Precious Consequences(16)

Because that’s how I feel.

Empty.



Chapter 6

~ Hayley ~

The warm morning sun seeps through the thin yellow curtains in my room. It caresses my face, heating my skin and touching my eyelids. I roll over, seeking just another thirty minutes of sleep, when I feel little fingers stroking the side of my neck. Ari’s familiar scent hits my nose and I open one eye to peek at her. Her mouth turns up and she blinds me with her smile.

“Good morning, monkey,” I greet, opening both eyes. “How did you get into my bed?”

“Gama,” she replies. Her fingers touch my cheek and I wrap my arms around her body, pulling her closer to me until her head is tucked into the crook of my neck. She curls into me, much like she did when I was pregnant with her, and I can’t stop the onslaught of memories that flood my mind. Like the first time I heard her heartbeat, and when I found out I was having a girl. And the first time I felt her moving around in my belly, pushing her tiny foot up to remind me that I was carrying an actual living, breathing person inside me. The realization was both magical and devastating. I had to experience all those things alone and knowing that I had made that choice made it so much harder.

My fingers stroke Ari’s hair, sliding through her head of soft, brown curls, and I start humming. After a little while she starts humming along with me, until she’s singing the words to ‘You Are My Sunshine’ out loud. It’s moments like this that I wish I could bottle up and save, so that I can revisit them whenever my heart needs some tenderness. Or when I feel like I’m failing my little girl. It’s my reassurance that, despite all of the stupid things I’ve done, I’m still doing something right.

There’s a soft knock on my door and I look up when my grandmother sticks her head through the door. She smiles warmly at the sight of me and Ari, her eyes wrinkling at the sides. Her face is weathered, but she has the heart of a twenty-five year old. Sometimes she feels like more of a mother to me than my biological mother was and in some way we both filled a void in each other. My grandfather died a year before I moved here and I guess my sudden arrival helped ease my grandmother’s loneliness. But it was the arrival of my darling, Ari that seems to have given my grandmother’s soul the healing that it needed.

“There’s someone at the door for you, sweetheart,” she says quietly. “You’d better hurry.”

I frown. Who would be here at 8 am on a Saturday morning? The door closes and I slide out of bed, lifting Ari onto my hip. I walk downstairs and come to a standstill when I see Taylor standing in the entryway. There are two bags on the floor next to her and Macy is clinging to her, her little face red and blotchy, stained with tears. Her uniform is rumpled, her hair thrown into a bun haphazardly on top of her head. When my eyes land on Taylor’s face I suck in a breath. Her lip is swollen, a drop of dried blood on the side, and her eye is swelling shut. A bruise is starting to form where her eye puffs up and on her cheekbone.

“Oh my God,” I breathe, taking a step closer to her. Her lip starts trembling. “What happened?”

She sniffles, saying, “It’s Jace. H-h-he showed up a-a-and he was d-drunk.”

I look at my grandmother. “Take the girls into the kitchen, please, Gama, and make them some pancakes for breakfast?” I ask. She nods, not asking questions, and instead of reaching for Ari, she reaches for an obviously terrified Macy.

“C’mon, baby girl, I’m not going to hurt you,” she soothes, her gentle voice calming. “I bet you’d like some pancakes, huh?”

Macy looks up at Taylor and she nods. “It’s okay, Macy. Momma will be right here, okay?”

Taylor hands Macy over and I put Ari on her feet, watching as she follows my grandmother and Macy into the kitchen. I lead Taylor over to the sofa and motion for her to sit down. “I’ll be right back,” I tell her. I walk to the guest bathroom that’s downstairs and open the medicine cabinet. When I find the first-aid kit, I make my way back to the living room and take a seat next to Taylor. Without saying anything, I go about cleaning her face, tending to the small cut on her lip and then the one above her eye, which I missed earlier. She hisses but sits still until I’m done. I hear the girls giggling in the kitchen and the sound somehow helps both me and Taylor to relax.

“You want to tell me what happened?” I ask gently. Taylor swallows hard, her eyes glazing over with tears. I slip my hand into hers and give it a reassuring squeeze.

“You can tell me,” I reassure her.

“I don’t even know where to begin,” she says. Her voice is soft and shaky. “It all happened so quickly.”

I don’t say anything. I wait for her to gather her thoughts and piece herself back together.

“I decided to pick up an extra shift,” Taylor continues. “And I got a sitter for Macy. I got in about an hour ago and Jace showed up soon after the sitter left. He was so drunk. When he started yelling I was worried that he’d wake Macy, but after he threw the first punch I didn’t care. He accused me of cheating on him when we were married and he said Macy isn’t his,” her chest moves with her sharp intake of breath and tears start sliding down her face. But she finds it in herself to continue, I see the resolve in her eyes. “It’s a good thing my daddy taught me how to defend myself before he died,” she laughs sadistically. “I just wasn’t expecting to have to defend myself against my soon-to-be ex husband. I knocked him out with a lamp and grabbed Macy, along with everything that could fit into those bags. And I’m sorry to just show up, but I had nowhere else to go, and I needed to get Macy away from him.”