24. Sam #3
After picking up Dylan, I text Jameson a picture of her like normal. Act normal. Pretend like everything is okay, my brain keeps chanting. He responds back quickly, saying he’s happy to see his girls. After Dylan eats, there’s a knock on my door. I answer it and Riley steps in.
“I just need to pack her bag,” I tell her and hurry down the hall to her room. I grab clothes and pajamas and her favorite blanket. “Dylan! Guess what big girl, you get to have a girls’ night with Aunty Riley.”
Dylan claps her hands and bounces on her toes. “Unca RayRay too?”
Riley giggles at her. “Yes, Uncle Reign will be there too. Let’s hurry, little bestie.”
Riley helps her slip on her shoes. Once they leave, I lock the door and turn off my lights, choosing to hide out in my room.
Taking out the note again, I lay it flat on my bed.
Everything I’ve known the past few years feels like a lie, a carefully laid out manipulation.
I feel betrayed and my trust destroyed. My mind replays every event, large and small, that happened.
Things that didn’t feel significant and things that were.
My eyes fall to the list again, hitting every bullet point.
This time I stop on the word Babies. He circled it.
Knowing Jameson, there's a meaning behind that.
My phone vibrates. KANE flashes on the screen.
Holding my breath, I let it ring. The room goes silent for a few seconds and then it happens again.
I do not answer. The phone finally falls silent and I release the breath I was holding in.
My body jumps when the lock on my front door engages and the door opens then closes. He found me.
Jameson’s footsteps echo down the hall. His large frame fills my open door space and the hair on the back of my neck rises. Our gazes clash and I see the unfiltered hunger in the way he’s looking at me. Babies. My mind pulls me swiftly to the past of another memory.
I flip through Jameson’s phone and the pink app with the yellow flower catches my eye.
As far as I know Jameson isn’t seeing anyone.
He’s never said anything about a dating app either, so the girl looking icon makes me pause.
I tap on it, my gaze flicking over to where he’s reclined in my bed, textbook in his hands.
A calendar pops up with little markings all over the place.
A countdown window is at the top. 13 days to go till next period. My body tenses and I freeze.
“Why do you have a period calendar app?” The words are out of my mouth before I can think through how crazy it sounds.
His eyes lift and his head tilts, examining me. “So I can make sure you stay plied with chocolate that week before and have extra pain medication in my backpack on the week of.”
He shrugs like he didn’t just rock my world.
“This is my period you’re tracking?” I shriek, my voice sounding shrill even to me.
When he laughs my face turns bright red.
My hands fumble for my phone where I open it to the calendar and see the little blue dot with my Period Due label on it.
Counting quickly, I see it does match up, 13 days to go.
“You do realize no sane sixteen-year-old boy has a period tracking app on his phone.”
Jameson gets off the bed and stalks over to the desk chair I’m sitting in.
His hands land on the chair arms and spins until I’m facing him, my legs bracketed between his thighs.
“Did you never notice how I always seem to have extra candy bars, gummy bears, Hot Tamales or suggest going for ice cream when you’re PMSing?
Or how about the day you get your period and you feel so terrible, but I always seem to have the medicine you need, an extra hoodie for you to wear, or even an Icy-Hot patch? ”
My brain ticks through each of these things and more. Like how he always manages to convince our gym teacher to give me a break on that first day. How he parks closer to the school on the week I’m on my period too. My jaw drops.
“You’re tracking it for me?”
He rolls his eyes then presses his lips to my forehead. “I’m tracking it so I can best take care of you, Sammy.”
Jameson steps into my room, and I’m pulled from the memory.
Everything I’ve learned in the past week loops in my mind, a series of conversations past and present converge.
My mom’s voice echoing her thoughts that Jameson’s love for me is wild and toxic emerges in my subconscious.
I suddenly feel like a sand crane with my head stuck in the dirt for way too long.
My heart races and my hands feel clammy.
The pain inside of me builds and builds until it feels like I could rip my skin off.
The contents of my lunch threaten to reemerge, and I clamp my hand over my mouth.
His eyes flash, knowing the conclusions I’ve come to.
There’s no hesitancy. No sign of remorse either.
His gaze darkens and he smirks. The question I need to know the most flies from my mouth…
“Did you get me pregnant on purpose?”