“Just remember that you’ve been through a lot. Don’t burden yourself with the past. Look yo the future, I know there’s a lot you can both do and accomplish. You’re special whether you know that or not, you are. Damn, I’ve missed talking to you,” he admits, and my heart warms.
“I have too. I wanted to tell you just how sorry I am for running away. I didn’t handle leaving the way I should have but at the time, I felt like if I did open up with either you or Chase, I knew you would have stopped me. It was something I felt I needed to do at that time. I knew I was spiraling down out of control and I didn’t want to take you down with me. I can’t change what I did, I can’t change who I became I just need you to know that from the bottom of my heart, I’m sorry.”
“You did what you needed to do. You needed to do it your way, I get that but I was so confused. I knew you weren’t coping with Clint’s death, and the Jo situation didn’t help, not at all. But I wish you would have spoken to me, to ask for help. I know I thought, at the time that I was doing all I could to help you through it all, but I now know that I didn’t help at all. I should have offered to take you to counseling. I should have called a doctor to the house to check you over, and I should have tried to get you help for the drinking.” He pauses, “I failed you. I failed you in a way I can never forgive myself for. I should have done more. I should have seemed help, because if I had, you might have gotten through it and I would have had the right tools to get you through that horrid time in your life.” I can see that his emotions are getting the better of him and once again, my heart breaks.
I still love this man. I still want to be close to him but I know I don’t deserve him. I never will. Never again can I call him mine. Never again will he hold me at night. I’ll never have the chance to make things up to him because of what I did.
Placing my coffee down on the table, I look over at him. “You didn’t fail me, I failed me. I wholeheartedly believe that there would have been absolutely nothing anyone could have said or done to ‘save me’. If I’d stayed in LA, I would have driven you away. I would have alienated myself from anyone or everyone that cared for me. I was determined to pull a ‘Leaving Los Vegas’. I was determined to drink myself to death because at the time, it felt right. My abandonment issues regarding that bitch of a mother of mine, and the fact that I walked in and I saw my father dead, were buried so deep that I didn’t know how else to deal with it all.” Thank fuck for anti-depressants. If doctor Mcalister hadn’t prescribed them I know I wouldn’t have come as far as I have in regards to sobriety. I would have found a way out of that place. I would have gone straight back to the pills and alcohol. I’m grateful to him.
“You’ve come so far. I’m so proud of you, Mia.” He then also placed his mug down on the table. “Can I hug you? I won’t try anything, I promise. I’ve just missed you, and I’m so glad you stayed in treatment.”
“Of course, you can.”
Carter comes closer and I revile in his embrace. Fuck me, I’ve missed this, I’ve missed him. His scent has always stuck in my mind. He always wears Escape For Men by Calvin Klein. It’s a scent I’ve always loved.
Memories come flooding back. The feeling I used to have when I’d see him, back when we would come together, has my heart thumping against my ribs, and as hard as I try to keep my tears at bay, my emotions get the better of me, and soon enough, my tears turn to sobs.
“It’s okay. It’s all going to be okay. You just need to get through these first few days of being sober and not in the rehab facility. You’re going to be emotional. It’s all apart of your recovery. While you were in the facility, I sought held from your doctor. He explained what may happen when you were released and he was kind enough to talk me through the emotions you might feel. Just know that I will ‘always’ without fail, put you first. I will always worry and care about you. You were, and still are my one true love. That will never change regardless of whether you want to see me again.”
Bastard. I wish he would move forward, I can’t be with him again. I don’t deserve his forgiveness.
Not knowing what to do, I pull away from him. “I’m really sorry, but I need to be alone. I can’t ever be with you again, it’s not fair to you. I’ve done things that I don’t deserve forgiveness for. If only you knew. If you knew, then you would hate me forever.” Abruptly, I pull out of him arms and I stand.
