by Chloe Walsh
Everything had gone to hell in a handbasket and I was done.
I was completely fucking done with these people.
"You are not to see that girl again," Mom screamed into my face. "Pregnant or not, I don’t want you to go anywhere near her."
"Answer your mother, boy."
"Daryl!"
"Just answer him, D…"
"Nobody's pregnant," I conceded, for the sake of my own mental health, as I walked back into the kitchen, knowing that I needed my throwing arm in working order for the game tomorrow.
Pushing back against Wren was too risky when the state championship was on the line. Asshole would snap my damn bone just to prove a point that he could.
"I don't know where Ashley Thomas got her inside scoop, but it ain't true."
"What about the other part?" Mom demanded. "Are you dating that whore's daughter?"
"You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, Mama."
"Answer your mother!" Wren roared, slamming me against the refrigerator. "Answer her now, boy!"
"What's the point?" I snapped, balling my hands into fists at my side. "When she already knows the answer."
"Sophie, go upstairs," Wren instructed sternly. Whenever those words came out of him mouth when I was kid, I would panic and start to cry.
Not anymore.
Never again.
"Please stop this," Sophie sobbed, pushing out of her chair and running straight for me. "Daryl, just tell them whatever they need to hear." Sniffling, she threw her arms around my neck and clung to me. "Please, D… Don’t make this harder for yourself."
"It's okay, Soph," I replied, giving the only innocent person in this family my attention. "I can take care of myself."
"Upstairs, Sophie," Wren repeated, his words twisting into a harsh snarl. "Now."
Bursting into tears, Sophie barreled out of the kitchen, crying loudly, and fuck, the sound all but broke my damn heart.
44 Molly
As I stared down at the sonogram in my hands, I accepted that there was no denying it now.
I was very much pregnant.
Almost sixteen weeks along, to be exact, and well on the way into my second trimester.
To her absolute credit, Mercy stayed with me for the appointment with her mother's gynecologist. She never once let go of my hand as the doctor reeled off more rules and guidelines than I knew what to do with.
When it was time for an ultrasound, and I was too scared to look at the screen for fear of something being wrong with the baby I hadn't realized I'd been carrying, Mercy was strong and supportive.
Miraculously, the baby seemed to be perfectly healthy. The doctor assured me that my lack of pre-natal care to date hadn't caused any damage to him or her.
According to the size and development of the baby, I had to have conceived back in August – my first time, not to mention the one and only time we hadn't used protection – and was due in May.
Right around graduation.
After Mercy dropped me home, instead of going inside and facing my father like I knew I should, I went for a walk and hadn't stopped since.
Numb, I walked every street and pier in town, every beach and walkway on the shoreline. I walked and walked, and then I walked a little further.
How could I go home and tell my father what was happening when I hadn't even told the father of the unborn baby I was carrying?
I couldn’t.
Daryl had a right to know.
I couldn’t keep this from him.
It made me feel dirty.
I wasn’t strong like Mercy. I couldn’t keep life-altering information a secret from the person it affected.
I couldn’t do this on my own.
I couldn’t cope at all.
I felt like that lost little girl again, desperately hunting for daylight in a world of darkness and pillowing flames.
It was for all of those reasons that I found myself standing at Daryl's front door, shaking like an ivy leaf, and willing myself to have a little courage, as I reached up and knocked on the door.
The loud screams and hollers coming from the other side of his family's front door weren't anything new, but lord did they put me on edge, tonight more than ever.
One minute ticked by.
And then another.
Anxious, I knocked again, a little louder this time.
The voices inside of the house grew louder until I was pretty sure everyone inside was screaming at the top of their lungs.
Anxiety gnawed at my gut.
You need to leave, Molly.
You need to leave right now.
But before I could oblige my gut feeling and run, the front door opened inwards and I was faced with Sophie Chambers; Daryl's little sister.
I opened my mouth to say hi, but quickly stopped short when Sophie pressed a finger to her lips, willing me to be quiet.
