The Wide Receiver's Baby (19 page)

Chapter Sixteen

Chase

We were both talking and making no sense, trying to replay the events in our minds about what had happened back there in the fight, and in the room, and wondering what we were going to do now.

Even with all the confusion, we still found the car easily.  Reg and I were slightly tipsy and had had hardly anything to eat, which was part of the reason that neither of us was making much sense.  Reg made sure that he carried Kayla like a delicate flower.

I knew why he held on to her and didn’t want me to carry her; my mind was completely fucked up.  If I held on to her, I probably would have dropped her, or panicked and done something stupid.  Reg held on to her to make sure that I saw sense and did what we needed to do.

Get to the car.

Then, after, get to the old man to pick up whatever he wanted to give me.

Most of the cars that had been parked on the street were gone.  It was almost as if they were never there.  The air was still and, without a breeze, the whole thing felt kind of eerie, as if we were the last people on earth.  I didn’t think we’d been in the back room that long, but obviously I was wrong. 

I looked at the time, and it was way past three. 

So late, especially for us to be in this neck of the woods.  The whole thing was crazy.  I kept glancing at the back of the car, where Reg had laid her.  I kept a spare blanket in the car because every so often I liked taking a puff of pot and I would sit in the woods, just to get my thoughts together, or rather to forget Kayla.

Yet, here she was, nearly three years later, in the back of my car.

“Let’s just wait for Miles one minute and then we’ll get her to the hospital,” Reg reassured me, but he was confused about the whole turn of events.

“What kind of fucked up shit is she into, Reg?”

He shook his head as he started to light up a cigarette.  I thought he had quit.  The way I was feeling right now, between my head messing me around with so many stupid thoughts and my stomach growling like a bear, I knew the best way to get rid of it was to have a cigarette too.  At parties, we’d sometimes light up together.  This wasn’t a party, but I was fucking scared and I needed something to calm me the fuck down.

“Shit, what would have happened to her if we hadn’t shown up?  And where the fuck is Miles?”  I was getting anxious about the whole thing. 

He didn’t respond.  Instead, he just picked up his phone to call Miles again.  We had been waiting for about fifteen minutes, every minute checking on Kayla to make sure that she was okay.  I hadn’t felt comfortable parking my car here in the first place.  Now we were on a deserted street, with Kayla in the back with God knows who after her.  I remembered the words of the old man.

“Shit, he said to be at that church in an hour.  It’s been nearly thirty minutes, and my GPS says it will take us around twenty to get there.  We need to get out of here.”

Reg didn’t need convincing, which surprised me because I thought that Miles and he were good friends.  Yet, he didn’t hesitate as he opened the door and said, “You going to drive or what?”

The responsible voice came out of me, “But we should wait for Miles.”

Reg didn’t agree. “Fuck that.  He called me a baby about twenty minutes ago, asking where we were, now he can’t pick up his phone or get to the car.  Drive.”

There was something about the way Reg said it that made me think it was a lie.  He just didn’t want to get into the details of it. 

I had partied plenty of times with Reg and he’d never left me at a party, no matter whose it was or even if I was stuck in between some girl’s legs.  When he was ready to leave, he would make sure that the people he came with were by his side or he wasn’t going anywhere.

This feeble excuse about Miles not picking up his phone was a lie.

I didn’t hesitate to leave Miles.  I pressed the “Start to Navigate” button on my phone and drove off.  Whatever was going on with Miles had to wait.  I had to get Kayla to a hospital, but first I had to get this gift that she had left with the old man.

Chapter Seventeen

Kayla

“Where am I?” I whispered.  I saw two men in the front of the car.  They were arguing, but between the phone giving them directions and the height of the leather seats, I couldn’t make out who they were. 

I was so fucking light-headed from the fight.  My ears had a siren ringing through them.  My eyes were bloody, and I had a blanket wrapped around me as if I was a baby.  I didn’t know who these guys were, but as I unwrapped myself and moved closer to their seats, I was shocked to find out that it was Chase and Reg.

For a second, I’d thought that maybe Hannah had gone back on her word and kidnapped me.

Everything was all mixed up.  I had taken one too many knocks on the head, dropped on the ground countless times this evening and before.  Maybe something in me had finally given up and that something was paying the price right now.

“Shit, she’s up.”

Chase darted his eyes across to me for a brief moment.  “You okay?”

He had a look of concern on his face.  I didn’t deserve that; he should have wanted me to be beaten in the ring.  Dead.  Not be asking if I was okay.  I felt bad, sick for a second, as what little contents I had inside of me fought to come out. 

“Stop.”  I tried to hold it inside.  “I’m going to puke!”

Chase didn’t need asking twice.  Within a few seconds, he screeched to a halt, and I opened the door and everything came out. 