Looking up at me with red rimmed eyes, he tell me, “Nothing you could have done will ever make me hate you. Nothing.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about! You have no fucking idea! Get out!” I scream at the very top of my lungs, but it’s difficult because of the lump in my throat. I can’t stop crying; my chest is heaving to where I can barely breathe. “Please leave!” Without thinking, I then race into my bedroom and I slam and lock the door behind me.
Dropping to the ground, my back rests against the door, and I continue to wail.
Carter knocks on the door a couple of times begging me to open the door, but all I wanted was for him to go away.
Finally, when I hear the door to the suite open and close, I know what o need.
Desperate for repeat of any kind, I call downstairs and I order a bottle of bourbon and although they don’t sell them, I promise the man that took the call I would tip him one hundred dollars if he ran out and purchased me a packet of cigarettes from the local Bodega and bring it up to me.
As I waited, I continued to cry. I couldn’t breathe properly, but eventually, I get some air, and I keep crying, but it’s calmed.
Once the bottle and cigarettes are delivered, I tip the kid and I send him on his way.
Quickly, I rip open the packet of cigarettes and a huge wave of relief sweeps over me with the first drag back of smoke.
Standing in the kitchenette, I stand back and I stare at the unopened bootle of booze, and I try to fight the urge to crack the cap and guzzle it’s contents.
Six cigarettes later, the door to the suite opens, but I don’t look up. I keep my focus on that damn bottle.
“Mia,” Chase says cautiously. “Mia, What are you doing?” He questions as he approaches.
“I need to forget
“What do you need to forget?”
“Bad things.”
“What bad things?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“I would never judge you.”
“Yes, you would.”
“Never.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You’re hellbent on punishing yourself.”
“Because I deserve to be punished.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Fucking hell!” I yell, and I look up at him, my anger burning through my veins. “Stop it! Just stop it! You don’t know shit!”
He steps closer, he’s now just out of arms reach. “Tell me. Tell me what happened. Lay it all on me because you’re clearly traumatised, and you need to heal. Lay it all on me. Let ‘me’ take the burden. Let ‘me’ be the one to sort it out on your behalf. I love you, I’ll always love you. I desperately need you to know that my love, is unconditional. That no matter what horrid things you think you’ve done, will never make a difference to me. Let me hold your pain. Please let it out. Please leave the past where it belongs, in the past.”
“No, no I can’t. I need to suffer, it’s exactly what I deserve.” And my anger Wells within my soul and I grab the bottle and I throw it against the wall, the bottle shatters and the liquid trickles down the wall. And I race back towards my room where I once again lock the door and I flop face first on the bed and I cry until I’m exhausted and I fall off to sleep.
***
Blood, there so much blood it coats the floor before me.
Desperate, I crawl across the floor, and over to the small round table that rests underneath the window. However, as I reach up to collect my phone, the pain in my stomach becomes too much and once again, I black out before the pain makes me scream.
“Mia! Mia! Wake the fuck up
! Mia!”
I open my eyes and I realise it was just a dream, but once again I was transported back to that night. The night that would change me forever.
“Mia, What the hell is going on? You keep having nightmares. What, what happened to you? You need to tell me now!”
The sobs are aching, and I don’t have the strength to hold this in anymore. I can’t keep harbouring the guilt. I know everyone will walk away from me the moment the words leave my lips, but it’s a chance I need to take.
After a couple of minutes, I calm myself down just enough to speak. “I was pregnant. I was pregnant with Carters baby when I left, but I didn’t know I was. One night, when I was high in a dirty motel room, a drug dealer came over, he wasn’t someone I knew but he’d heard that I would buy any drugs I could get my hands on. He came in, offered me some pills as a taste, but they were so much stronger than anything I’d been on, and I passed out. When I came too, sweetie was in pain, and when I looked down, I could see nothing but blood.” I have to take a breath, because my chest hurts so much. “The fucking asshole raped me! He raped me so brutally that the baby died! My fucking baby died because I was a selfish bitch! I was pregnant and on pills and booze! I was so high that the fucker raped me,” my breathing is now shallow, the pain almost too much to bear. “I don’t deserve love! I don’t deserve acceptance! I killed my fucking baby!” As I continue to wail, to my surprise Chance scoops me up in his arms.