Confused, I stared at her tear-stained cheeks and felt my heart start to gallop wildly in my chest. "Daryl?" I mouthed, panic stricken now. "Is he okay?"
Sniffling, she shook her head and gestured for me to come inside.
Only god himself could explain what possessed me to accept her offer and step inside, but I did.
Quietly closing the door behind us, Sophie lunged straight for me, throwing her small arms around my neck. I could hear Wretched, Daryl, and his mom all screaming and shouting at one another from inside the kitchen.
And even though I hadn't spent time with Sophie since she was a little girl, I enveloped her in my arms, desperate to comfort and shield her from the awfulness that was spewing from her kitchen.
"He loves you," she sniffled, sobbing into my neck. "My brother loves you so much, but you need to know."
"Know what?" I whispered, confused. "Sophie? What do I need to know?"
"It's all they talk about. All the time. It got better for a while, but now you're back, and Daryl won't let you go, but I can't take it anymore. I can't take the fights. I'm so sorry, Molly," Sophie sobbed before bolting for the staircase. "But you need to hear the truth."
Hear the truth?
45 Daryl
"Well done," I sneered, glaring at my so-called stepfather. "Keep it up and your daughter is gonna end up hating you almost as much as I do."
"Is that so?" Wren's face darkened. "Well now, if you've got a problem with the way I run my ship, QB1, then you know where the door is."
"Yeah, I know where the door is. I also know how you just love setting me up to fail," I countered heatedly. "You think I wanna be here? Looking at your face? Listening to your voice and taking your goddamn shit? You make it so that I have to be here, Wren. So that I have to depend on you."
"You're here because you ain't worth shit on your own, boy."
I laughed into his face before losing my cool and roaring, "I'm here because you enjoy breaking me down far too much to ever let me leave!"
"Daryl!" Mom began to interject but I was too far gone.
"But your time is running up, old man," I hissed through clenched teeth. "You're losing control. I'm so fucking close to making it that you can taste it. And my success makes you sick to your goddamn stomach!"
"Success? What success?" he sneered. "All I see in front of me is a bitch-ass mama's boy with a pretty-boy face, but you're spineless, ain't ya, boy? That's right. It's all smoke and mirrors with you. Same as your daddy. There ain't nothing worth having beneath the surface."
I narrowed my eyes. "I'd rather be a bum like my old-man than a prick like you."
"If you wanna be like your old man, then all you need to do is walk out," he laughed cruelly. "That's what your old man did, boy. He took one look at you and he walked the fuck out the door." Stepping closer, Wren reared a hand back and bitch slapped me across the face.
It was just another way of degrading me in front of my mother.
Of emasculating me.
"Hmm?" Slapping my other cheek, he pushed me up against the fridge again and then slapped me twice more for good measure. "You wanna le
ave, then go right ahead, pretty boy. Ain't no one blocking your exit."
It was a trap.
A trick.
Another one of his fucked-up mind games.
"Wren," Mom choked out, breath hitching in her throat as she tried to step in between us. "That's enough."
"I'll tell you what's enough, Trish," he sneered, glaring at my mother. "His attitude! I've had enough of your good-for-nothing bastard prancing around this town like his shit don't stink."
"Wren!"
"Come on, hotshot," he goaded, turning his attention. "You've always got a lot to say. Open your bitch mouth now and tell me something,"
Tears sprang in my eyes, but they weren't from fear.
No, they formed from the sheer iron will it took for me to not react to this man.
He slapped me again. "Come on, crybaby, tell me something –"
"Wren, stop!"
Alabama State.
Five more months.
Freedom.
And her.
Molly.
Molly.
Molly.
"Look what you've done," Mom finally cried, throwing her hands up in defeat. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she twisted the knife and threw it all on me. "I told you to stay away from that girl and you didn’t listen to me. Now look at our family!"
