Crave Me (The Good Ol' Boys #4) (30 page)

I felt her immediately tense in my arms, going rigid like someone just knocked the wind out of her.

“Why would you say that?” she asked, searching my face for an answer. Worry evident in her tone.

I kissed the tip of her nose and let go of her face. I grabbed the flutes, pouring some champagne in each one. I handed her a glass and picked up mine clinking it against hers.

I smiled. “I found the ultrasound picture in the frame on our nightstand,” I said, taking in her distress. “I know you can’t drink, but I got us sparkling cider to celebrate the news,” I added, placing my hand over her stomach, over our future.

She instantly stepped back away from my touch as if it burned her. I shook my head in confusion, not understanding what I had done.

“What’s wro—”

“That’s why you did all of this.” She frantically looked around the apartment, her gaze not settling on one place for very long. “The clean apartment, the dinner?” She stared down at the table and then back up at me. “The realization, the future, the proposal, that’s the only reason you did all—”

I stepped toward her, and she stepped back again. I cocked my head to the side, taken aback.

“Baby, I’ve always wanted to marry you. What are you talking about? You’re not making any sense right now. I know the timing may seem wrong, but you know that’s not true. I love you, Briggs. Finding the ultrasound picture of our baby made me realize what the fuck I was doing. Knowing that a part of me is growing inside of you. Brought me clarity. Made me see what I needed to do. To stop fucking up. I would never put your life or our child’s in danger. You know that? You. Know. Me.”

“No!” she yelled out, chucking the glass of sparkling cider that was in her hand at the wall behind me.

Liquid and glass flew everywhere.

“The fuck? Jesus Christ! You can’t be this upset that I found the ultras—”

“No! Are you fucking blind? This is about you, not me! I don’t know you! I don’t know the man you have become, Austin! I’ve been living with a complete stranger for almost four years!
My
Austin is gone! The drugs took him away from me!” she screamed, shaking to the core with anger.

I set my glass down on the table, putting my hands out in a surrendering gesture. I knew her emotions were running wild, that I had hurt her and she was just lashing out.

“I know. Calm down. This isn’t good for the bab—”

“THERE IS NO FUCKING BABY!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, falling to the floor, burying her head in her hands.

Sobs consuming her entire body.

I instantly stepped back, blown away by her words. A sense of loss settled over me. I didn’t know what she was talking about. I saw the ultrasound. I saw our baby with my own two fucked up eyes. I didn’t go to her. I didn’t comfort her. I started to pace back and forth, my hands roughly pulling at my hair, knowing that she was about to rip my fucking heart out.

“What are you—”

“Jesus, Austin… haven’t you seen me? When was the last time you really looked at me before today? I’ve barely been able to get off the couch because I’ve been recovering.”

I grimaced, locking eyes with her. “Recovering? Recovering from what, Briggs? What the fuck have you been recovering from?”

She placed her hand over her mouth, holding the truth in.

“ANSWER ME!”

She just sat there on the floor in front of me, drowning in her own misery and shook her head no. Not wanting to tell me, as if she didn’t tell me, if she didn’t say it out loud then it wasn’t true.

She didn’t do it.

“You killed my baby. Didn’t you?” I spewed, saying it for her. “Is that what you’re recovering from, Briggs? Killing our fucking child?!” I seethed, beyond livid, beyond reason or doubt.

I couldn’t see straight. I wanted to scream. I wanted to punch something.

How could she have done this to me?

To us?

She shook her head, getting up on her feet and narrowing her eyes at me.

“NO! You don’t get to be the victim here, Austin! Have you seen our home? Have you seen what you’ve done to our goddamn home? What you’ve let inside our house? I would never bring a child into this world! Not in a million fucking years! You’re never fucking sober! What do you think would have happened to Molly? That little girl at the party if I hadn’t walked in here when I did? Huh? Tell me!”

I scoffed. “That’s why you killed our baby? That’s your justification for killing my child? Without fucking telling me!” I violently roared.

My fists clenched at my sides. My anger taking control, seeping out of my blood onto the woman that I thought I knew.

