Drowning in You (37 page)

At that I blush and Mick’s face
darkens slightly, the air feels stiff and neither of us can say
another word. Inside, Darcy is now sitting at the table, stirring
something in a bowl next to a plate of marinated steak and a bowl
of garden salad.

Lisa is lounging on the couch,
where Mick joins her, and the look on her face is similar to that
as if she’d seen a ghost, but it’s just her husband finally joining
her. At his touch she smiles.

Tahny is cuddling Adam, cooing
sweet tunes to him, the toddler snuggled close in his mother’s
arms.

Dex is waiting for me in the
middle of the room, eyeing me with his dark fringe flopped over one
side of his forehead.

“
Girlfriend,”
he greets me.

“
Boyfriend.”

He slips his arms around me,
dropping his hands to my lower back and nudges me to him, joining
us at the hips. Our foreheads meet and looking into each other’s
eyes, we share whispered words breathed between our lips.

“
I love
you.”

<<< >>>

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Drowning in You
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Acknowledgements

My beta readers, my first
readers, my beautifuls. Namely, Beth Horwood, Emily Mah Tippetts,
and Lauren McKellar.

Beth, you had
the manuscript back to me in record time. Very suspicious. But, you
were ecstatic about
Drowning in
You
, you were confused at other bits but
you loved the story completely. Your confidence and suggestions
were both amazing. Thank you for giving your time whenever I needed
it and for not getting sick about my manuscript when I kept going
on and on.

Emily. I don’t
know how to do you justice. Your suggestions turned this story into
something so amazing—beyond what I thought I could write. Your
killer tips for many sections still blow my mind.
Drowning in You
has your
mark (a good mark).

Lauren! Woman, by the end, when
I was all dragging-my-feet-along-the-floor you were the reason I
finished. Your hilarious comments highlighted throughout the
manuscript and honest-to-God suggestions for the sucky parts were
funny and always right. The way I could email you to “Quick!
Please! Read this!” goes beyond your writerly friend duties and I
appreciate it.

Sarah Hansen from Okay
Creations. You gave my manuscript a cover to show off to the world.
Thanks for photographer Jacqueline Barkla and models Dan and Yulia
for such a beautiful image, which is now a cover I love staring at.
Daily.

Tanya Saari, my editor. You
took this manuscript and smoothed it over so my awkward phrases
weren’t there anymore. I thank you for your fabulous job.

Thank you to everyone who has
supported me on this journey including a group of ladies who act
suspiciously like my personal fan group. Your big cheers of
excitement, your shout outs on social media, and your support in
all forms is appreciated.

To my little brother (not so
little anymore). I can’t help but see parts of us in Darcy and
Charlee. Thank you for caring in ways that continually surprise
me.

To my parents for loving me.
Dad, you’re my world, and I could not have written about a father
who loves his daughter so much if it weren’t for having you in my
life.

To Ashley, my boyfriend. I’m
loved by you in ways that will last forever.

About the Author

Rebecca Berto
is the author of the dark contemporary/literary novella,
Precise
and the new adult
contemporary romance novel,
Drowning in
You
. She is also a freelance
editor.

Rebecca writes stories that are
a bit sexy, and straddle the line between Literary and Tear Your
Heart Out. She gets a thrill when her readers are emotional reading
her stories, and gets even more of a kick when they tell her so.
She’s strangely imaginative, spends too much time on her computer,
and is certifiably crazy when she works on her fiction.

Rebecca Berto lives in
Melbourne, Australia with her boyfriend and their doggy.

You can
find
Rebecca
at:

Website/blog,
Novel
Girl

Facebook
profile
or
page

Twitter

Read an excerpt from Rebecca
Berto’s first book:

Precise

(A Novella)

I am kind and beautiful. I have
a soul.

It’s better to be known for
what I am not. Isn’t that how the saying goes?

Chapter One

Paul pins me on our bed with
his knees. He knows I can’t escape him like this. As I look up at
his chest, he launches his fingers at my stomach.

Sickness stirs inside me. I’m
accustomed to the feeling twisting my insides out, the bitter taste
at the back of my mouth. I swallow repeatedly, still squirming, but
it’s helpless. I’ll vomit, right here, all over us.

When Paul and I mess around,
I’m like we were at sixteen. I laugh from the pit of my belly. And
I like sharing part of me with my husband. But I’m going to ruin
this moment. I hate myself, like my mom hates me, for this.

Squirming under him, the sunset
pierces my eyes, just at the right time of the day. I can’t move up
because Paul’s knees are clenched beside my legs. I shut my eyes
and shoot a look to our door, which might as well be locked now
with how I’m trapped.

He smiles his banana-like grin,
so big that at times like this I just want to rip it off his mouth.
He’s proud—he thinks he has me tickled to the point of torture.

“
Pauly,” I
mumble, curling my legs half to the side, my shoulders turned
in.

He notices this reaction isn’t
normal. Usually, when he traps me like this and pleasures from my
pained reaction I’d call him names, but I wouldn’t have a pale
face, a sour expression or look this desperate for escape. I’m sure
that’s exactly what I look like.

“
Kates?” he
asks, crawling backward down the bed.

