Chapter Twenty-Six
I’m lying on Atlas’s guest bed, staring up at the ceiling. It’s a normal
bed. Really comfortable, actually. But it feels like I’m on a water bed.
Or maybe a raft, adrift at sea. And I scale over these huge waves, each
of them carrying something different. Some are waves of sadness.
Some are waves of anger. Some are waves of tears. Some are waves of
sleep.
Occasionally, I’ll place my hands on my stomach and a tiny wave of
love will come. I have no idea how I can already love something so
much, but I do. I think about whether or not it’ll be a boy or a girl
and what I’ll name it. I wonder if it will look like me or Ryle. And then
another wave of anger will come and crash down on that tiny wave of
love.
I feel robbed of the joy a mother should have when she finds out
she’s pregnant. I feel like Ryle took that from me last night and it’s
just one more thing I have to hate him for.
Hatred is exhausting.
I force myself off the bed and into the shower. I’ve been in my
room most of the day. Atlas returned home several hours ago and I
heard him open the door at one point to check on me but I
pretended to be asleep.
I feel awkward being here. Atlas is the very reason Ryle was angry at
me last night, yet he’s the one I ran to when I needed help? Being
here fills me with guilt. Maybe even a little bit of shame, as though my
calling Atlas lends credibility to Ryle’s anger. But there’s literally
nowhere I can go right now. I need a couple of days to process things
and if I go to a hotel, Ryle could track the credit card charge and find
me.
He’d be able to find me at my mother’s. At Allysa’s. At Lucy’s. He’s
even met Devin a couple of times and would more than likely go
there, too.