by Storm, Sloan
Yet a soft smile came to corners of Grey’s perfect lips. His chocolate brown gaze lingered on my face, as it heated with rivulets of moisture. With his thumbs, he smoothed them away, brushing tender strokes across the skin of my cheeks.
“Maddie,” he began. His voice cracked a little. “I’m not upset. I promise. Whatever is going on, you can tell me.”
I averted my gaze and with a sniffle I broke loose of his soft embrace. As I turned and began to walk back to the bed, he continued, “Is it… the picture? What’s happened?”
“No, no, it’s not the picture. No,” I muttered.
As I plopped down on the bed, he walked over to me. I swished the sheets across my stomach. He didn’t seem to notice.
“Look,” he began. “Whatever it is. You can tell me.”
I chewed my lip.
“Because whatever you’re doing here, Maddie,” he said, as he lifted his arms up and gestured around my small bedroom. “It can’t continue. It just can’t. If you’re this sick, we have got to get you to a doctor. I’m not going to allow you to suffer like this.”
I was out of time and options. Exhausted by the demands of evasion, I balled the sheets together in my hands and looked down at the floor.
“Maddie?”
Inhaling, I took one final swallow and drew my eyes up to his.
“I’m not sick, Grey.”
He scoffed. Grey shook his head as a withering exhale sputtered from between his lips. Frustration creased his brow.
“I’m pregnant, Grey,” I confessed. “I’m… pregnant.”
Sternness spread to his lips as he thinned them at me. He looked down at me for several moments in silence. At last he raised his chest a fraction and crossed his arms over it.
“I see.”
I bit my lip and avoided his gaze once again. A chill pierced me.
His voice turned stern, businesslike. “When were you planning on telling me this?”
I groaned and rolled back on to my bed, swaddling myself with the sheets.
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
“What?” he replied. His voice had an edge to it. The tone cracked against my heart like a whip.
I remained motionless, unable to form a response.
“Maddie.”
Closing my eyes, I squeezed them shut and fired back, “I. Don’t. Know!”
The chill consumed me now as I lay there with my back to him. My body began to shake and I drew my legs up to my chest, trying anything to offset the sudden iciness in the room.
“Are you in danger?” he asked. “Are you dealing with complications? Is that why you’re here?”
Shocked, my eyes flipped open. One look at my expression would have given me away for sure. Doing my best to keep a hard swallow silent, I lied, “No, it’s nothing like that. Just normal pregnancy issues.”
He cleared his throat. “All right then. That’s good to know.”
Relieved for the moment, I continued to stare at the wall.
“You told me you were on birth control, Maddie.”
My eyes drifted closed. The joy I’d hoped to share turned to crushing loneliness as he hovered nearby, cross-examining me. Grief spread across me, filling me with despair. This could just as easily been done over the phone or even a text message. The joyful reunion I’d longed for was not to be, not with him.
“I was,” I grumbled. A tear streamed down my cheek and spread across the pillow.
“So how is it you’re pregnant? Exactly?” he said. Before I could answer, he continued, “It seems to me that if you were, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“It’s not foolproof, Grey,” I hissed.
“Apparently.”
I heard him turn and begin to walk to the other side of them room. The heels of his loafers clopped against the floor as he moved.
“Does Katy know about this?”
“Yes,” I said with a growing frustration in my voice. I felt like I was being interrogated. “Of course she knows. She’s my best friend.”
“Mmm, hmm,” he said. “Look at me, Maddie.”
Listless, I pushed myself up and turned to face him.
“I’m glad you’re okay. I’ll take some time to consider this news and let you know my decision. Goodbye.”
With that, he turned and began to walk out of the bedroom.
Goodbye?
A wave of horror and disbelief broke over me. I threw the sheets off and ran after him. Hooking my hand against the door jamb, I yelled, “Goodbye?! Decision about what, Grey?”
Without turning back to face me, he continued to walk down the hall towards the front door.
“Grey!” I screamed. “Come back! Please!”