"Our family?" I bit out, nostrils flaring. "You call this a family? This ain't no goddamn family, Mama. This house is a warzone, there's a battle line drawn right here in this very kitchen, and I'm the enemy – at least that's how you've allowed him to treat me."
"We are a family, Daryl." Tears streamed down Mom's cheeks as she sank onto a chair at the table. "I am doing my best to hold us together, and you piss all over that by taking up with that homewrecker's daughter!"
"You're blaming me?" I threw my head back and laughed humorlessly. "You're actually blaming me for the mess y'all are in."
"You're trying to bring her back into our lives," Mom sobbed. "I can't have that girl in my life."
"Well, I can't not have her in mine!" I roared, stepping around Wren before I put my damn fist down his throat. "I. Love. Her. Do you get that? I'm in love with Molly, I always have been, and there ain't a damn thing you or Wren or Nick fucking Peterson can do about it."
"You're crossing a line, boy," Wren snarled, stalking towards me. "Back off. Now."
Ignoring my stepfather, I focused on my mother. "You call Molly's mother a homewrecker, but the only home she wrecked was her own. This piece of shit you call your husband? He's the one who wrecked your home, Mama. Not Mrs. Peterson. Wren! He ruined our home!"
"I suppose you're going to blame your stepfather for the fire, too?" Mom wailed.
"Jesus Christ, Mama," I snapped, losing my head. "He got her pregnant, broke up her marriage, and had her leave her husband! And for what? A goddamn empty promise, that's what. The minute he got caught, he dropped Molly's mom and that baby like neither one of them was worth the dirt on his shoes. So, no, your precious Wren might not have been the one to spark the match that night, but he sure as shit poured the gasoline by pushing that woman beyond her breaking point!"
"Y'all are lying!" I heard Molly scream from the doorway of the kitchen and my heart all but stopped dead in my chest.
Oh no.
No, Jesus, no.
Not like this…
Looking more terrified and confused than I'd ever seen another human look, she cried out loudly. "Y'all are nothing but a bunch of liars!" Pulling on the ends of her hair, she screamed, "Stop telling lies about my mother!"
She heard me.
She fucking heard every word.
I froze, having no fucking clue what to do. I didn’t know how to stop this avalanche of pain from caving in on top of her. "Molly," I choked out, tone pleading. "Wait, you've gotta let me –"
"Don’t you dare come near me, Daryl King!" she warned, holding a hand up when I moved to go to her. "I mean it. Stay away from me!"
46 Molly
Confused and reeling, I stood alone in the hallway, staring after Daryl's baby sister as she disappeared upstairs.
Heart racing, I quickly turned for the front door, only to halt with my hand on the doorknob when I heard Trish Chambers' familiar voice.
"Look what you've done. I told you to stay away from that girl and didn’t listen to me. Now look at our family!"
Freezing on the mortal spot, I held my breath when Daryl's voice boomed through my ears.
"Our family? You call this a family? This ain't no goddamn family, Mama. This house is a warzone, there's a battle line drawn right here in this very kitchen, and I'm the enemy – at least that's how you've allowed him to treat me."
"We are a family, Daryl," his mother continued to spit and wail. "I am doing my best to hold us together, and you piss all over that by taking up with that homewrecker's daughter!"
My heart stopped in my chest.
Homewrecker's daughter?
Was she talking about me?
No. I shook my head, refuting the notion.
My father wasn't a homewrecker.
"You're blaming me?" Daryl's voice rose right along with his outrage. "You're actually blaming me for the mess y'all are in?"
"You're trying to bring her back into our lives," his mother screamed back at him. "I can't have that girl in my life."
"Well, I can't not have her in mine! I. Love. Her. Do you get that? I'm in love with Molly, I always have been, and there ain't a damn thing you or Wren or Nick fucking Peterson can do about it."
They were talking about me.
This was about me.
About our relationship.
Go, Molly…
Leave now…
"You're crossing a line, boy," Wretched’s awful voice boomed through the air. "Back off. Now."