I puked, and Reg screamed, “You okay?”

Chase interrupted, “Shit, she just puked.  What do you think, man?” 

I tried to get myself together, taking deep breaths, and then Chase handed me some tissues and said, “Take this.  We need to get going.  We have only ten minutes to get there.”

I wondered what he was on about, but I felt too queasy to ask what he meant by ‘there’. 

I had somewhere to be, but I couldn’t tell him.  If I did, then he might leave me on the street.  I had kept this secret for too long.  But sitting in the back of the car, wearing bloody shoes and a bra top, with a blanket wrapped around me, wasn’t exactly the time to start confessing shit. 

Especially something as big as this.

I nodded as I shut the door, coughed a bit, and whispered, “I’m not going to puke again.” 

He didn’t need any more confirmation.  Chase looked Reg dead in the face and said, “Good, I need to go and get my gift.”

I should have asked what he meant by that.  Instead, I closed my eyes.  I was tired, and puking what little I had in my stomach had wiped out every last piece of energy.  The last thing I heard was Reg whispering, “Looks like she’s sleeping again.”

Chapter Eighteen

Chase

I quickly turned my head around and, as Reg had confirmed, Kayla was sleeping.  She looked peaceful this time, not like when she’d passed out. 

“Why did you leave Miles?”

It was a stupid question, but the GPS was telling me that we only had five minutes to get there and I was scared.  Too many fucking overflowing emotions in one night were doing my head in.

“Cause he’s messed up in all sorts of shit.  I meant to tell you,” he paused as I took a corner, “but sometimes I just think that you’re too distracted for your own good.  Ever since you got together with her.”

I knew he was right.  Part of me was pissed that Reg hadn’t been honest with me from the start.  We shared everything.  But there was no denying that if I wasn’t studying, I would be spending my time in the woods, just trying to get out of my fucking head.  I had always been a good student. 

Dad was already pissed that I hadn’t tried to play professional football, but my head was never in the game.  I was a geek at heart; being in high school and on the football team was kind of cool, but when you go to college, it’s a whole new world.

“Not saying I shouldn’t have told you.  So don’t get all sensitive and shit on me.  Just saying, you’ve been distracted.”

Curiosity got the better of me as the GPS said we were only two minutes away.  “You going to tell me what kind of shit?”

Reg cut his eyes at me, probably hoping that I would forget the whole conversation.  After all, we had more shit to worry about than Miles’ problems.

“He ran out of money from like the first day he was in college.”  He stopped to clear his throat.  “So he kind of got into this thing by gambling.”

That made no sense to me.  In around two or three weeks, we’d be out of college.  How come he was still at it?  Miles could easily get a job if he wanted, instead of going to medical school. 

“Shit, one minute left,” I confirmed, more to myself than to Reg.

“Yes, but he got hooked on the gambling, and three months ago when we went to a fight, he got beat up pretty bad.  He didn’t need the money, but he just seemed to get off on the buzz of it all.  Shit, maybe it’s all the drugs he keeps taking?  That’s why he keeps doing it for the money?”

Reg was trying to make sense of it all.  I remembered that one time, when Miles took some time off from school to go back home.  He’d said that one of his relatives was sick or something. 

Okay, another lie.

“But I thought he went back home?”

“Nah, he just stayed in some hotel.  Had some friend who is a nurse back home or something come and check on him.  That was where he was that time.”

I nodded.  We were at our destination, in front of the church as the old man had demanded we should be.

Reg and I were speechless when we saw the old man.  I realized what my gift was as Reg said, “That’s the old man, right?”

I nodded.  I couldn’t even speak.  I was fucking speechless.

What the fuck was going on?

“So, that must be my gift.”  I confirmed as I looked at what the old man was holding in his hand.

I turned to the backseat because I was pissed.  Reg got out of the car and started to head towards the old man.

“Kayla, fucking wake up.”  I shook her furiously.  I was so damn angry.  “You got some fucking explaining to do.  Get up now!”

Chapter Nineteen

Kayla

“Chase, what is it?”  I choked.  I sat up as he got out of his seat.  The next thing he did was rush over to open my car door, and then he bent down to point at her.

“Her.  Who is she?” Chase spat out.  Tears were in my eyes as I turned to face him as he spoke with disgust.  His face was so close.  Every single time before now I would have kissed him.  Even teased him.  Right now, with his eyes bright and ready to explode.  I felt like all the punches that were inflicted on my body earlier were nothing compared to the way he was looking at me right now.

“My daughter,” I whispered. 

That wasn’t the answer he wanted, but it was all he was getting for now.  I couldn’t tell him the truth, not yet.  Not as she rushed to the car and gave me kisses as soon as she saw my face.  Reg came over and broke the tension that was building as Chase couldn’t take his eyes off us.

