The Trap (Prequel)

by Beverley Kendall

Startled, she quickly removes a washcloth from her forehead, tosses it on the nightstand and pushes up onto her elbows. “I thought you said you weren’t coming until after lunch.”

  “My sister came home early and took Tess and Doug to their swimming lessons so I didn’t have to stay.” I advance toward the bed. Normally, all I’d be thinking about is joining her there and fooling around for a while. Now all I can think is it was all that fooling around that got us into this mess. Because really that’s what this is. One giant complicated mess.

  “Why didn’t you call and tell me then?” she asks, her voice a bit raspy.

  Since I don’t know will either piss her off or make her cry, I don’t say anything as I take a seat next to her on the side of the bed. She raises herself to a sitting position. Her long hair is a tangled mess and she’s not wearing any makeup—not that she wears much to begin with. But today she’s unusually pale.

  “How’re you feeling?” I ask instead. “Your mom says you’re not feeling well.”

  “Not so great,” she admits with a grimace.

  “Yeah, looks like you had a hard night.”

  “More like I had a hard morning.” She gives me this weird look and I stare back at her. “As in morning sickness,” she elaborates.

  “Oh yeah, right.” Shit, everything in my head is kind of fuzzy right now. I’m not thinking straight. “So I was thinking a lot about…everything. I’m going to transfer to one of the local universities so I can live at home and be close to you and the baby.” I hope to God she’s not expecting a proposal. We may not be too young to make a baby but we’re way too young to get married. I’m far from ready for that.

  Paige’s eyes flare with emotion and her mouth starts to tremble. “Mitch, are you sure?” she asks in a hushed, anxious voice.

  Am I sure?

  I suppress a dark laugh because my girlfriend’s staring at me as if her entire future depends on my answer. She doesn’t want to know the truth. I don’t think she could stand to hear how I truly feel and what I really want to do.

  Escape. Run.

  The only thing stopping me is that I love her and she’s having my kid. A powerful combination if ever there was to step up to the plate. So I bottle up the toxic mix of anger and resentment I can’t seem to shake, and bury it as deep as it can possibly go.

  “Yeah, I’m sure. You’re going to need me closer and I’m going to need to get a job. I might only be able to go to school part-time.” My sister manages the trust that was set up for me when our parents died. Even after Diane insisted I have her half, the money from their life insurance isn’t enough to set me up for life but it would have been able to go a long way if managed properly. A baby will definitely take a chunk out of that.

  Paige isn’t normally a crier so when she does—like now—her tears are their own form of kryptonite. Talk about being taken down for the count. Yeah, that’s me. I’ll do anything short of murder to make them stop. In this case, I pull her into my arms, taking care not to smush her boobs.

  “I’m soooo sorry.” She sniffs as her tears soak through my t-shirt. I kiss her wet cheek as she clutches my shoulders then winds her arms tightly around my neck.

  “Paige, I’m not blaming you,” I murmur softly into her ear. “We did what we could. This isn’t your fault so no apologies.” Logically, I know that’s true but a small part of me will always wonder if this wasn’t something she could have prevented, which of course makes me feel like shit.

  She cries harder and burrows into me.

  I get it. Birth control was her responsibility and now she’s probably feeling guilty as hell. As much as this baby is going to change my entire life, I don’t want that. If we’d stuck with condoms and I hadn’t dumped the responsibility of birth control completely in her lap, we wouldn’t be in this situation.

  “Hey, come on. I’d thought you’d be happy to have me closer. Remember how much you’ve been complaining you never see me? Well you’re going to be seeing me practically everyday from now on,” I tease, hoping that will stop the tears.

  If anything, she cries even harder. Suddenly she stiffens, pulls back and her hand flies to her mouth. I hear a muffled, “I think I’m going to be sick,” before she makes a dash for the door. She fumbles with the knob for a second before she wrenches it open.

  By the time I follow her into the hall, she’s in the bathroom heaving over the toilet.

  Crap! Bring on the morning sickness.

  I hurry to her side. “Hey, you okay?”