I sit up—mistake.

Paul back steps to the carpet,
hands frozen on either side of him. His eyes dart around the room.
While another hit prematurely makes me heave, Paul searches.

On my desk are the piles of
sketches and designs still waiting to be filed away from when I was
in school four years earlier. There are trophies surrounding that
pile. Ones I won at inter-school competitions where Dad drove an
hour to watch me walk to the stage and grab my trophy while Mom
always happened to have too big a day at work or her allergies had
flared up again, rendering her bedridden. There isn’t much else to
my room besides those. I guess it makes me useless because I was
only ever good at drawing and I don’t do that anymore.

After another moment, which has
only been a couple of seconds despite my drawn-out panic, Paul
launches at my cowboy hat hiding under a corner chair and thrusts
it under my face.

I dart to the bathroom with the
hat sticking under my chin to catch the vomit.

Mom’s afternoon tea sandwiches?
They come up in time to thoroughly coat the sink in the
bathroom.

Why did I have to throw up? If
Mom sees… I should not throw up. It’s disgusting, but more than
that, it shows that I don’t respect the trouble Mom’s gone to for
me, Dad and Paul.

Maybe it was
my fault for playing with Paul. If Mom knew I’d been sick all this
time and I still chose to risk ruining her room—not Paul’s and my
room, but
hers
—she’d have me pay for dry cleaning to fix up the carpet and
grout in the tiles if I’d marked either even remotely.

Ducking under the sink, I
search below. My sickness doesn’t seem to have ruined anything. I
breathe, relaxing, but my breath shudders as a reminder to harden
myself in case Mom comes in.

A few days ago, I wasn’t as
lucky. I told Mom I was feeling off after being sick but she
reminded me of how much pain it’d cause her knees to bend, and that
her wrist was sore and any self-respecting daughter would help
their Mom. That the least I could do was wash, scrub, rewash and
rescrub the counters after my mess. The chemicals set off my
stomach. I’d tried to hold it in, but she shoved the sponge and
bucket away, forcing me to throw up in my hands.

At least my best friend, Liam,
didn’t hate me. In fact, he cleaned it all up last night when I
visited and he forced me to rest, claiming he’d been cleaning up
after me since we were kids anyway.

Hearing a noise behind me, I
say, “Pauly?”

“
It’s me,
Katie,” Mom confirms. She’s never called me by my nickname ‘Kates’
as everyone else does. I guess it’s too personal for her. Mom’s
arms are shoved into each other, the look on her face much the
same.

I’d like her to say it’s okay,
and ask me if I need some water or to sit down. With my energy
spent, it’s hard not to care that my mom seeing me like this causes
her more frustration at my hopelessness than anything else.

She grumbles through closed
lips. That’s how much I anger her. I’m not even worth a full-on
noise of frustration.

I’d like to say Mom storms up
to me, but in those stilettos she wears around the house, it’s an
unmistakeable strut. At a four-foot radius marker, she hits the
invisible wall and screws up her face.

“
You look
horrible, Katie. You’re just horrible,” Mom says, and struts off,
mumbling something about ‘regretting’.

“
Hey,” Paul
says, when he joins me.

He kisses my forehead. Paul
bends down and gazes at me with a soft look. So I flinch. Paul’s
more likely to blowfish on my lips—which is a lovely hot mouthful
of air blown into my mouth disguised as a kiss—than anything
romantic.

“
Shh,
baby.”

Paul pulls me
to his chest, melting me to him by tucking the top of my head under
his with his chin.
This isn’t weird of
him
. I practice repeating that. It doesn’t
take long to seep into my thoughts because I need him. Mom’s face
reappears like a floating buoy refusing to stay underwater. Her
look is plastered with the disgust that only I’m capable of
producing in her. It’s a scowl that would make someone think she
was watching a movie where a child was abused.

But, no. It’s just what I do to
her.

Here, Paul smells like a fresh
breeze, a hint of fragrance in a stale room. I’m nuzzling his neck
without realizing it, drinking in his scent. Or maybe him. All of
him.

“
You’re
gorgeous, ‘kay. It’s not you.” Paul’s lips brush my forehead
lightly, or maybe it’s my imagination. I am carefree in his
arms.

After a minute or so, Paul
stiffens and begins prying me off him. “Okay, Katie,”

I know it’s bad. When Paul
calls me Katie, it’s bad. Katherine? I run.

He says, “I’ll leave you
alone,” and shuts the bathroom door, echoing my solitude in this
little room.

What!? I didn’t marry him so he
could walk out on me when it got hard. He’s put up with Mom
accidentally cutting up his clothes because she thought my hooded
sweater was his, and has been the physical barrier between Mom’s
thrashing hands and me backed-up in a corner.

Will he hate me like Mom does
for embarrassing her? What if I never stop throwing up, huh? What
if I have a bug that has me bedridden for weeks? Will he stay by my
side then?

I mutter to myself how silly
I’m being. Paul’s the type to run to the store to buy me
painkillers, a hot water bottle, a soft toy and movies to watch
while I’m resting for days and puking my insides out. Paul would
never leave unless I needed time to think.

A realization hits me. I’m
pregnant.

* * *