10. Lainey
Lainey
The decorative tin box on top of the fridge was empty.
Empty.
All that money stowed away.
The money that was going to be my ticket out.
The money that was going to be how I finally got everything I needed to be ready for motherhood, including a safe place for us to live.
It was gone.
I hadn’t stopped crying since I found it laying on the kitchen table this morning. Greg left before I was even awake. Why the hell had he even looked in there?
It’s why I felt like giving up. Because regardless of what I did, I was never going to get away. More tears streamed down my face.
I’d waited too long. I really was so pathetic. He came for me. The man who hadn’t left his house in God knows how long, had left his house for me. To make sure I was okay. To make sure the baby and I were safe.
He’d offered me an escape, a place to go while I figured things out. But I let the fear win. I pushed him away, and now I was going to pay the ultimate price.
Stupid, worthless Lainey.
“Are you fucking listening to me?” Greg slurred from across the kitchen.
I hadn’t been expecting him home; not with the storm coming through.
It would be the perfect excuse for him to stay in Dallas.
To not have to be in the same space as me.
But of course, I couldn’t be that lucky.
Because he hadn’t gone to Dallas. He’d stayed in Silver Springs and gotten hammered with his buddies.
In the middle of the week. When he should have been working. But that ship had long since sailed.
I didn’t need this added stress, especially when I was already nervous about the possibility of the baby coming.
Birdie mentioned how many moms went into labor when it started storming, and even though I was only at thirty-six weeks, every twitch and roll from the little creature was sending me into a panic.
“No. I’m not. Because you won’t tell me what the hell you did with all of that money! You left here with eight hundred dollars, Greg! And you come back with a case of beer, telling me to shut the hell up when I asked where it all went?”
“It wasn’t just eight hundred dollars.” His smile pulled into a sneer as he licked his lips. “Imagine my surprise when I checked your business account and saw two thousand dollars just sitting in there. What were you going to do with that money, Lainey? What were you going to do?”
My stomach sank. The baby moved, kicking out, pulling a gasp from my lungs as I rubbed against the painful jolt.
“Why were you hiding money from me?”
No. No. No. No….
“You told me to leave, Greg. I was leaving.”
I knew that was the wrong thing to say before it even left my mouth, and yet, I couldn’t stop myself. Greg stormed over to me, wobbling as he wrapped his hand around my arm. He yanked me up out of the chair, shoving me toward the living room.
This couldn’t be happening. I swallowed past the ache in my throat, my fingers wringing together to stop myself from saying something to upset him more.
“You’re an ungrateful bitch. You always have been. I don’t know why I put up with you for so fucking long. How do I even know that baby in your belly is mine?”
I reared back, my head jerking as if I’d been slapped.
“I’m not the one who leaves here for days at a time, never answering texts, never trying to help his pregnant fiancé!
I’ve been such a fool… My God. I let you back into my life over and over again, and the promise is always the same.
‘I’m sorry baby. I’ll stop drinking. I’ll stop spending money we don’t have.
We’ll get married when the time is right, baby’.
How many of those promises did you keep, Greg?
Huh? How many? You’re questioning if this baby is yours because the night he was made, you were so drunk you could barely get it up.
And even after I said I didn’t want to…you took…
” My breath pulled tight as my stomach rolled. “I am always the fool. Aren’t I?”
His lips pulled tight. “Yeah. You really are.”
“I’m leaving,” I whispered.
“With what money?” he taunted.
I shook my head, swallowing down the bile that threatened to come up. “I’ll figure it out.”
“Oh, I see. Birdie will come in and save you, right? Does it feel good being almost thirty and having to run to your big sister for everything? Pathetic.”
My legs were shaking, but as soon as I wrenched my arm free from his grasp, I forced them to move.
Past Greg. Around to the staircase. I had no money to buy clothes.
No money to buy soap or lotion. I wasn’t leaving without those things.
Even if it didn’t make sense when I was going to have to sleep in my car.
“Like you do with Mommy and Daddy? I don’t think I’m the only pathetic person in this relationship,” I shot back.
He grabbed hold of my shirt and yanked me backwards.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“I told you,” I gasped, trying to break free as he continued to pull me back. “I’m getting my things and I’m leaving.”
“You leave and it’s over.”
My only concern was getting upstairs, packing up my things, and getting them out to my car. “That’s the POINT!” I shouted, hoping if I made myself bigger, he’d back down. “I’m leaving. Don’t touch me again. I’m going to pack some clothes, and you’re going to let me walk out this door.”
Stale, dead air swirled around us, matching exactly how I felt inside. Rain pounded down harder on the roof as I grabbed the banister.
“Then get the fuck out now!” he roared. “I won’t tell you twice.”
Just as my foot landed on the first step, his fingers slid into my hair, and he yanked back.
