27

 

 

Harriet had asked if I needed her to come with me. Needed.

I was too ashamed to admit that a five foot five blonde who weighed one ten soaking wet terrified me.

I think Harry knew that. But still, I didn’t want her subjected to Sarah's poison.

Harriet Thompson understood me. She knew that I was barely hanging on. Too raw from therapy where I had bared my worries and fears. Too splayed open from my first confession of love to the girl that meant everything to me.

Sarah did not live on Goldryn Row. I'd put her address in the satnav when it came through in the form of a text message.

Unfamiliar fear curled around my heart like a vice. The kind that only comes with the worry of your unborn child.

It had only been words, even when I’d been told I was going to be a father. I had been divorced from the situation. I knew it was happening, but I was a man. I didn’t have a womb. I didn’t have to grow a child to have one.

I had heard people say that men didn’t become fathers until they held their child for the first time.

They were wrong.

It was the first time you felt the paralyzing terror that something was wrong.

Like static on the air. Ozone before a storm. I felt it as my foot hit the floor and my sports car screeched to a stop outside of the nondescript house in the not-so-good part of town.

I slammed my car door and stepped onto the sidewalk. The porch light was on, highlighting the neglected garden and twisting the overgrown hedgerow into hooked talons. I gripped my phone, ready to access the situation and call an ambulance if they were needed. I didn’t question why Sarah hadn’t already done so.

The door was on the latch when I approached and I pushed it open. “Sarah?” I called out when I couldn’t see her in the hall. Her home was sparsely decorated and there were no photos around. A bra laid abandoned on the banister.

“In here!” She replied. Her voice sounded stronger than it had on the phone, which already caused the knot of unease in my stomach to fester like an open wound.

I stepped into the living room; there was no furniture inside. Only blackened lines from cigarette smoke that highlighted where it had once stood. Sarah stood in the centre of the room, shucking off her clothes. Her eyes were wild and manic.

She stepped forward, reaching out for the collar of my shirt. She clung to me like a monkey. Hanging from the material of my clothes like a dead weight. Sarah's knees buckled and her head lulled backwards. Her giggles echoed around the empty room.

I clasped the top of her shoulders and held her up. I searched her for signs of problems but the only thing I could see was the wide and bloodshot eyes. A red-rimmed nostril. The highly strung and creating energy that twanged the air like a high-pitched note.

“Sarah, what’s wrong?” I asked, my voice calm despite the growing fear in my chest. I was finding it difficult to breathe. “Do you want to go to the hospital? You said that something was wrong with the baby?” I pulled off my jacket and put it over her shoulders. She shrugged it off and the heavy navy material hit the floor with a thunk.

“Elliooooooooooot,” She elongated my name in a way that grated my fraught nerves. “I’m so happy you're here.”

“Sarah.” I said through gritted teeth. “What have you taken?”

She giggled. Fucking giggled. Like a school girl that had been caught cheating.

Not like someone that had been pumping drugs into my baby's bloodstream.

I pulled out my phone. “I’m phoning an ambulance.”

She stilled my hand. “No Elliot,” she smashed her finger against my lips. “You need to come and keep me warm.”

Despite the fact a nude woman stood in front of me, clinging to me like a koala, I felt nothing for her. Disgust clung to the inside of my throat.

“I can't be here. I can't watch this.” I stepped back, shaking my head.

“Come on!” She pouted. “I need you.”

“No, you don’t. The only part of you that needs me is growing in your womb and you can't even be bothered to keep it safe?!” My voice bordered on a scream. “You’re fucking high!”

“Elliot, stop being such a pussy. Come over here!” She stamped her bare foot against the dusty floorboards.

I stepped back. My fists trembled with rage. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be around her. Bile rose in my throat. I did not turn my back as I walked out of the house. I did not trust her not to drag me back.

She stood in the doorway. Naked as the day she was born. Her fingers curled into a seductive wave.

I couldn’t do it. I couldn't hold back for the sake of my unborn child, not when Sarah was determined to poison the baby from the inside.

My hands trembled as I drove home. I was done with her shit.