  She’s puking her guts out. Of course she’s not, dumbass.

  I’m officially as useful as training wheels on a Harley. But what are guys supposed to do in situations like this, except to stand there looking like we don’t know our ass from our elbow?

  After she finishes, she remains bent at the waist panting, her hair a curtain hiding her face. When she finally answers, she won’t look at me. “Please leave. I don’t want you to see me like this.”

  “You want me to get you some crackers or something?” Aren’t they supposed to settle the stomach? I know my sister practically lived on them the first few months she was pregnant with both her kids.

  Head still down, Paige moves to the sink and turns on the water. “Okay. Maybe they’ll help.”

  That’s what she says but I think she just wants me out of her hair for a bit. I guess no girl wants her boyfriend to see her like this. The last glimpse I have of her, she’s dabbing toothpaste on her toothbrush.

  All is quiet when I make my way downstairs and into the kitchen. I’ve fixed myself enough sandwiches in here over the years that I know where everything I need is. I grab a plate from the cupboard over the microwave and locate a box of crackers in the small pantry.

  “You got everything you need in there, sweetheart?”

  My head jerks around hard enough to give me a mild case of whiplash. Mrs. Nichols is standing at the entrance watching me, her expression not conveying a hint of suspicion. Then why do I feel as if I’ve been caught breaking and entering?

  “No—uh—no, I’m good.” I hold up a sleeve of crackers. “You were right, Paige isn’t feeling well. I thought I’d get her something to eat.”

  Lame lame lame lame. She’s going to see right through this whole cracker ploy for what it is. Attempts to settle her pregnant daughter’s stomach.

  Mrs. Nichols lets out an audible sigh as her brow puckers in sympathy. “Poor thing. Those cramps have always been such a nightmare. For that reason alone, I wish she’d remained on the Pill.”

  For the second time in as many days, everything stops. My breathing. My heart. And I’m pretty sure the couple seconds it takes for her words to register and their meaning to sink in, time grinds to a halt too.

  Paige’s mother chokes back a laugh as she takes in my expression. “Oh dear, weren’t you supposed to know that I knew my daughter was on the Pill? Or is it me talking about a woman’s cycle that embarrassed you?” she asks, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

  I clear my throat. “Uh no.” It’s a billion times worse than that.

  “Good. It’s just hard to see her suffering like this every month, especially not if she doesn’t have to.” She looks pointedly at the crackers in my hand. “I used to give her them to settle her stomach back then too.”

  I’m still locked in this sort of weird limbo fog of disbelief when she says, “Give me a shout if you need anything.” She turns to leave then pauses and shoots a glance back at me. “Oh and you may want to take some strawberry jam up with that. That’s how she likes them.” With that, she disappears down the hall.

  It takes me at least another minute to get my shit together, to control the emotion building inside. I’m too fuckin’ calm when I dump some crackers on the plate and take the stairs back up to her room.

  Paige doesn’t know it yet, but the course of this whole thing has just changed.

  Chapter Five

  Paige

  The second Mitch comes back, I don’t sense somethi
ng’s wrong, I know it. When he walks over to the bed and hands me the plate of crackers, his expression is carefully blank. Accompanying his return and clinging to him like a second skin is a draft of wintery air.

  Wholly unnerved, I accept the plate slowly and watch him with mounting apprehension. Instead of resuming his seat on the bed, with a fleeting glance at me, he moves and stations himself in front of the window. There he shoves his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and peers through the vertical blinds out into the backyard. There’s not much to see back there but a square, concrete patio and a small lawn that my mom’s boyfriend, Randy, insisted on mowing last week.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He doesn’t answer, just keeps staring out the window but it’s obvious he’s not looking at anything in particular. Plus his jaw is tight and his shoulders are bunched, which is the way he gets when he’s tense.

  “Mitch?” I prompt, my anxiety climbing at double-digit increments.

  “Are you still on birth control?”

  My heart jumps at the question. My stomach promptly sinks at the cold flatness of his tone.

  He knows.