“You didn’t know. You didn’t know you were pregnant! I know for a fact that if you knew you were pregnant, immediately you would have stopped the booze and pills. You would have gotten clean. None of this is your fault. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry you went through such a horrid ordeal. Let me take your pain. Let me help you. You can’t carry this burden.” He hugs me tighter. “That fucking asshole. How could someone think that rape is okay? You poor thing. You’ve been carrying this burden for so long you’ve forgotten how to live a normal existence. From this very moment forward, I want, no, scratch that, I ‘need’ you to confide in me. We can get through this together.”
“Everything okay?” I hear Carter ask from the doorway.
“No, it’s really not.”
“Sorry to barge in, but we could hear crying from my moms room.”
I can’t bring myself to look up at him.
“Will you be okay for a minute?”
All I can do is nod as I pull away from him and I bring my legs up and hug them.
“Be back in one minute, okay?”
Again, I nod because the lump in my throat is far too large to talk.
CARTER
as I sit in my room on the bed feeling sorry for myself, suddenly, I hear yelling coming from the hallway.
Scared, I hop up and I race down the corridor and when I realise it’s coming from Mia’s suite, I panic.
Fortunately, I still had my key to the room.
Nervous, I open the door to the suite, and I race over to Mia’s room.
Standing just inside her room, I ask if they’re okay. The sight of Mia, breaks me. She’s suffering, and I can’t help but feel guilty, knowing I caused her to cry earlier.
While Chase comes towards me, my eyes stay laser focused on the girl I love. I want to run over to her and take her in my arms and assure her that I’ll take care of her, but I doubt she’d let me near her.
When Chase has closed the door, he looks up at me, his expression grim, and it has my stomach churning.
“What’s going on?” I ask in a hushed manner.
He rests a hand on my shoulder. “Let’s take a seat.”
“Fuck me. You’ve got me scared. What is it? What happened?” Shit, maybe I don’t want to know.
Once Chase has me sitting at the table, he looks up at me, and I can see that he’s been crying. This cannot be good.
“You need to brace yourself. It’s not good. Not at all, and I need you to promise me that you won’t fly off the handle? If you can’t give me that guarantee, I won’t be able to fill you in. I need to know that Mia won’t have anything more to worry about.” The guy looks exhausted.
“I promise you I won’t fly off the handle, and I promise I won’t further upset Mia. Now, tell me what the fuck is going on!”
I whisper shout desperate for answers.
“Fine. When Mia left, and she began doing heavy drugs, a dealer gave her a taste of a new pill and it knocked her out.” He takes a breath, and I’m hoping to Hell he doesn’t say what I think he’s about to say. So I do my best to brace myself. “When she woke up, she was covered in blood. The fucker raped her, but that’s just part of it.”
My stomach is churning and my jaw behind to tingle, something that only happens when I want to throw up.
“Keep going.”
“It turns out, she was pregnant. She didn’t know.”
My mind is spinning. “The rapist for her pregnant?!” I’ll find the fucker and kill him.
Chase shakes his head. “No, she was pregnant with ‘your’ baby. She had no idea she was pregnant but the rape was so brutal, that she lost the baby. That’s what she was talking about when she told us ‘you’ll ‘hate’ me if only you knew what I’ve done’. Mia feels guilty, she feels guilty that she was doing drugs and booze while pregnant. I tried telling her that she wasn’t to blame because I know for a fucken fact that if she did know, she would have sobered up immediately. She’s beating herself up. Mia blames herself for the rape. She’s spent the last year drugged up because she can’t cope with the loss.”
Slouching, I feel defeated. “Why didn’t she tell us,” I whisper. Knowing Mia’s been dealing with this shit all on her own enrages me, but I have to keep my cool. I made that promise and I need to keep it.