The pace of his stride never altered. As he passed by a stunned Katy, her eyes traced his movements like a wary marksman. At last, he opened the door and began to step through it into the hallway.
“Grey!” I cried out. “Grey!”
GREY
You’d think that having more money than you need or ever hope to spend in your lifetime would give you the goddamn freedom you need to enjoy it while you’re alive. Yet here I sat, at thirty-eight thousand feet in the air, winging my way across the globe in my jet to wrap up another mind-numbing deal.
Funny thing is, I didn’t use to think of them like that. The face-to-face, pressing-the-flesh interactions. Hell, I lived for it. After all, business is the ultimate form of combat. Life or death. Survive or die and I fucking loved everything about it. So I always took the responsibility that came with it in stride, despite the inconvenience.
Were they tedious? Yeah.
Unnecessary? Almost without exception. I nearly always got the exact same terms I negotiated over the phone.
But mind numbing? No. No. Not that.
For as long as I could remember, the high I got from closing a large transaction, well, not much else came close to pure pleasure in my world. But fuck all if this trip wasn’t the last thing I wanted to do right now.
Half a bottle of vodka gone, I waved off my flight attendant, Melanie, as she offered me some water.
“Ice,” I grunted. “And a goddamn fresh glass.”
Melanie swallowed hard as she took the crystal from the table in front of me. The snarl in my tone reflected in her hands, which trembled as she attempted to steady the tray.
With a slow blink and a deep exhale, I swallowed and said, “I’m um, sorry. Sorry about that Melanie, sweetheart.”
A nervous smile flickered at the corner of her mouth. “It’s okay. Anything else Mr. Sinclair?”
I shook my head. “No, dear. Just the fresh glass and some ice, please. Thank you.”
Melanie turned and walked away, disappearing from view as she returned to the galley at the front of the aircraft. Resting my elbow on the table, I closed my fingers together and pinched my lips between them.
I stared in her direction, looking at nothing.
The sound of ice cubes dancing inside a glass broke my train of thought for a moment. A few seconds later, Melanie reappeared. As she swung into view, I noticed the tray contained a full ice bucket and four clean rocks glasses. She placed it down on the table without comment. I allowed her to do so without observation.
After she finished, she nodded at me.
“Anything else Mr. Sinclair?”
I shook my head. “No. Not right now.”
She turned to walk back to the front.
A few seconds later, she’d vanished again. Grabbing the vodka bottle, I tilted it upward. The liquid gurgled into the glass, splashing out in random drops as it ricocheted off the sharp angles of the cubes. I placed the bottle back down on the table with a single thump and then lifted the glass to my mouth.
The alcohol no longer burned as I gulped it down. Numbness took its place.
Finally.
I poured another. And another. I must have hammered back three glasses in five minutes.
With each one, the heat from the booze hit me later and later until at
last I reached the point I wanted, needed. Nothingness. I wrapped my fingers around the sharp cold of the glass, and slugged one more back with two hard swallows.
The alcohol coursed through my veins, relaxing my muscles.
My mind though…
Melanie had a boy. Lucas I think his name was. That sounds shitty doesn’t it? Why wouldn’t I know the name of the woman’s son, when I spent probably a quarter of my waking life with his mother? It wasn’t intentional. I just never paid much attention to children. Seen and not heard kind of thing.
I never cared for my own childhood much. Couldn’t fucking wait to grow up, really. After my father died so young, I was in a goddamn hurry despite my grandfather’s care. It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate the man or what he did, but a boy without a father is like a ship without a captain. Rudderless, adrift and ready to run aground at any minute.
I beached my early years more than I cared to goddamn remember.
I exhaled as the effects of the vodka kicked in, at last.
I’d even met him a couple of times, Melanie’s boy. Polite enough. She seemed like a great mother. Frankly, she never spoke much about him, but I suppose that’s because I never asked. I mean, she’s doing her goddamn job and everything. She probably figured it wasn’t appropriate. Man, if I could get a hundred Melanies working for me, what a pleasure my life would be.
