13. Lainey
Lainey
Lachlan wrapped a bag of frozen peas up in a hand towel as my eyes dropped to my hand, where I was needlessly picking at a hangnail. It was going to bleed if I kept it up any longer. But my nerves were shot, and I needed something to fidget with.
“He promised me it would be different this time,” I whispered, not daring to look up at him.
“That he got help and worked through his shit in the years we were apart. That he was older, and calmer, and in a place where he wanted to settle down and start a family. I’d been hinting at him for over a year to propose.
” I held my hand up, looking at the pathetic reminder of everything I’d bought, hook, line, and sinker.
I was a statistic now. One of the women who went back to their abuser.
One of the women who almost didn’t make it out.
“I bought this ring. How pathetic is that?” The fingers on my right hand pinched the ring, wiggling it back and forth, trying my hardest to pull it off.
I only wanted it for the money. It held no sentimental value to me now.
I needed it off. I needed to be free from the weight of it.
“He never wanted to put money toward it, so I saved and saved and finally told him I’d paid for it, and it was sitting on his dresser. ”
God, I was pathetic.
“How did he ask?”
“He didn’t. I came home from work two weeks after we found out about the baby, and he was sitting at the table.
The ring was at my spot, just tossed there.
He said I could stop nagging him now. That he didn’t want to do anything before the baby came, but after, we’d talk about it. God, I need this stupid thing off!”
“Here.” Lachlan’s hand’s settled over mine. He paused, looking at me like he was waiting for permission, so I nodded. Slowly, he wiggled the ring back and forth, until it reached my knuckle, and finally slipped free. I sucked in air so fast, my head swam.
“Thank you.” The words came out breathless. Another thing I could sell to cover expenses. A small blessing among the mess of my life.
“Here. For your cheek.”
I took the makeshift ice pack from Lach, hissing as the cold seeped into the raw, swollen skin on my face.
“Are you okay?”
I nodded. “Better now that the symbol of every bad decision I’ve ever made in life is off my body. The ice pack is nice, too.” The little alien must have woken up because he chose that particular moment to jab me in the ribs with his foot.
The most awful thought filled my head. My son…he would always be a reminder of Greg. Of the abuse I suffered. He was created out of it…
I gasped, shaking the thought free from my mind. “I’m going to be such a bad mom.”
“What?” Lachlan’s face filled with confusion. “No you’re not.”
“I am. I knew things were falling apart, and I let him…He was drunk, and I didn’t stop him.
He’d been distant again, and we hadn’t been together like that in so long.
When I found out I was pregnant, I had hope.
That he’d choose to engage in our relationship again.
Change for the baby in a way that he’d never been able to change for me. How could I be so stupid?”
“Stop saying that. Right now, Trouble. You weren’t stupid then, and you aren’t stupid now. And you did not deserve what he did to you.”
I heard the words Lachlan was saying, but they felt meant for someone else. Not me. Never me.
“I want to take a picture. Of your leg and your cheek.” He reached over to the coffee table and grabbed his phone.
“Why?”
“For when you report him. When you get a restraining order and press charges against him.”
“Oh. I hadn’t thought that far ahead.” I pulled the ice pack away from my face. “Do you really think they’d grant me one? I provoked him—”
“I don’t give a fuck if you provoked him.
” Lachlan’s voice was so low it sent a shiver through my body.
“He hit you. Which is disgusting and makes me want to kill him flat out, but you’re also pregnant.
And you were so scared that you left your house without your phone, or any extra clothes, or fucking shoes on your feet.
You’re pressing charges against him, and I want you to know, as badly as I don’t ever want to leave this ranch again, I would love to track his sorry ass down and end him for what he did to you tonight. ”
“You can’t do anything stupid like that. You’re the only person—” My eyes dropped away from his face and I pressed my lips together.
“I’m the only person you’ve told.” Lachlan reached over, touching the underside of my hand and guiding the ice pack back to my face.
I nodded. Let him think I meant that. Instead of the truth.
That he was the only person who ever cared to see the true me.
The only person who didn’t give up on me.
“You’re the only person who knows. I feel so embarrassed.
” The groan left my body before I could stop it.
“I don’t want to always be known as the woman who let her fiancé hurt her.
No, the woman who was so pathetic and begged her emotionally abusive boyfriend to get engaged, and then got pregnant, blindly hopeful that it would fix everything.
Oh my God. I can never leave this house again. ”
“None of that matters right now. Let’s get the pictures, and then you can get some rest. Tomorrow we’ll figure out what to do. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Tomorrow. I closed my eyes as Lachlan snapped the pictures, hoping that when I opened my eyes, this nightmare would just be over. But it wasn’t. And tomorrow, I’d have to figure out how the hell I was going to rebuild my life.