“I ‘need’ to talk to her.”
“I don’t think that’s a great idea, dude.”
“That was my baby too. I need to tell her I don’t hate her. That’s why she didn’t tell me earlier. She was scared to death of how’d I’d react to the news. Let me see her.”
“Go, tell her, but I can’t guarantee she’ll want to see you. She’s suffering and when she’s like that, she usually wants to be alone,” he reminds me as he waves his hand toward her room.
“Thanks.” I stand and as I do, I pat his shoulder in thanks.
When my hand reaches the handle, I let go of a sigh, and I brace myself for what’s to come. Entering the room, I close the door behind me. Mia’s still hugging her legs sitting up, and she’s still crying. The sight of her being in so much pain, is almost too much to bare but I know I need to do this, I know I need to assure her I could never hate her.
Without another thought, I race over to her. I unwind her arms and I take her in mine. “I could never hate you. You didn’t know. You would’ve stopped if you knew you were pregnant. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry you went through all of this. I wish I’d been there. I wish I’d known.” I have to stop there because it’s becoming difficult to keep my emotions at bay. As much as I want to break down, Mia needs me to stay strong.
“I was the one that began drinking and taking pills, if I hadn’t of done it in the first place none of that would’ve happened. I wouldn’t have jeopardised our baby’s life. I’m a murderer!” She exclaims as she pounds her fists on my chest out of sheer anguish.
I pull her against me, I nuzzle my face in the nook of her neck, and I tell her, “No, you aren’t. You didn’t fucking know. You couldn’t have known. Please, realise that we all love you. I’ve always loved you, and I’ll keep loving you regardless of what happens. You are my everything. You are the only woman for me. Do you really think I’d still be here begging you to see that you aren’t worthless or a murder if I thought for even one second you were guilty of something?”
As Mia’s sobs subside, she looks up at me, her eyes are red, but it doesn’t take away from her natural beauty. Her plump lips are right there, just inches from my mouth, and my heart races.
Surprising me, Mia crashes her lips to mine. She pushes hersel
f up, until she’s straddling my lap.
Mia rides me until we’re left breathless and exhausted, but I still can’t believe she wanted me, she needed me as I need her.
As we lay back, Mia’s head is on my chest and I keep her wrapped up in my arms, I place a gentle kiss on the top of her head.
“You okay,” I ask in a whisper.
She raises her head, her eyes bore into mine. “Surprisingly, I am. I feel like a burden has been lifted from me. I feel like I can breathe again. I’ve had nothing but guilt running through me for so long now, that I got used to carrying the burden. Feeling guilty was my normal, it was all I knew. I never thought I’d feel ‘normal’ again. I need to show you something,” she says before sitting up. She grabs my t-shirt and she pulls it on.
Watching her move across the room, reminds me of all those times she has done the exact same thing in the past, and just like Mia said, I too feel normal again. That my life has fallen back into place.
When she comes back she sits on the edge of the bed, facing me and she’s holding a small wooden box with two teddy bears stamped on the front of the box.
“When I woke up in the hospital, and I was told about the baby, I had them arrange for him to be transported and cremated. This is where he rests. I take him everywhere.” Her eyes are welling with tears. “I haven’t named him because I knew that wouldn’t be fair on you,” she cries.
My heart aches. “It was a boy?” I whisper.
Nodding, she answers, “Yes. I was far along enough for them to be able to tell the sex.” Her tears turn into sobs.
Sitting up, I reach for her, and she lets me take her in my arms.
For whatever reason, learning the sex of the baby hits me, hard. It’s all so real now, and with everything that’s gone on in my life as late, hits me all at once and I break down.
We hold one another for the longest time, both of us trying to get through the pain we’re feeling, but I’m relieved by the fact that we’re going through this, together. Together, I know we can move forward, I know we can grieve together.
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