“What about you, Briggs? Hmmm… even if I fucked up, you couldn’t have raised our kid? Are you that fucking cruel? You didn’t have to fucking kill it!”

“Stop saying that,” she gritted out.

“Stop saying what? The truth? What would you like me to stop saying? Because trust me, baby. I’m not even close to saying what I really fucking want right now.”

“You want to talk about truths. How about this one? My parents died. Were killed in a car accident. Were taken away from me in the blink of an eye, and I had no control over it. Not one. Who took me in, Austin? Who raised me? In this life. In this godforsaken life! That little girl, Molly … her mom died too. You know who she was here with? You know who brought her to your party? Sat her down at a table full of drugs with junkies all around. Leaving her to fend for her goddamn self! HER FATHER! And you know who let it happen? YOU! Why? Because you were too fucked up to even care. That’s why! That’s fucking selfish! I would never be able to live with myself knowing that if anything were to happen to me, my child would be raised in this life by you! Or by my uncle! Do you understand me?” she paused to let her words sink in, raking me up and down with a look of disgust.

“That’s why I did it. And it almost fucking killed me. I fucking hate myself for it. But where have you been, Austin? Because the man I fell in love with would have known that something was wrong with me! The second I walked through the fucking door. You would still be oblivious to my pain had you not found the ultrasound picture that I placed behind that picture. That picture is not us anymore, we are not that couple anymore. I’ve been living in hell, mourning the life I took away for six goddamn weeks, Austin, while you’ve been lost in your hazed world.” 

I took in everything she was saying.  

Every. Last. Word.

“You say you don’t know me, Briggs. That I’m not the same man you fell in love with. Well, then, baby, that fucking makes two of us. I have no idea who you are either because the woman I love would have never killed our baby. I may be an addict, but at least I’m not a murderer,” I viciously spewed, regretting it immediately.

Words could cut you open like knives, and I knew I just sliced away a huge part of her heart with what I said. I couldn’t take it back. As much as I wanted to, the damage was already done. I knew she would never forget my words, but I prayed to God that one day she would forgive them.

Her hand was up in the air before I got the last word out. I caught it mid-air, tugging her toward me. She tried to break free, roughly pulling her arm away from my grasp. I grabbed her other arm, the momentum of her trying to fight me off made me unintentionally slam her against the wall.  

She winced but didn’t stop struggling.

“Get the fuck out! Leave!” she yelled, whipping around.

“Stop!” I argued. “Fucking stop! I don’t want to hurt you! Calm down! Calm the fuck down!” I ordered through a clenched jaw, trying to control her thrashing body. 

She slowly gave up, panting profusely. Her chest rising and falling with each second that passed between us. I leaned forward, our lips almost touching.

“Why, Briggs? Why didn’t you fucking tell me? Why didn’t you give me a choice in the matter? It was my baby, too. I should have had a say. Why didn’t you give me that right? Why did you take that away from me?” I asked, needing to know.

She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out.  

“As much as it kills me to have said all those things to you, I won’t apologize for it, because at the end of the day our baby is gone. No excuses will take away the fact that you didn’t have the common decency to tell me. You made the decision for both of us. Like I didn’t even matter. Were you ever planning on telling me?”

Her breathing hitched. By the look on her face, the answer was no.

I peered deep into her eyes and breathed out, “You just killed a part of me that you will NEVER get back. That
I
will never get back.”

I let her go, stepping away from her.

She swallowed hard, her eyes watering, her lips quivering as if she knew what I just said was true. For the first time I didn’t want to comfort her, to hold her, tell her she was my girl, and that I loved her. Because for the first time…

I was staring at a stranger and not the woman that I knew and loved. I finally understood what she meant when she said she didn’t know me. For years she kept saying that I had changed, that I had become another person, which only made me hate myself more because I knew I brought this on myself. I was the reason that she felt like she had no other choice. No other decision to be made.

I. Did. This.

That realization was my rock bottom...

Or so I thought.

“Austin…” she coaxed, reaching out for me.

It was like she knew what I was going to do even before I did.  

