincoln yelled, pushing hard to get back his first place.
I was laughing too hard to see his attack, which was the same as mine, and I lost a full swing. “Damn it!”
“Bits wins the height part of the competition! She gets one free cleaning from me. Now, I want dismounts!” Ellie called. “One at a time! Tim, you first! This is good for their own box of ice cream bars.”
“Hey!” I called. “I want my own!”
“You have millions of dollars in the bank, Dad, buy your own!” Ellie tossed the words at me without any malice. “When you’re ready, Timo!”
The name was on purpose. He hated it, and Ellie did it to fuel his jump. “Don’t call me that!” He launched out of swing and arched perfectly through the air, bending his back to get his torso over his legs at the sudden stop the ground provided.
Ellie wouldn’t have let him fall anyway.
He tossed his hands in the air and Lincoln started applauding. “He sticks the landing! Nine point nine five!”
“Bits! You’re next.” Ellie moved to stand in front of her and waited.
Tabitha arched high and instead of landing like her brother, she twisted midair, curling forward to get the same leverage, and hit the ground facing Bastian.