Fucking Maddie.
What the hell was she thinking? I thinned my lips as I looked out small oval window into the blackness of the night sky. A hard swallow forced its way down my throat. I never suspected she’d be this goddamn irresponsible. Months she’d kept this from me!
Shit.
What had I done not to deserve her trust? I’d given her everything. A start in business, a rekindled acting career. She owed it to me to tell me. I flicked at the edge of the empty glass, spinning it like a top on the table in front of me. Looking up, I noticed Melanie peeking around the corner at me. A soft smile came to her face as I caught her glance.
“Do you need anything, sir?”
What I needed, she couldn’t give me.
Shaking my head, I broke her gaze and looked out the window once more.
The hum of the aircraft always soothed me. Thousands of parts working in absolute synchronicity, propelling me tens of thousands of feet in the air, getting me anywhere I wanted to go in the world in a matter of hours.
Fucking amazing, really.
Even so, the tiniest malfunction could bring the beauty of it all crashing to the ground, obliterating it, and me, in the process.
How goddamn long was she gonna keep this a secret? Jesus fucking Christ!
I snatched the bottle and swung it to my mouth, gulping the last of it down. I drank so fast, some dribbled out, spilling down my chin. I slammed the bottle down on the table and chuckled as I wiped the wetness from my face.
The kid was coming.
What the fuck was she going to do? Show up to the set with a goddamn stroller and then tell me? I scoffed and shook my head in disgust in silence for several moments.
“Melanie,” I slurred as I cast another glance towards her. “Another bottle, honey.”
She nodded, grabbed one and hustled over to me. Cracking the bottle open with a flourish, she placed it down on the table in front of me.
“Mr. Sinclair?”
I licked my lips as I reached for it. “Hmm?”
“Are you… okay?”
I lifted my head at her and exhaled. Melanie’s face softened with concern.
“Tell me about your son,” I said, shrugging her off.
Her face brightened a bit as she tugged a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Lucas?” she asked.
Well shit, I did get it right after all.
“Yep, Lucas.”
“Um, what do you want to know?”
“Don’t care. Anything.”
She proceeded to tell me a story about a school project he’d done. A science thing or some such. I only half-listened. More than anything, I watched her face and body language. You can’t fake that shit. People think it’s easy to lie but the body gives it away. You can’t hide from the truth. Or run from it.
As she finished, I nodded.
“Thank you, honey.” I said. “Sounds like a damn fine young man.”
“Yes sir, he is. He’s my entire world.”
I looked at her as she spoke but didn’t reply.
“Why did you want to know about him? If you don’t mind me asking?”
Pouring another glass, I glanced up at her.
“No reason, Melanie. No reason at all.”
MADDIE
“Maddie, please…” Katy begged. “You can’t do this to yourself. You have to eat.”
“Why?” I moaned.
With my head resting on the pillow, I dragged the nail of my index finger in a lazy, mindless maze.
“Why should I care anymore?” I whispered. “Grey doesn’t.”
Katy clapped her hands together in fury.
“Fuck Grey!” she screamed. “Maddie, you’ve got to get it together! Please! You’re going to hurt the baby. Is that what you want?”
Listless, I moved my hand back down towards my stomach and touched my belly as Katy chastised me. Grey would tell me to get rid of the child. That would be his ‘decision’. I was certain of it. That is, if I ever saw him again.
Katy, good friend that she was, strategized and plotted any number of ways I could force him to fulfill his obligations as father but I didn’t care. If he didn’t want the child, I just didn’t care anymore.
When he left, I broke down. He crushed me.
I cried so much in the days afterward, my throat hurt. And now the dull ache served as an ever present reminder of his cruelty and my foolishness. I wondered what I could have said or done to change his mind.
I didn’t care that he didn’t want me. I just didn’t want him to go.
That’s… twisted… I know.