I turned around and left.

“Austin, please don’t do this. Please, don’t lose yourself again.” she begged as I opened the door, walking out of the apartment, not bothering to shut it.

I wanted her to watch me walk out of her life. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but a part of me wanted to hurt her as much as she just hurt me.

I drove around New York City for I don’t know how long. Time just seemed to standstill as the pain in my heart took over. There wasn’t one ounce of my body that didn’t yearn. That didn’t feel like it was dying. I had never felt so empty and hollow in all my life. But the underlying demons were waiting, always my companions, always sitting right next to me, waiting for the emotional devastation to take over.

So they could come out and play.

I blinked and I was sitting on Jon’s couch, snorting line after fucking line. Trying to forget, trying to go numb, trying to block out the last twenty-four hours. But it wasn’t working. The pain was still alive and bleeding out of me, leaving nothing but destruction in its wake.

“You want to forget, bro?” Jon asked, sensing my distress.

My bloodshot eyes settled on the needle in his hand and then back up to his face. He was tightening the belt around my upper arm before I could even answer. Telling me to make a fist.

I did.

The second I felt the needle poke through my skin, I watched my despair fill the syringe with blood. And then… Jon pushed down the plunger.

I kissed goodbye our baby.

I kissed goodbye Briggs.

I kissed goodbye Austin.

Leaning my head back against the couch, letting the crave take over.

The worst part was that I just kissed goodbye my future and everything I believed in. 

I went to the storage unit. Austin had left the key for me if I ever wanted to go there. I did. For the first time I came face to face with all my parents’ belongings. Trying to seek comfort and guidance. There was none to be found there. I decided to stop at a church on the way to the clinic, needing some sort of peace of mind. I’d never been in a church before, too afraid that all my sins would make the roof cave in on me. I didn’t even know if I was Catholic. At that point I didn’t care and it didn’t matter. I dipped one finger into the cold holy water, hoping it wouldn’t burn me and made the sign of the cross, like I’d seen in movies. One foot in front of the other, I walked toward the first pew of the empty cathedral, right before God. A man I didn’t even believe existed until that very second as I made my way into his house. The echo from my feet mimicked the sound of my heart beating against my ribs.

I got down on my knees, crying, and praying for forgiveness for what I was about to do.

“Please God… Please forgive me,” I pleaded with every last fiber of my being. “Please grant me forgiveness… I have no other choice… Please you have to believe me, just please show me some mercy. Please guide me.”

I sat there pleading with someone I wasn’t sure existed, but I had to try and believe. Try to make this right, when all of it was so wrong. I don’t know how long I was there on my knees waiting for I don’t know what.

A sign?

I got to my feet, looking at Jesus on the cross and whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

Before turning to leave.

I cruised through the streets of New York fighting the urge to drive back home, tears still streaming down my face. I turned around several times and headed to my safe place, trying to block out the girl’s voice on the GPS telling me I was going the wrong way.  But she was right. Home was the wrong way and I had to stop running.

I pulled up to the clinic just after one and sat there looking at the sign through blurred eyes. My thoughts raging a war in my head. I closed my eyes, leaning my head on the cool steering wheel, trying to catch my breath. Breathing in and out. Telling myself that this was the right decision, pleading for my mind to console my heart.

Before I knew it, I was out of the car and walking in. The door binged as I opened it, startling me out of my hazy state. I walked up to the receptionist, gave her my name and was told to take a seat.

I sat in the lobby of the doctor’s office, waiting for my name to be called. It broke my heart to see all the women awaiting the same fate.

Words couldn’t describe the emotions coursing through my body, the turmoil and doubt that had taken residence inside of me. The last two weeks weren’t like anything I had ever experienced before. I would hate myself for the rest of my life for going through with this. But I would hate myself even more, if Heaven forbid, something happened to me and my child would be left to an addict and the god of organized crime.

As each patient was called back, my heart sped up more and more. Another piece of me dying little by little. I knew it would be my turn soon and as much as I wanted to get this over with, I was also terrified. My legs were bouncing nervously, the anticipation killing me. I got out of my seat to grab another magazine that I was blankly looking through.

