“It’s on the way.Still—”
“I don’t want another sedative,” Pam sobbed.“I want my baby!”
The doctor looked over his shoulder at the returning nurse.“Ah, there it is.”
Pam rolled to the far side of the bed, only to be caught by John.“Get your hands off me!”she yelled.
“You’ll hurt yourself.You’re not well.”
“I’m perfectly well.I’m pregnant.”She made a choked sound.“Or was until you stopped it.I don’t want that,” she told the doctor, who held a syringe in his hand.She struggled against John’s hold, but the needle found its mark.“Youbastard.”she screamed between sobs.
“That’s right,” John goaded.“Call me names as much as you want if it gives you satisfaction.”
“Bastard!Dirty, filthy bastard!You won’t let anyone else have what you can’t, and you can’t have kids because no woman wants you near enough—”
John took her chin in his hand and squeezed hard, effectively stemming her flow of words.He looked at the doctor.“Leave us?”
“She’ll be asleep soon,” he warned.
“Then I’ll just say a few things before she is.I want her in a better frame of mind by the time she wakes up.”
“I don’t think—”
“Don’t,” John ordered.The single word was enough to send the doctor from the room.John’s glare sent the nurse along in his wake.By the time he looked back at Pam, her lids were heavy.
“I want you to listen and listen good,” he said.
The pressure on her mouth was painful.She closed her eyes, but tears continued to seep from their corners; it seemed the only way she could express her defiance and blot him out.
But he wouldn’t have it.“Look at me, dammit,” he growled and gave her chin a painful shake.When her eyesflew open, he said, “You had no business seeing Cutter Reid in the first place.I told you not to.I warned you that he was nothing but shit, but you thought you knew best, so you saw him.You let him touch you.You spread those lily-white legs and he screwed you.”His teeth were gritted at the last.“And where did it leave you?In a big fat mess!How were you going to take care of a baby?Hmmm?”
Pam couldn’t answer.He was hurting her jaw, preventing her from speaking.Her only sounds came from the back of her throat, against her will, from the crying she couldn’t control.
“You’re seventeen.Not even out of high school.Did you want to be a dropout like him?”
Pam grabbed his wrist and pulled with every bit of her dwindling strength.“You’re hurting me,” she whimpered, and he eased the pressure on her jaw.
“I’m doing what’s best for you,” was his answer.“Someone has to, since you can’t do it for yourself.You got yourself knocked up.I solved the problem.”
Her tears came faster.“It wasn’t a problem.”
“An unwed, pregnant teenager isn’t a problem?”
“I wanted the baby!”she sobbed.
“You have no idea what having a baby entails.You don’t know the work involved or the dedication or the expense,” he stuck a finger in her face, “and don’t say I don’t know, because I have friends who have kids.And don’t,” the finger jabbed her chest, “say I can’t get a woman, because if I wanted, I could have five women happily pregnant in a matter of months.I choose not to have a child.I don’t have the time or the interest.”
“I do.I wanted one.”
“You wanted his, because you knew it would drive me wild.”His face came lower.“Well, you can’t have it.It’s gone.Flushed down some toilet, or whatever it is they do with unwanted refuse around here.”
She cried out at the cruelty of his words.Tears streamed from her eyes.She felt close to drowning and far too weak to save herself or even to try.
“You’ll thank me someday.When you’re old enough to realize what a favor I’ve done you, you’ll get down on your knees and thank me.”
“Never.”
“When you’re married to someone well known and successful, when you have a brick house bigger and nicer than the one in Timiny Cove, when you have a ski place and a Mercedes and three adorable kids who take gymnastics and soccer, you’ll thank me.”