I can’t explain it and no one, least of all Katy, would understand. So, I didn’t try. It didn’t matter. Nothing did anymore. I slid my hands into my unwashed hair and pulled it down over my face, retreating beneath the dirty strands. Katy paused in her berating of me and sat down on the bed. She started to rub my back, an all too familiar ritual now.
“Maddie,” she began. “This can’t go on. Honey, look. Grey is a piece of shit, forget about him.”
I inhaled a deep, shaky breath as she finished. I couldn’t take it any longer. Elbowing her off of me, I shot into a seated position, ripping the sheets aside. Katy recoiled in a mix of horror and disbelief.
“Shut up, Katy! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” I screamed as tossed my head back and forth. Shaking, I covered my ears and yelled, “I’m in love with him. Goddamn it! Can’t you see that! I love him. I love him. I love him! And now… he’s gone. My heart is broken, Katy. I’m broken…”
Grief poured from me as my aching tear ducts produced yet more evidence of my sorrow.
“Ohhhh,” I sobbed as I reached for her in desperation. “Ohhh, Katy.” I sucked in gulps of air between each sob. “I love him. I love him. I-I love him so much.”
Katy swept me into her arms and cradled me. I could feel the heat from my tears and my breath meeting the coolness of her arms as I wept.
“Maddie, shh, oh my goodness. Oh, honey. I’m so sorry. Shhh… please.”
I broke free from her and collapsed back into the bed. As my head hit the pillow I stared up at the ceiling through a haze of tears. I didn’t bother to wipe them away. More would surely follow. I continued to choke for bits of breath as I cried. Katy moved up close and did her best to try and console me.
“What am I going to do, Katy?” I muttered. “I’m so afraid.”
“I know you are, honey. I know,” she replied. “It’s going to be okay.”
“No,” I choked. “It isn’t. I-It’s going to get worse, Katy. Much, much worse. L-Look at me! Grey’s gone and I’ve got nothing. The baby’s
not going to live. I can feel it.”
“No, no… Maddie. You can’t talk that way. Please don’t do that, honey. I’m begging you.”
I looked up at her and nodded. My breath hitched in between sobs.
“It’s true, Katy. I can feel it.”
Katy swallowed me with her upper body again, hugging me close. Tears convulsed from me as I leaned into her shoulder, wetting it with my despair. I couldn’t believe he didn’t care. Didn’t love me. It just didn’t seem real. And the baby, oh my poor child. I should have listened to Dr. Simms. Oh, what a terrible thing I’d done. A terrible, awful thing. Just then, Katy pulled away and looked down at me.
“Maddie,” she began. “I’m just going to go get my phone and make a couple of calls. I’ll be right back. I promise. Okay?”
Half-listening, I stared back at her. After a sniffle I replied, “What about work? Aren’t you going back?”
She shook her head. “No. No way. I’ll be right here with you all day. I promise.”
I nodded. I felt my face wrinkle with ugliness once again as tears streamed. Katy reached to the nightstand and grabbed a couple of tissues, passing them to me.
“Here, sweetie.”
I took them from her and smeared away the sorrow from my cheeks.
“Will you be okay for a few minutes?”
“Yeah,” I whispered. “Thank you, Katy.”
She smiled and stood from the bed. Tugging a strand of her cinnamon brown hair behind her ear, she said, “Are you sure you don’t want anything to eat? Drink? A glass of water at least?”
I nodded. “Okay. A glass of water.”
Katy reached down and caressed my arm with her palm.
“Okay, honey. I’ll be right back.”
“Mmm, hmm.”
I rolled my head the pillow and followed her with my eyes as she walked out of the bedroom.. I’d cried all the tears it felt like I had within me. After a deep exhale, I slid out from beneath the sheets and planted my bare feet on the floor. Just then, I heard Katy in the living room making the calls she’d mentioned.
I pushed myself up from the bed and stood, readying myself for a quick bathroom break. As I did, I got a dreadful glimpse of myself in the mirror. Pale, disheveled, fat. Ugh, it literally could not get any worse. I puffed out a breath of disgust and began to make my way to the bedroom door.