“I know, and that’s the problem. You care too much about everyone else when you should be selfish. This is your time. Your second chance. And you’re going to take it.” She puts her cup down and leans forward. “I’ll be fine. I just need to keep my head down and hopethat Richard goes away for a long time.” She closes her eyes, inhales deeply, and exhales harshly.
“I have to hope that he’s too preoccupied with his own situation to feel the need to drag me down with him.”
Here’s my chance to pry. She’s opened the door for me to press about her secrets, and I have to take it. She needs someone to shoulder the burden. There’s a massive secret needing to be unearthed, and once it’s out, she’ll have to feel a little better.
“What does he have on you, Nina? I know you don’t want to talk about it. But you need to tell me. Whatever it is, it’s eating you alive.”
She looks away, and I follow her movement, staring out the window at the picturesque scene beyond.
Massive flakes of snow gracefully pirouette from the sky, resembling shimmery feathers as they make their way to the ground. They capture the few rays of sun peeking through the cloud-filled sky, glimmering like diamonds against the muted backdrop, creating an enchanting winter scene. The perfect Christmas day, if not for the heavy conversation currently occurring.
“The summer before my freshman year, I lost my virginity to a boy named Ian Whalen.”
“I’m…What?” I say, unable to keep the humor from my voice. “I mean…that is pretty early, but you were from the city. Maturity tends to move a bit quicker there than in the country.”
“There were a lot of issues with it, age being one factor for sure,” she says. “But it didn’t matter. Ian and I were best friends.”
“Wait…is this the neighbor boy you’ve told me about before?”
She nods. “That’s him.”
I don’t miss the way Nina’s voice goes soft when she says that, the way her lips tip up at the corners as if she’s recalling a fond memory.
“When my mother and Gary found out, they shipped me off toSt. Mary’s.” My eyebrow lifts, and she rushes on to explain. “It’s a convent in Rhode Island.”
I scrunch my nose, one eye squinting. It seems like a severe punishment, even for them. But my confusion is less about that and more about the fact that I’m only just hearing this. She never mentioned being at St. Mary’s before moving to Indiana.
“I was pregnant.”
My head jerks forward.
“Nina.” Her name slips from my lips, a mere whisper. I’m shocked, but more than that, I’m terrified at what that means, considering she doesn’t have a child.
“If it got out, it would ruin Gary’s reputation.” She sucks her teeth, seeming far too calm, when my palms are sweating and my heart is beating out of my chest.
“Couldn’t have that,” she continues rather flippantly. “Not during an election year.”
Gary was Nina’s mother’s third husband—a wealthy politician, whom her mother was determined to wed as soon as she realized how many dollars he had to his name.
Belinda Rothchild married for love the first time, which only led to broken bones, black eyes, and bills piled to the ceiling. Nina was the only good thing that came of that relationship. Unfortunately, she had to bear witness to the atrocities.
Their escape came when Nina’s father suffered a massive heart attack at a young age, leaving them both alone and better off. Until Belinda met her next abuser.
Husband number two wasn’t physical, but he slung words like daggers, holding Nina’s mother in a perpetual state of insecurity. He made it so she felt she couldn’t live without him. Then one day he filed for divorce, choosing his mistress over Belinda, leaving her in a financial and mental pile of rubble.
After that was Gary, and while not perfect, he was a far cry better than the first two. Or so I thought.
Belinda’s currently on husband number four, Patrick Rothchild, heir to an oil dynasty, and he seems to be just slightly better than the last four.
Nina was never modeled a healthy relationship. It’s no wonder she ended up with Richard, a man so much like her mother’s husbands.
But none of that currently matters, because Nina just said she’d been pregnant.
Where is her baby?
“What happened, Nina?”
She swallows, lips trembling. “Gone.”