  It takes me a few seconds to work up the nerve to reply. “Not anymore.” My voice is so faint it’s almost nonexistent. I know exactly what’s coming and it’s fear that has me by the throat. Fear that’s making it so hard to breathe and too easy to hyperventilate.

  He angles his head toward me, one eyebrow quirked. “Games? Alright, I’ll play. Were you taking birth control the last time we had sex?” he asks with exaggerated patience. But that tone is contradicted by the prominence of the bulging vein running down the side of his neck.

  Had I an hour to prepare myself for this question, I don’t know that I’d be able to answer it. Not to his face. The guilt however, I’m pretty certain, is clear as day on my face.

  Hands still deep in his pockets, he advances to where I’m sitting frozen on the bed. I can see the delineation of every muscle in his arms—tanned, taut and hard. Tense.

  “Your mom thinks you have the cramps and she says if you hadn’t gone off the Pill you wouldn’t have to deal with them.”

  It’s an affectation, the conversational tone he employs. His jaw is working as if it’s cracking walnuts and in his eyes is an emotion I’ve never seen directed at me.

  Loathing. Disgust. Seething anger. A ticking bomb ready to explode.

  For the first time in my life, I wish I had lied to my mom. She’d been poking around in my bathroom looking for eyeliner when she’d found my pills—two untouched containers of them, the date of the prescriptions months old. When she’d asked me if I’d stopped taking them, I’d had no reason to lie to her. She knew the problem I’d been having finding the “right” pill—something without the side effects I’d been experiencing since I’d gone on birth control. Plus, with Mitch in New York most of the year, I wasn’t having sex all that much. Better to go back to using condoms, which I’d planned on telling him the next time he came home.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you’d gone off the Pill, Paige?” Every word of his question is painstakingly enunciated.

  I gulp hard and briefly avert my gaze from his.

  Slowly I swing my legs from the bed and onto the carpeted floor. It takes all the courage in me to stand and look him directly in the eye. “I wasn’t thinking. I swear, Mitch, I forgot.”

  At the spark of disbelief and building storm in his eyes, I hurry on to say, “I wasn’t expecting to see you and I was so happy to see you…I forgot.”

  “That’s bullshit and you know it,” he growls in this deep, dark, scary ass voice. His anger is so palpable I might have retreated if the backs of my thighs weren’t already butting the mattress.

  “You should have fuckin’ told me you’d stopped taking the goddamn pill.”

  The sound that emerges from my throat is so fearful and guilt-ridden it’s barely above a whisper. “I’m sorry, I—we kinda got carried away…”

  “No,” he bites out in a voice that causes me to flinch. “This wasn’t an accident. You did this shit on purpose.”

  There is more than accusation in his voice. He’s already convicted me.

  “Mitch, you know my situation. Do you honestly think I’d get pregnant on purpose?” I know this looks bad but I can’t believe he thinks that little of me. That I’d be capable of something like that. God, it isn’t as if my life isn’t hard enough. I already have one student loan and I work part-time waiting tables. I pay for my own clothes, cell phone and car insurance as well as helping my mom out every now and then when money’s tight. I’d be out of my mind to purposely get myself knocked up.

  His eyes narrow and his lips compress into an inflexible line. “You didn’t want me to go away to college. You blow up my phone almost every night, almost like you’re checking up on me. Oh, and you didn’t tell me you’d stop taking birth control. I don’t know, what do you think? Doesn’t that sound like a girl who set out to get pregnant so she could ruin her boyfriend’s life?”

  For the first time, my own anger catches fire and my face heats with it. “You told me you wanted to be with me just as much as I wanted to be with you. Who was willing to ask his sister to release money out of the trust to help pay for my tuition at Warwick? And you called me just as much as I called and texted you when you were at school, so don’t try to make this out like it’s all me and I’m some jealous shrew.”

  “You lied to me, Paige. Don’t you fuckin’ get it?” he says, breathing hellfire all over me as he gets right up in my face.