There were no words to describe the pain I felt in my heart at that moment. What I had been going through alone.

Always alone.

Bing.

I walked out of the office, needing some air. I crouched down near the curb, all of a sudden feeling like I was going to be sick. I clenched my only lifeline in my hand, contemplating calling Austin. My heart was pounding out of my chest, there was a ringing in my ears and the world in front of me began to spin. I dry heaved a few times, only then remembering I hadn’t had breakfast that morning. I slid my phone open and pressed recent calls. Austin’s name was the first on the list, staring at me, judging me. I was just about to press send when the door behind me binged again, making me jump and drop my phone onto the sidewalk.

I’d known I was pregnant for a week the day of the party. I wasn’t feeling well for a few days, but I honestly thought it was from everything that was going on with Austin. I blamed it on the stress, the nerves, and the emotional mayhem causing my body to shut down. I didn’t want to eat. I was always nauseous and just felt like shit in general. I went to the doctor hoping she could prescribe me some antibiotics or something to make me feel better.

When I told her my symptoms, she immediately asked me when my last period was. That’s when it hit me that I was late. Right then and there I knew the cause of my sudden illness.

She gave me a cup to pee in and a few minutes later, the test confirmed that I was pregnant. She told me how far along I was but honestly, I checked out. Everything faded as she did the ultrasound and handed me the photo when she was done. All that mattered was that I was pregnant. Any other person would be happy with this news, but I was torn. I spent the rest of the day at home by myself just lying around. Rubbing my belly, fantasizing about life with a baby. Looking at the ultrasound photo for hours.  Austin was working or getting high or whatever the fuck he was doing at that point.

He came home later that night with Jon right by his side. They smoked and did some blow. I sat out on the balcony with my memory blanket wrapped around me, gazing at the buildings, at all the lights and sounds of the city that never slept.

Allowing the chaos to take control over what had become my life.

The day of the party I spent walking around the city, lost, confused, and overwhelmed. I wanted to tell Austin I was pregnant. I wanted to share the news with him, hoping that maybe it was what he needed, the push to come back to me. I was scared, terrified that even if I told him, nothing would change. He would be happy and want to celebrate by getting high or partying. But then I walked by the art gallery I took him to for his birthday, and his sketch of me was now sitting dead center in the window.

For all to see.

That was when I realized he needed to know, that I needed to tell him. If he still didn’t change, if it still didn’t help him find his way then I would raise the baby by myself. There wasn’t a chance in Hell that I would ever let my child step foot anywhere near this life.

The second I got home and parked my car in the garage, a sick, disturbing feeling manifested deep within my core. I walked to my door with my heart heavy and full, filled with nothing but worry, concern, and anxiety. Coming home to a party was nothing new, but when I saw that little girl my heart dropped. Molly playing with drugs, nobody watching over her, nobody protecting her, nobody taking care of her. My heart shattered along with the fantasy of the life I thought I could have.

It was Austin that drove the dagger into my heart even further when he confirmed that he knew she was there. That he was just too fucked up to care. Reality set in, and it was then that I grasped I would be raising our baby by myself. I didn’t even contemplate getting an abortion. It wasn’t even on my spectrum of thinking.

“Daisy Mitchell,” the nurse announced, saying my real name.

This wasn’t Briggs who was doing this. This wasn’t me hiding behind someone I created to survive.

This. Was. Me.

The girl that died in the car with her parents was now alive and killing someone else in her life.

The irony was not lost on me.

When Molly, the little girl, said her mom had died and that she was there with her dad. That her father brought her to this hellhole and that he would find her. That he always found her.

It hit me like a ton of fucking bricks. My parents had died too, and I didn’t have a choice in how my life turned out. I couldn’t do that to another innocent life.

Especially my baby.

What kind of mother would that make me?

I couldn’t be that selfish, even though I wanted this baby more than anything in this world. What if something happened to me? I’d leave it with their drug-addicted father or even fucking worse, my uncle.

My child would become Molly.