“Mummy?” Sydney asked as I held her in my arms like a precious jewel.  I knew what was going through her mind; the tears that rolled down her cheeks told me more than my two-year-old could speak. 

“The old man said, “this is your mommy’s friend”,  and gave me her hand with a message for Kayla.”

Reg turned to face me, “He said that she found out.  He couldn’t help you. This was the only way.”

It all hit home.  Hannah had found out that Willy was helping me.  She probably would have kept me prisoner if I hadn’t left.  After all, I had won the big fight.  Hannah would have thought about ways to make me stay.  Threatening me. Using Sydney.  Until she would take my soul and there would be nothing left of me.  I stroked Sydney, thinking that as pissed, hurt and angry as Chase was right now, it was nothing compared to the wrath of Hannah.

Reg chocked, “Then he  left.  Just like that!  Seriously, what is going on?”

I shook my head, because Chase didn’t say a word as he got back in the car.  He must have been in shock.  He closed the door and his legs didn’t move and, as Reg got in, memories of that last day on campus flashed through my mind.

******

My father wasn’t dead. And somehow, he’d ended up at my campus.  There was no way I could have just laid low and then gone back to my old life.  Contacting Mom would have definitely blown her identity, too.

But I still couldn’t get it out of my head.

We’d seen the news; they had said that Dad was dead, that we were all dead.  Mom had been planning it for weeks.  It was the only way we could escape.  No one wanted to admit,  especially the police department, that one of their boys was a bad husband, let alone a bad father.  It was kind of like they had a halo over the men who were cops.  The ones who were supposed to protect and look after us.  Yet, that seemed to be so far from the truth.

I’d gotten to the stage as a kid that I hated going back home. 

Seeing him on campus had brought that memory back to me, and I realized that nothing was going to change. 

Dad must have found me somehow, and I had no choice.  I couldn’t go back.  Sure, I could trust Chase and he wouldn’t tell them where I was, but my dad was a cop.  If I had told Chase about the problems and pretended to disappear and he had called me or anything, then the cops would have been able to trace the calls and find out. 

I was so confused about Dad turning up at Stanford. How had he found me? Then, it all fell into place.

“Mindy, how’s college?” Mindy was our neighbor and had looked after me as a kid.  I remembered her mom telling me that she was coming home.  I couldn't think of anything more exciting then having her around.  She knew about Dad and what he used to do to us.  Unlike most people, who turned a blind eye, Mindy used to practically have me stay with her, or she would hang around the house to keep me safe.  When she went to college, my world just got worse.

“Hey, little sis.”

She used to treat me like a sister, and call me that.  It used to make me feel special.

“You miss me?”

I nodded like an obedient dog. 

“Well, I missed you too.  Stanford is fantastic.  The sun.  The classes.  The rooms and, most of all, the boys.”

The smile on her face had sold it to me already.  She needn't say anymore.  I had known from that moment onwards that I was going to go to Stanford when I grew up.  And I talked about nothing else.  One day I would be going there, but I thought we couldn’t afford it. Until Stephen stepped in and told me that we could.  

***

Three months after I left, I was in the motel, feeling sorry for myself. Such a short time ago, I had been thinking about being a business major, I’d had a boyfriend, and everything in my life felt like a dream.  That was when I began to feel sick, and I thought it was strange.  I had lost my appetite, which was weird, because a few weeks before I couldn’t stop eating.  I put it down to the stress of training and losing my job at the diner.  Also, being on the run meant that I was constantly paranoid.  If I saw someone that looked like Dad, Mom or Chase, my whole body would go into a frenzy.

I looked down, and my nipples were erect for no reason.  They were blatantly hard through the bra that I was wearing. 

Then, I started to get more indecisive.  Thinking twice about absolutely everything.  From what I was going to wear, to what I should eat, every single day.  I could spend hours just walking around the block, thinking about it.  I never had the luxury of eating at different places.  The options were simple: somewhere cheap, cheap, or cheap.

Crazy indecisiveness had taken over my body like a drug.  That was when it hit me.  I hated chips, yet I was eating them like crazy lately.  I loved hot dogs, but the smell of them suddenly made me feel sick.

My body was being sent into a whirlwind, and then I remembered that one night.  The one where Chase and I were slightly drunk and didn’t use a condom, and I’d vowed that I would go and get the morning after pill the next day.

I’d thought I had three days to take it.

The next night, I’d seen my dad.  I’d found out that we hadn’t killed him.  I held my hand to my face as I sat in the tiny room that I’d rented, with the cracked walls and worn out carpet, thinking,
baby
?

I ran to the drugstore and picked up a pregnancy test.  I closed my eyes and crossed my fingers waiting for the results.

It showed exactly what I’d suspected it would.

I was pregnant, but there was no way I could keep it.