  Right then my anger dies a violent, defeated death and I can’t meet his gaze. “I swear, Mitch, I didn’t do it on purpose.” I tentatively edge my gaze back up to his. “You remember how it was that time. We didn’t even make it to your bedroom.”

  We hadn’t even made it to the couch the first time. We’d only gotten as far as the welcome mat at the front door. My top had been pushed up, my bra pushed to the side and my jeans and panties had only come off out of sheer necessity. Mitch’s jeans and boxer briefs had cleared his hips and that had been the extent of him undressing. What we’d done up against the wall of the front entrance had given a new meaning to the term fast and furious.

  If anything, what I say only makes him angrier. “I don’t care if sex between us literally caused the earth to shake and the sky to fall, you should have fuckin’ said something. You don’t forget shit like that unless you fuckin’ mean to.”

  If he wasn’t staring at me like I’m lower than pond scum, the fact that he’s dropping the f-bomb like there’s no tomorrow tells me just how pissed off he is. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve heard the word come out of his mouth the entire time we’ve been together.

  “Mitch, I said I’m sorry. What more do you want me to say?” Nothing I say now can undo the past.

  “How about you try telling me the truth.” He steps back as if he can’t stand to be near me anymore.

  “I told you the truth,” I protest weakly, doing my best to stem the onslaught of tears.

  “Yeah right,” he snaps, treating me to a look of utter contempt. When he turns on his heels and starts toward the door, I unconsciously follow him there. Before I can say another word, he’s already bounding down the stairs.

  I’m so stunned by his abrupt departure, all I can do is listen to him leave, the front door rattling shut behind him. Seconds later, his car roars to life.

  I stand there, my hands white-knuckling the doorknob of my bedroom door until I can’t hear his car anymore.

  “Paige,” my mom calls out from downstairs.

  Still in a state of shock, I step out into the hall and approach the stairs, the pain in my chest near crippling. I peer down at my mom, who is standing at the bottom, her hand on the railing.

  “Did Mitch leave already?” she asks, looking perplexed.

  I’m afraid that if I try to speak I’ll break, so I just nod.

  My mom starts up the stairs toward me, her puzzled expression
now full-blown concern. “Honey, what’s wrong? Did you guys get into a fight?”

  The closer she draws toward me, the harder it is to hold back my tears. My mouth starts to tremble and tears pool in my eyes. The thought of losing Mitch and just thinking about what I’m about to put my mom through is more pain than I think I can bear.

  “Oh baby, what’s wrong?” she asks, her voice getting all panicky with alarm.

  She hurries the last few steps to the top, immediately pulling me into her arms.

  That’s when I completely lose it. There’s no stopping the tears now and they come hard and strong.

  “Paige baby, what is it?”

  She holds my face gently in her palms, her tone urgent.

  I have to catch my breath before I can say it. “I’m pregnant.”

  A shocked breath escapes her lips. There’s a pause then she closes her eyes and breathes deeply through her nose. When her eyes open again, there’s no mistaking how hard the news has hit her. She looks devastated.

  A sob catches in my throat.

  “Oh honey.” Her voice is soft and mournful.

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” I whisper hoarsely, almost incoherent in my grief.

  She hugs me tighter and I bury my face in the crook of her neck, crying my heart out.

  “Don’t worry, honey, I’m here for you. We’ll get through this together.”

  The entire time she’s hugging me, whispering comforting words in my ear, the only thing I can think about is Mitch. Is he going to be there for me?

  * * *

  Mitch

  Betrayed. Duped. Conned. That’s how I feel.

  And I trusted her. If anyone had told me that Paige would try to fuck me over this way, I’d have told them they were full of it. Paige pull some shit like this? Never in a million years. Not the Paige I know.

  Yeah, that’s how much I know the real Paige.

  Why I ever thought she was different is beyond me. I mean this happened to two former buddies of mine, Carl and Don. You know where they are now? Working dead-end jobs. Tied down with a girlfriend and baby. We lost touch after high school—they barely graduated—but I see them around now and then. They both look like life screwed them over well and good. Someone told me Carl is on baby number two. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that their girlfriends had pulled the same shit.