My child would become me…

I contemplated adoption, but there was no way in Hell that I could have this baby, our baby growing inside me for nine months. The baby that I already loved with all my heart just to give it away to someone. I would end up keeping it.

The vicious cycle would never end.

There was no way out of it. I struggled with my emotions, with my choice, with my decision for over a week. There was no other choice to be had. I made the appointment, and I’ve hated myself ever since.

“Are you Daisy Mitchell? We’re ready for you,” the nurse announced again, holding the door open, waiting for me to come back in.

I grabbed my phone and walked back in. I followed her through a long corridor. Feeling as if I was being taken to my execution.

And in a way, I was.

She took me into a room that had an examination table. The nurse asked questions about my medical history and other personal questions that I imagined were standard.

The doctor came in followed by the nurse. She explained to me the steps of the procedure. I lay back on the table with my feet in stirrups. The uncontrollable tears slid down my face and the nurse grabbed my hand in sympathy.

“Honey, you don’t have to do this. Do you want us to call someone for you?” the same nurse asked.

I shook my head no and spoke through the tears, “There is no one.”

I couldn’t be selfish. This wasn’t about me. It was about destroying another life.

More blood on my hands.

They were extremely understanding and reassuring, telling me over and over again that there was no judgment. She explained the aftercare. I nodded the entire time, feigning attention. It happened in less than five minutes.

The last piece of my heart was taken away from me.

A part I knew I would never get back. No matter how much I wanted to. No matter how many times I’d pray. I did this, and I had no one to blame but myself.

The burden was mine to carry.

All I knew was that I cried the entire time. When it was done, they took me into a comfortable room with leather recliners and I curled up in one for a few hours wrapped up in some warm blankets.

Cradling my stomach, mourning the loss of something I wanted so desperately, so fucking badly. Something I had never even held in my arms.

I didn’t just kill my baby that day.

I. Killed. Me.

I ended up slipping out without being noticed because I didn’t have anyone to pick me up. I probably shouldn’t have driven in my condition, but all I wanted to do was go home.

Once again it was a reminder that I really was alone in this cruel world.

I took a shower the next day, wanting to wash away the misery. I curled up in a little ball, letting the hot water run over my broken body. The tears wouldn’t stop, and my body was shaking to the core. I couldn’t breath.

I kept repeating over and over again, “What have I become? I’m so fucking sorry, baby. I didn’t have a choice, I’m so so sorry. You’re with grandma and grandpa now, they will take care of you,”

I cried harder, talking to a life that didn’t exist anymore, thinking about my parents and everything that had ever been taken from me. I stayed there till the water was too cold to bear. I grabbed my blanket then buried myself in my bed and sobbed the entire day, so alone. No one to comfort me, hold me, no one to tell me they loved me. That everything was going to be okay. It was like I was that little girl. The one that had no friends, no family, no love.

As if Austin never existed.

But he did and that only made it worse. Because I knew what it was like to have that. To have him. To have everything I ever wanted but for it to be taken from me. Without my say or consent.

My uncle took yet another thing from me.

Adding to the endless pile of things I didn’t have anymore. Things I could never get back.

I placed the ultrasound picture behind my favorite picture in the frame by our bed. That was all I had left.

My memories…

It started to get late after Austin left me pleading for him to stay. I just didn’t want him to go get fucked up. I didn’t want him to go numb his pain and drown his sorrows with drugs. I wanted him to stay with me and mourn the loss of our baby together. To help each other through it, like a normal loving couple.

What we used to be.

I was so conflicted I couldn’t even fucking see straight. I knew I should have packed up my shit and left, but I couldn’t. I loved him. After everything he had put us through, I still loved him so goddamn much. He was all I’d ever known. I didn’t know how to be without him.

There was no
Daisy
without Austin.

I felt so much guilt for the man he had become. I brought him into this lifestyle when I already knew he was popping pain pills like candy. I knew he had an addictive personality. I knew he loved to numb his pain so he didn’t have to feel anything. It was like he had a death wish, and I put a loaded gun in his hand.

I blamed myself.

I wanted to save him.