The Risk (Briar U #2)(105)

Jake runs his hand up my arm in a comforting gesture. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”

“I… I didn’t actually get the abortion,” I confess. “We had the appointment booked, but we never made it. I started bleeding one morning a few days before it. Well, spotting. I looked it up online, and most of the websites said that spotting during the first trimester was normal. I called Eric, and he went online too and concluded it didn’t sound like a big deal.”

“Where was he?”

“In Newport with his teammates. They were playing their semifinal round that afternoon. He said he’d check in with me after the game, and he did. I was still spotting but not too heavily.” I shake my head irritably. “Eric’s team crushed their opponent, so they were going out to celebrate. I asked him to come home, but he said there was no point because it was probably nothing, and he told me not to say anything to my dad.”

“So you just sat there at home, bleeding?” Jake says in dismay.

“Yes and no. Like I said, it started off really slow. Eric told me not to worry about it, and even I thought I was probably freaking out for no reason. So I ignored it and hoped the bleeding would go away. I had dinner with my dad, watched a movie in my room. And then a couple hours later, it went from spotting to…not spotting.” My throat tightens. “I called Eric again and told him it was getting worse and that I was going to tell my dad I needed to go to the hospital. And he said no way, because he didn’t want my dad to find out and kill him.”

“Selfish prick.”

I feel sick as I relive that terrifying night. “Eric decided to come back and take me to the hospital himself. He said to sit tight, and that he was on his way and would get there as soon as he could. He was two hours away.”

“And your father was right downstairs?”

The incredulity in Jake’s expression makes me swallow a lump of shame. “I get it, I’m a fucking idiot. I already know that, okay?” Tears leak from the corners of my eyes, and I hurriedly swipe them away.

“No, I’m not calling you an idiot,” Jake says instantly, reaching for my hand. “I swear I’m not. I totally understand—you were scared. You were sixteen, and the guy who was supposed to support you chose to keep partying with his friends instead of driving home the second you told him you thought something was wrong.” Jake sounds furious on my behalf, and it’s actually kind of sweet.

I nod. “And at that point, I wasn’t going to risk waiting another two hours for Eric to show up. If he even did show up.”

“So you told your father?”

“I never got the chance.” My voice cracks. “I’d been bleeding all day long, and now it was nine o’clock at night, and I was feeling so weak and light-headed. When I stood up I was hit by a wave of dizziness and I passed out in the bathroom, and that’s how my father found me.” Queasiness pulls at my stomach. “Lying in a huge pool of blood. We actually had to tear out the bathroom floor after that, because the bloodstains wouldn’t come out.”

“Jesus.”

“Dad took me to the hospital. I don’t remember this part. I only remember everything going black in the bathroom. And then waking up in the hospital, where I was told I had a miscarriage and almost hemorrhaged to death.”

Jake’s eyebrows shoot up in alarm. “Is that normal?”

“Nope. Apparently I had an incomplete miscarriage, which is when not all the fetal tissue is expelled from the uterus. That’s why the bleeding was getting heavier instead of improving.”

“Shit. I’m so sorry.”

I nod in gratitude. But I don’t tell Jake everything else that happened in my hospital room. Like how I had a total breakdown in front of my father, crying hysterically and saying I was sorry, over and over again, while Dad stood there stoically, hardly even looking at me. And the longer I sobbed, the more embarrassing it became. I’d always been so strong and resilient, and suddenly I was wailing like a child in front of him.

He hasn’t looked at me the same way since. He wasn’t just ashamed that I’d gotten knocked up—I think he was equally ashamed of the way I fell apart. Dad doesn’t respect soft people, and that night I was beyond soft.

“Things were never the same with Dad after that. He pulled me out of school for two months because I was so emotional. Depressed, crying all the time. We told everyone I had mono, and Eric was the only person who knew the truth.”

“I can’t believe you were still with him,” Jake says darkly.

“Oh, I wasn’t.” I give a humorless laugh. “For so many reasons. He officially became public enemy number one to my father. Dad despised him, and he almost beat the shit out of Eric one day, because Eric kept showing up at our door trying to talk to me. Dad forbade me from ever seeing him again, and I was perfectly cool with that. I couldn’t forgive Eric for the way he behaved the night I lost the baby. I was crying and begging him to come home, to take me to the hospital, and he just didn’t care.” Anger bubbles in my throat. “I could have died. But getting loaded with his buddies and smoking weed was more important to him than making sure I was all right.”

I lean my head against Jake’s shoulder, and he plays with strands of my hair. “Dad became overprotective, but it’s funny—he was so busy with his job that he couldn’t really enforce all the rules he was trying to make me follow. So most of the time I did whatever I wanted anyway, and he’d lecture me about it afterward. I went back to school, started senior year, and acted out like every other teenage girl who’s trying to get her parents’ attention. It was the typical adolescent crap, and the more stupid shit I did, the more he noticed. So I’d stay out all night, drink, party, make him worry on purpose.”