And then I heard Daryl speak the words that took the air from my lungs and turned the blood in my veins to ice.
"You call Molly's mother a homewrecker, but the only home she wrecked was her own," Daryl continued. "This piece of shit you call your husband? He's the one who wrecked your home, Mama. Not Mrs. Peterson. Wren! He ruined our home!"
No.
No.
No!
Gasping for air, I clutched my chest and leaned against the door at my back.
Mama didn't have an affair.
They were lying.
They were blaming my mama for something she would never do!
Shaking from head to toe, I forced my legs to march me into that kitchen, desperate to defend my dead mother's honor.
"I suppose you're going to blame your stepfather for the fire, too?" his mother choked out, as she sobbed into the sleeve of her cardigan.
I froze in the doorway, feeling like someone had shoved a piping hot branding iron down through my chest.
The fire?
Why were they talking about the fire?
"Jesus Christ, Mama," Daryl hissed, running a hand through his dark hair. "He got her pregnant, broke up her marriage, and had her leave her husband! And for what? A goddamn empty promise, that's what. The minute he got caught, he dropped Molly's mom, and that baby, like neither one of them was worth the dirt on his shoes. So, no, your precious Wren might not have been the one to spark the match that night, but he sure as shit poured the gasoline by pushing that woman beyond her breaking point!"
"Y'all are lying!" I choked out, unable to take another second of their poisonous slander. "Y'all are nothing but a bunch of liars!" Dragging my hands through my hair, I shook my head and released a pained scream. "Stop telling lies about my mother!"
"Molly." Daryl's eyes widened with what I could only describe as genuine, honest to god terror. Wait, you've gotta let me –"
"Don’t you dare come near me, Daryl King!" Trembling from head to toe, I held my hand up, warding him off when he tried to come closer. "I mean it. Stay away from me!"
"Who let you into this house?" Wren demanded, glowering at me like I was a cockroach.
"Your daughter!" I cr
ied out, still clutching my chest. "She told me that I deserved to hear the truth."
"Go home, Molly," Daryl's mother said with a weary sigh. "You have no business in this house."
"I want the truth!" I practically screamed. "Why were y'all talking about my mama like that?"
"Because your mother was a whore!" his mother spat back at me before bursting into a fresh batch of tears.
"No, she wasn’t!" I screamed back at her. "You're wrong."
"I know who was sleeping with my husband, Molly," Mrs. Chambers replied wearily. "And I know who fathered your baby brother and it sure wasn't your daddy."
"Liar!" I screamed, frantic now. "What are you talking about? Of course my father was Bobby's father!"
"No, Molly Sue, he wasn't," she choked out. "That baby was the result of an affair with my husband."
"Molls – Molly, please," Stepping in front of me, Daryl caught ahold of my face and forced me to look at him. "If you love me – if you have ever loved me, even a little – then walk out of this house right now. Don’t listen to them. Please, baby, I'll explain everything to you. Just not like this. You don’t deserve to hear it like this…"
"Do what?" I sobbed, trembling violently. "What's happening here?"
"You want the truth?" Wretched piped up. "Fine, I'll give you it to you, warts and all. Your daddy doesn’t think you can handle it. It's the reason he shipped out of state, but if you're gonna come waltzing into my house, making demands, then you're sure as shit gonna take what you get."
"Molly, please," Daryl begged, sounding like he was about to reach his breaking point. "Mama, stop him. Please, she doesn’t deserve to find out this way. Molly, baby, don’t listen to him –"
"Wren, Daryl is right. Don’t do this –"
"Your mother set the fire."
Numb.
I was numb.
I couldn’t feel anything at all.
All I could do was listen as my world was torn apart with every word that spilled from these people's lips.
A pained, feral noise escaped Daryl and his shoulders slumped in defeat, hands falling limply at his sides.
"Crazy bitch couldn’t take no for an answer, so she killed herself and she tried to take her children with her."