I went to the clinic, only to discover it was eight hundred dollars to have an abortion and the crazy thing was that was the price of the pill, without even having an operation.  They had developed a pill, but instead of the whole thing being cheaper, it felt like they had made it even more expensive.  Not that I knew how much it was before the pill. 

Neither did I care.

I was fucking stuck.  But not alone:  I had a baby on the way.

That amount of money was so out of my reach, I felt suffocated.  I went to the gym to talk to Hannah about it.

“I can’t train anymore,” I wailed like a baby through my words.  I couldn’t believe the one opportunity that I was being given I had to turn down.  My whole body felt numb.

“What do you mean? We had a deal.  You told me that you would fight.  You promised that you would go through with it all -”

We were in Willy’s small office above the gym.  He lifted his hand and nodded for me to continue speaking, “I’m pregnant.”

I thought there was no need to beat around the bush.  I was and I had no-one to turn to, apart from two people that I barely knew and the worst part was, they didn’t even know my name.

“You knew,” she snarled at me. 

No, I really didn’t know.

Our deal was that I would fight my first fight.  Once I did, then Hannah would take me under her wing and I would make big bucks.  Right now, she was supporting my training, feeding me and paying my motel bill.

Shit, I had little money and time was running out. I didn’t even know how far along I was.

“Well, she’s been in the ring. Training like crazy. I doubt she knew.” Willy had a way of calming Hannah down, with simple words.  She never retaliated, if anything she would just sulk.  But, I had seen her with the fighters.  If they tried anything, she would slap them into place.  Let them know who was boss.

I avoided looking at either of them.  I just couldn’t think straight.

It seemed I had just one option.

The one I didn’t want to take.

This meant that I had to go back; I really had no choice.

I couldn’t afford an abortion or anything else.  And soon, I wouldn’t have a place to live.  With a baby, I had to take a chance and go back to Chase.  Maybe that was what I should have done in the first place.

“You’re going to pay for this,” Hannah practically spat on my face, before she stormed out.

I got out of the chair to leave Willy’s office.  He sighed. “Go home, kid. Whatever it is, this is not worth it.  Just go home.”

I should have listened to his advice.  Instead, Hannah was waiting outside of the gym.  She cornered me and said, “I could give you money for an abortion.  That way you could fight and pay me back what I am due.”

I had calculated that she had given me a grand, but I knew that she meant more then that. A lot more. I shook my head.  I was thinking about what Willy had said; I should just go back home.

Hannah handed me a card, “See Doctor Burt tomorrow morning. I spoke to him already. He will give you the abortion pill. Take the rest of the week off and come back on Monday. Understood?”

I nodded, but that was the wrong thing to do.  I went to get the pill, that didn’t work.  Only later on did I find the real reason why; the great Doctor Burt wasn't even a real doctor.  Hannah just wanted me caught up in her web.  She wanted insurances that she would get paid back.  She told me all about it one night when she was drunk.  I should have left then, but I stayed.  Too scared to leave, unsure if being out in the open with my dad trying to find me was worse then staying with Hannah.  Either way, it was all fucked up.  I’d had our baby, and now I was paying the price for it.  Not only for having her, but for keeping her a secret.

***

I just hoped when he looked into her eyes and held her in his arms he would forgive me.

“Drive!” Reg blurted out.  Between Willy disappearing and Sydney being in the car, Chase had just seemed to freeze.  He just sat there.

“Let’s just get the fuck out of here.”  Reg avoided looking in the back.  The whole thing was making me uncomfortable.  Chase didn’t say a word.  Reg’s phone kept ringing until he decided to turn it off, and Sydney just kept holding me for dear life.

I had no clothes.

No money.

No mobile phone.

The whole damn thing was a mystery to me. 

I was so fucking confused. “Chase, did you know Willy before tonight?”

That had to be the answer; he had set up the whole thing with Chase.  I had mentioned him once, by accident, when Sydney was a few weeks old.  I had said to Willy that she looked just like her dad, Chase, with his blue eyes and fair hair.  Looking at her must have been like looking in the mirror.  That was why Chase was so mad.  There was no denying that she was his child. 

Either way, it didn’t matter now.  I didn’t even know where we were going.  Reg gazed at Chase, waiting for him to answer.  Chase didn’t, and I knew what that meant.  He was driving way over the speed limit.  His focus was forward as if he had to pretend we weren’t in the car. 

“We’re going back to the dorm,” Reg replied quietly, but loud enough for me to hear.  He didn’t look at me, but just lifted his head as he spoke.  Then, he directed his attention out of the window.  I just held on to Sydney with all my might.

Sooner or later Chase would have to talk.

There was no way he was going to the dorm with me in bloody clothes, never mind with his child in my arms.

A secret that I had kept hidden.

Until now.