“Stop!” I screamed, tripping over my feet and slamming my shoulder into the wall. His hands spread out in front of me, blocking my escape.
“You want to leave? Get the fuck out right now.” Greg’s hand slapped across my face. My cheek burned, my vision dulling as I tried to blink away my shock. Oh God…He’d never, ever, hit me before.
He’d left bruises and marks in other ways, but he’d never hit me.
I’d made the worst mistake of my life. And I knew—I knew if I didn’t get out now—there would never be another chance.
I saw it in the way his dead eyes were looking at me.
I wasn’t someone Greg loved. I was something he used. Something he held power over.
“Everything in this house, everything here, is mine. You can leave with the clothes on your back, I’ll give you that. And the baby in your belly. For now. I’ll be coming for my son. Don’t think I won’t.”
He pulled again, my fingers flying back to scratch down his arm, but Greg didn’t flinch. He dragged me toward the door, opened it, and pushed me out. My feet hit the cold, wet wood, almost slipping out from under me.
The bright lights on the porch turned on, blinding me as I tried to get my bearings. He was there in a flash, looming in the doorway. I watched as he dangled my car keys in front of his face before throwing them past me, out into the grass.
I didn’t have my phone. I didn’t have my wallet. No clothes. Nothing.
But I didn’t think twice. Not for a second. I’d been so scared earlier when Lachlan showed up, and now all I could think was how badly I wished I’d just listened to him. That I’d gotten in his truck and gone somewhere I knew I’d be safe.
My feet splashed in the standing water of the front yard as I waddled over to where my keys were. How the hell was I meant to bend over and get them? Probably all part of Greg’s plan to humiliate me as much as possible.
I lowered myself—with absolutely no grace—to the ground, my knees and legs immediately getting soaked in the wet grass.
The hem of my dress felt heavy as it soaked through, too.
But I grabbed my keys and forced myself to get back up.
I would have crawled to my car if I needed to.
My back twinged, pulling all of the muscles in my side and belly tight.
“Okay, little invader. I’m sorry for all this. I’m doing my best, I promise. I’m going to get us somewhere safe. For tonight.” My hand went under my belly as I slipped into the driver’s seat, my eyes never leaving the front door to make sure Greg wasn’t coming after me. “At least, I hope.”
Oh, God. Why did I have to be driving in weather like this? Everything was shaking as I rattled down the dirt road. A road that was starting to fill with more and more standing water by the second.
But I was almost there.
My stomach lurched, and I swallowed back bile.
I couldn’t show up soaking wet and covered in tears and vomit.
That would probably get me a door in the face and a finger pointed toward Beau and Birdie’s place.
My ego would never survive letting my sister know what had been going on all this time.
I’d never survive the humiliation of her looking at me like some sort of victim.
Because the truth was, I deserved everything Greg said. Everything Greg did.
My toes were freezing, and I realized I wasn’t just shaking from the bumpy road. I needed to get a grip. Being this upset could hurt the baby, couldn’t it?
I drove past the well house, past the road that would have taken me up to the main barn, and finally past the road that I would have turned on if I was going to visit my sister.
The rain was coming down so hard, it was difficult to see beyond the hood of my car.
And that meant the turn to Lach’s place came faster than I was expecting.
Even going at nearly a crawl, I almost managed to miss it.
Slamming on my breaks, the seat belt pressed painfully, pressure building low across my belly.
I swallowed back the tears that threatened to fall.
This was no time for falling apart. It was time to be practical.
I made the turn up Lachlan’s driveway, water splashing up as I drove.
God, I hope it didn’t mess up something else in this car.
I was probably going to have to sell it just to have some money for when I gave birth.
I needed diapers and a bassinet…and someplace to live that wasn’t the car I needed to sell to keep us afloat.
My face was still throbbing, the weight of Greg’s hand looming over my cheek as the floodgates opened and tears poured down to my chin.
Lach’s house sat in front of me, illuminated by my headlights, but dark inside.
He was asleep, and I was about to crawl up onto his porch and beg for help.
What little pride I had left died as I shut off the engine, released my seatbelt, and opened the door.
I was absolutely drenched the second I stepped out of the car, but I didn’t care.
Safety was fifteen feet away, and I was getting there come hell or high water.
And from the way my feet sloshed and splashed with each step I took, high water just might be my biggest challenge.
But I took off, more waddling than running, reveling in every drop of rain that washed away Greg’s hold on me.
The second my foot hit the first step, the bright lights on either side of the front door illuminated. With my next step, the door ripped open. Lachlan was there, filling the frame, his dark eyes roaming over every inch of me.
“What are you doing here?!”
“I needed somewhere safe to go…” I barely got the words out before I doubled over, searing pain in my belly stealing my breath.