VEDA
I barely made it out of his bed before the tears burned at my eyes. They were streaming down my cheeks as I rushed to the bathroom and locked myself in. And I was hysterical as the cramps continued to clamp down on my belly.
Asher kept telling me he loved me and making me feel like the only woman in the world. I didn't deserve him at all. Not once had I given him a chance to see the real me, the one who partnered up with his sleazy brother to deceive him, yet he cared about me and refused to believe Clayton's lies anyway.
Except they weren't lies.
The sobs wracked my body so hard I shook and trembled, and the cramps didn’t help. Multiple times I blew my nose and wiped myself to make sure I wasn't bleeding. The thought of losing this baby now scared me. I'd begun to cling to it as the only hope of Asher ever forgiving me, and even that seemed years in the future.
If I lost the baby we'd have no tie left at all. When Clayton chose to spew his poison out at Asher in hopes to knock himfrom the wagon all that would be left was some hollow husk of a relationship that started with sex and nothing else. Neither of us felt that way, though I hadn't told Asher I loved him yet. But it wouldn’t matter at that point.
Asher would look at me as a whore who got paid to do a job. I'd be dead to him, and no baby would mean no tie at all. Never seeing him again, never knowing if he stayed sober or if Clayton eventually managed to take Asher out.
Horrible fears and thoughts swirled in my head over and over. I sat there until I emptied my bladder, then I washed my face, but the cramps were still rolling through my belly.
I looked myself in the mirror and saw someone I no longer recognized. Sure my face was the same, but the young woman who'd gone to business school to do something with her life was changed now.
I had always been a caring person, someone who would listen to the story of a stranger so they wouldn't feel so lonely. And if I could help someone I would. Regan could tell the world that was me. I'd given my last dollar to a homeless man on the subway when we went to Washington D.C. in eighth grade because he wanted a cup of coffee. I was supposed to use it to call home and let my mother know when we'd be back and needed a ride, but I gave it away and Regan had to tell her mom to call my mom.
Even back then I knew right from wrong. I knew what it meant to be a good human or a bad human.
Now I wasn't sure what I knew. I had traded my morality and my soul for a million dollars, or the promise of it at least, and I felt awful about it. Clayton would expect me to dig up dirt on Asher, and there was no dirt. Asher would never be the monsterClayton imagined him to be, and I would never have anything to give Clayton to take him down.
I was stuck fast, with no way out.
But I couldn’t stand here in this bathroom feeling sorry for myself. All I could do was put on a brave face and pretend nothing was wrong for now, buy myself some time to figure out what I was going to do. Losing Asher was inevitable, so enjoying the finite time we had together felt necessary. In the meantime, my goal was to try to mitigate the damage as much as possible so that when all of this blew up, Asher was less likely to ruin his own sobriety out of anger, no matter how justified that anger was.
I slipped out of the bathroom and walked back toward the bed, only to find Asher dozing lightly. He lay on his back with his arm stretched out across what would be my side of the mattress, and his other hand was lying on his chest. He looked so peaceful and happy. He had a smile on his face too, one that for so long he probably hadn't felt or shared with this world. I hated that my actions would be the ones to erase that smile.
Guilt sat heavy on my chest as I walked over to the far side of the bed where I had plugged my phone in. On the way I blew out the candles one by one, hoping to have the room dark as sin before Asher woke and saw my red-rimmed eyes and tearstained cheeks. The last thing I needed was him asking me questions about what was wrong with me. I didn't have it in me to make up more stories or lie to him about trivial things.
Luckily, I got the candles put out before he stirred, and when he did my back was facing him as I reached for the lamp. He said nothing as I reached for the switch and flicked it off, but my phone lit up with Clayton's number on the screen.
I glanced at Asher, whose eyes were closed again, before picking up the phone. I had to mute this text thread before one of these notifications caught Asher's attention and made him ask what was going on. I opened my phone long enough to mute it, but I saw the message from Clayton was an image. It made me curious.
Asher told me he thought Clayton had a crush on me or something, which was odd, because that couldn’t be farther from the truth, but Asher knew his brother better than I did. Part of me half expected it to be some drunk text or a random nude he sent to the wrong number, but when I swiped to open the thread I almost dropped my phone.
Clayton had sent a picture of me and Regan, and if that wasn’t creepy enough, that he’d been following me around, or paid someone to follow me around, the image was of us leaving the pregnancy clinic. I stood with a glowering expression while Regan had her hands in the air gesticulating, and the name of the clinic was obvious on the building behind us.
My heart stopped beating, I swore it. If Clayton had been following, then he knew it wasn't just a random coincidence that we were in front of a pregnancy clinic. And with as much money as he had I was sure he had already confirmed with the clinic that I had visited, or maybe he paid someone off to give him eye-witness testimony. Either way, Clayton Locke knew I was pregnant.
His message said "We need to talk," and nothing else.
"Coming to bed?" Asher mumbled in the darkness while I fumbled with the phone trying to permanently mute Clayton's messages.
"Uh, yeah…" I muttered clumsily before locking the phone. The room went dark instantly and I slid into bed beside Asher, but I was cold and trembling.
"You okay?" he asked sleepily, but I lied.
I was good at lying. I was good at cheating and faking and I hated myself even more for all of it.
"I'm perfect," I told him as I turned my back into his chest and his arm came around me.
He didn't say another word, but he didn't have to say a thing. His hot breath dusting my shoulder felt like daggers slicing through me.
Asher was going to hate me.
And I had no way to stop it.
