Beauty from Pain(100)

Shit if I care. I walk into the small pitch-black room where Lachlan’s clothes hang and close the door behind me. I’m sure there’s a light switch in here somewhere, but I don’t try to find it. I’m too numb.


Several minutes pass and I hear a few light taps on the door, but I don’t say anything. I need to absorb all these emotions swirling around in my head right now. I try to put a name to the shock I’m feeling, but there’s not a single word that will fit. I’m hurt and belittled because he yelled at me and maybe even a little frightened by the fury in his voice.


I’m sure his family heard the commotion and it mortifies me to think of facing them. The worst part is the shame I feel. How can I be sleeping with a man who would become so furious by a possible pregnancy?


You know what? Fuck him.


I hear the light raps again. “I sort of know you’re in there unless there’s a hidden passage to a dungeon I don’t know about.” He’s trying to be humorous, but nothing in the world could be funny to me right now.


He opens the door and comes inside to stand with me in the dark. I feel him reach for me, but I step away. I can’t bear the touch that once set me on fire because in this moment, it only makes me feel cheap.


“No.” And there it is again. The word that started all of this. Now I hate it and don’t want to hear it, either.


I’m mad as hell, but I can’t control the sob in my chest. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”


“Baby, please, don’t say that. I need to explain.”


I’m overcome by the what-if. What if I got pregnant? He’d hate me. “No. Every time we have sex, we risk making a baby together even if we use birth control. Unplanned pregnancies happen to real people every day. Look at me—I’m the result of one and see how shitty that ended up for everyone involved.”


“That’s not true, Laurelyn.”


“It is and I can’t do this anymore. I won’t risk making a baby with someone who would react the way you did just now. I couldn’t bear to ever see you look at me like that again.”


I feel him reaching for me in the dark and I try to push him away. His arms entwine me and he squeezes, almost too tight. “I’m so sorry, Laurelyn. I thought you were playing a trick on me about a baby because you thought it was funny. I should’ve known that wasn’t what you were doing. I’m so sorry.” I feel his hands move to my face. “I would never be angry because you were pregnant.”


This conversation is too much for me. I don’t want to talk about how a baby would make him feel because then I might be forced to think about how it would make me feel. “Can we agree that this was a misunderstanding and talk about something else?” I ask.


He hugs me in the darkness and kisses my head. “I think that’s a great idea, but can we leave the closet?”


I laugh. “You know I thought I was going into the bathroom, right?”


“I know.”


We leave the closet and climb into bed. I scoot close so I can put my head on his chest. I’m reeling from tonight’s events. I told him I wanted to end things with him and now, two seconds later, I’m curled around him like a kitten desperate for his touch. Yeah, I really showed him who’s boss.


Was I really going to walk away from him? I think I was, but there’s no use in speculating. He didn’t let me go.


This game has changed. The rules are no longer the same, but I don’t have the manual. He does, and I need guidance on where to go from here.


He caresses my arm. “What are you thinking about?”


I decide to go for it because I need to know where his head is. “I’m wondering where we go from here.”


His fingertips continue to glide up and down my arm as he answers. “Tonight changed everything for us, didn’t it?”


The word change seems like such an understatement for what has happened between us. “Yeah, just a little.”


“If I’m being honest with you, I don’t really know where we go from here. I don’t know how to do this new us.”


He has lines and I don’t dare cross them. “What do you need from me to make this work?”


“I think the new us needs to start with a first kiss.” He’s playful, not panicked, about this new place we are venturing. This feels like my Lachlan Henry, only better.