FOURTEEN
THINGS WERE OFF THE ENTIRE WEEK Darrell was gone. I was sure it was because I’d expressed my love for Jane while she had expressed nothing.
Maybe all we were good at was sex.
Maybe that was all she wanted from me?
Sadly, I got my answer.
I left for school excited that it was Friday and I’d have the weekend off. Since I’d started school, it seemed Jane was coming to realize how young I was.
Sure, she was the one who had pushed me to go to school, but I didn’t miss the way she looked at me when I walked in the front door with my book bag on and a notebook in my arm.
I was just a teenager, and that was becoming clearer and clearer to her every time she caught me sitting at the kitchen table doing homework.
She didn’t have to say these things. I could see it in her eyes when she looked at me. I could feel it in her touch, which was cold and unfeeling. Her soft kisses were gone, and instead, I got a smooch on the cheek or a kiss on the forehead like I was a fucking child.
It was wrong.
I missed her.
I missed us.
And I was seriously considering quitting school.
Had it not been for Jane expressing how important it was to her that I go, I would have already quit.
Halfway to school, I realized I’d left my notebook on the kitchen table. Checking the time on my phone, I knew I had time to run back and get it. My sneakers smacked against the asphalt as I ran back to the house. Jane had offered to take me, but I didn’t want her to have to get out of bed early for me.
The front door was unlocked, which was strange because I was sure I had locked it when I left. Opening it, I moved through the foyer and toward the kitchen so I could grab my notebook and get back on my way so I wasn’t late, but just as I was about to step into the kitchen, I heard Darrell’s voice.
“So you’re definitely not pregnant?” he asked.
“I’m definitely not pregnant. I thought for sure it would work. I took my basal temperature every morning and had him come in me every time we had sex, but—”
“Stop,” Darrell interrupted. “I don’t want to hear the details. I know how a woman gets pregnant. Just because I can’t knock you up doesn’t mean I don’t know how.”
“I’m sorry, Darrell.” Her voice was tear-filled and broken.
I leaned against the wall, my heart feeling as though it was turning to dust.
“It’s not your fault. Apparently, our little Sebastian is shooting blanks, too.” He chuckled sarcastically.
Closing my eyes, I held back the tears that burned behind my lids.
“It doesn’t always happen on the first cycle. Sometimes, it could take up to a year. Let’s just stick with the plan and keep trying.”
“No!” he exploded. “I can’t take this shit anymore, Jane. I want a baby just as badly as you do, but it’s killing me knowing you’re sleeping with him. I’m drinking myself numb just to deal. I can’t live this way anymore.”
He knew.
He’d known the entire time.
My knees grew weak, and I slid down the wall until my ass was sitting on the floor. I wanted to leave, but I couldn’t help but stay and listen.
“Please, Darrell. I know this is hard for you, but it’s hard for me, too. I want a baby!” she cried.
“No. What you want is to keep fucking the young buck. You don’t think I hear you up there when I’m pretending to be passed out. Yelling in pleasure. You say you’re faking it, but it sounds awfully real, Jane. No. He has to go. I’m done with this. We’ll adopt a baby if that’s what you want, but I can’t sit by and pretend anymore.”
“Don’t do this, baby. I know it’s hard on you, but let’s just try one more cycle. Just let me get pregnant, and then we can get rid of him. I promise.”
My chin dropped to my chest, and I struggled to breathe.
It was all a lie.
All of it.
No wonder she couldn’t tell me she loved me.
Because she didn’t.
She wanted me, all right, but only so I could get her pregnant. Only so I could do the one thing her husband couldn’t—knock her up.
They had only wanted me for one reason and one reason only … a baby.
I had questioned why they wanted an older foster child, and Deloris had soothed my worries like she always did, thinking she was doing what was best for me. In reality, I was just an ordered stud, and Jane, my sweet Jane, had planned the entire thing out with her husband.
She had seduced me.
Fucked my brains out.
Touched me as I’d never been touched and taught me the ways of a woman’s body.
She made me fall completely in love with her.
All so she could have a baby.
My baby.
“No, Jane, I’m done with this. This isn’t normal. This isn’t how it’s done. There are other ways. We can afford other ways. I want him gone.”
“Please, Darrell,” she begged.
“I can’t fucking believe this. Why are you fighting so hard for this? Do you love him or something?
The room went silent, and while I knew I should get up and leave, I was glued to the hardwood beneath me. I wanted to hear her say it. I needed to hear that while she had started out using me, she had accidentally fallen in love with me.
I would go to the kitchen, grab her hand, and we would leave together. We could go wherever we wanted—be whatever we wanted to be—as long as we were together. I would take care of her, no matter what.
“Of course, I don’t love him. It was hell having him inside me, but if it meant having a baby, I’d do it all over again.”
And just like that, the iron walls went up around my soul, trapping everything I was inside and pushing all feeling out. My heart felt sore for a bit as if Jane had spent the week punching it, and my ability to swallow seemed to go away. But after a few seconds and three deep breaths, I no longer felt anything.
I sat there, staring at the room in front of me, and something shifted. Things changed—altering me from the inside out—sucking away my past and anything that had ever stung my soul and leaving nothing.
The last bits of remaining emotions I had seemed to stall, turning to dust around me and getting caught up in the breeze of the overhead fan.
There was no pain.
There was no happiness.
There was nothing.
“Just let me try with him for one more cycle. If I don’t get pregnant, then he can go. Come on, Darrell. This could be it, babe. A sweet little baby for us to love and cuddle.”
I could hear her kissing his skin, trying to win him over. Little did she know, there would be no more trying. There would be no more anything.
Darrell chuckled, obviously enjoying the attention he was receiving, and then he conceded.
“One more cycle. But only because I love you more than life, and I want to have a family with you.”
She squealed with happiness before the sounds of them kissing reached out and smacked me.
I stood, feeling completely transformed. I was no longer Sebastian Stephens. I was no long the poor orphan no one wanted. I was something different—something darker—something broken beyond repair.
I swallowed the hate working its way up the back of my throat. Disgust mixed with bile and rage. And I adjusted the strap of my backpack, ready to go upstairs, collect my things, and leave.
Just then, Jane and Darrell came around the corner wearing happy smiles on their faces with love dancing in their eyes. And when they saw me, they froze.
My eyes went straight to hers, taking in the soft blue hues, and for the first time since the moment I fell for her, I felt nothing good.
Hate.
Disgust.
Rage.
But nothing hurt anymore.
“Sebastian,” she said, her eyes wide with shock. “I thought you left for school.”
“You thought wrong,” I said, my voice strong and deep.
“Hey, bud, how’s school going?” Darrell asked, quickly trying to soothe the situation.
But there would be no soothing. I’d heard enough to know what the fuck was going on.
“It’s going great. It’s more fun to stay home and fuck your wife, but a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do, right?”
His face went pale with my words.
“Look, man.” I kept going, hoping to dig deeper. “It sucks you can’t be a real man and get your wife pregnant, and as much as I love unloading inside her and leaving you with some sopping wet sloppy seconds, I think it’s time for me to go.”
I started toward the door, forgetting all about my belongings upstairs. Before I left through the front door, I turned back, needing one final dig.
“It was fun, Jane, but there’s only so much old lady twat a boy can take.”
Her face dropped, tears floating into her eyes making them look glazed, and she opened her mouth to speak. But before she could say anything, I pulled open the front door.
“Fuck you very much.” I chuckled as I left the house and slammed the door behind me.