“I don’t think Chunkz will be doing much for the foreseeable,” Jermaine laughs.
I hoped it would make me feel better, but all it’s done is remind me why it was for the best to push Amelia away.
This is who I am. The guy who runs into the fight. The guy who protects what’s his, the only way he knows how.
Another reminder that she’s not the type of girl I can go home to and have her clean my wounds. Shit, she’s not even the type of girl who wouldn’t still be scared if I cleaned them myself.
“You broke anything?” Jermaine asks turning a corner.
Flexing my hand, I wiggle my fingers slowly, and shake my head.
“I don’t think so. I’ll see how they are in the morning.”
It’s not like I can go to the hospital. If Chunkz ends up there, they’ll put two and two together and that’s me arrested.
My phone alerts me I have a message and I lean back in my seat to pull it out of my back pocket. Using my left hand to open the message, I nearly drop the phone when I see it’s from Amelia.
This is the last time I’ll text, I just wanted to say you’re an asshole and if I never see you again, it’ll be too soon. Fuck you, Darius.
She cuts me deeper than the pain in my hand. If only we lived the same life. I fucking hate if’s.
“I’m gonna swing by Mol’s, she can wrap it up for you.”
Mol is a retired nurse who makes an extra buck helping the less fortunate of Dog City to help pay for her husband’s meds.
“Fine.”
At least it’s one thing I can fix tonight.
13
Amelia
Chewing on my thumb nail, I fail to soothe the nausea crippling me. It’s far worse than the morning sickness. Telling my dad I’m pregnant is the worst thing I’ve ever had to do. His disappointment is going to kill me and if I could hide it from him, I would. But I can’t and I have to deal with whatever consequences come my way.
I thought about talking to Clare but the sneaky voice in the back of my mind kept stopping me from reaching out to her. How has it come to this? Where I can’t talk to my best friend. The one person outside of my family I have known the longest, who I’ve always been able to tell anything and everything to.
My butt long ago went numb as I sit on the bottom step of the stairs waiting for my dad to come home from the office. I had hoped Darius would’ve had the answers. I was stupid to believe he’d be of any use. It’s been three days since I ran out of Tariq’s house, their laughter chasing me, and I vowed I’d never return, and I won’t. I will never again give him the satisfaction of seeing me plead for his time.
The front door opens, and I suck in a deep breath as dad dumps his briefcase by the key table and smiles warmly when he sets his eyes on me.
“Hey, sweetheart. You waiting on me?”
Nodding, I grip onto the banister and pull myself up.
Here goes.
“I’m pregnant,” I blurt out before I can change my mind and come to regret it later.
His smile drops into a frown and we both stand in the foyer saying nothing for what feels like forever. Eventually he scrubs his face and looks away. That does it for me, the tears come, and I sit back down on the stairs to save myself from falling. My legs tingle with numbness and I hide my head in my knees. I can’t watch him hate me.
“Oh, sweetheart…”
His voice grows closer, and I’m wrapped in his arms and squashed against him. I cling to him, and the tears come harder.
“It’s okay, I’m here…” he soothes but it doesn’t help the disgust I feel for myself.
“Come on, let’s get you a glass of water and some tissues.”
