But I still had another year of college. I had to find a job after that. Put in a lot of hours to make a name for myself. David had law school. We’d planned on backpacking around Europe the summer before he went to law school.
Not to mention, it would be a slap in the face to my parents who had worked so hard and sacrificed so much in order to make sure I would have a different life than them. And I think getting knocked up before I’d even graduated college was not the life they wanted for me.
“What?” Horror saturated David’s voice.
I looked up from the little plus sign to face the man I loved more than anything. I was terrified to see what was in his eyes. They were shimmering and held the same horror that was in the single word he had uttered.
His hand moved to my stomach. It was flat, showing no sign of what the test was promising. New life. Swollen ankles. Morning sickness. Motherhood.
“You are having my baby,” he said on a mere whisper. But despite the fact he whispered it, there was iron to it. David had a way about him, a command, a control without coming off arrogant.
His eyes moved from my stomach to my eyes. “We are having a baby,” he said, louder this time. “You’re going to finish school. We’re going to get married. I’m going to put a rock on your finger and make sure it’s big enough for every man in Black Mountain to know to stay away from you. Forever.” He lifted my hand, kissed my ring finger. “We are going to have forever, baby. We’re going to work this out. It’s going to be perfect.”
It wasn’t perfect. Promises of forever rarely are.
His mother was furious, was certain I’d done this to trap him. There was a period of months of cold silence between the two of them, until she backed down and realized that her only son was willing to shut her out forever if she was going to continue to be blatantly evil. So she apologized, settling for thinly veiled barbed comments and undermining me whenever she could.
She did love her grandchildren, in her own cold-hearted way.
I pressed my hand to my stomach, flat now thanks to killing myself in workouts and barely eating. Small stretch marks were the only evidence of the two boys I’d grown in there. Nothing remained of David’s reverent hands on my stomach.
And now I was sitting in the car, looking up at our oldest son’s snooty high school and looking into the rest of my life navigating this shit on my own.
“You lied, David,” I whispered. Then I got out of the car.
“Ryder has been exceptional,” Emma Kensington, his English teacher told me after I sat down. She was the only one that didn’t stumble over awkward condolences. I appreciated that. “I really think he has a talent for the written word. He certainly has a passion for it. His essays on Dickens are some of the most original I’ve ever read.”
I exhaled. I could relax a little now. It was the last of my interviews for the night. Despite the awkward interactions over my husband’s death, the rest of his teachers had overwhelmingly positive things to say about him. Except his science teacher, but he was an asshole and science class was bullshit anyway.
Somehow, Ryder had managed to keep his grades up and generally be a pleasant teenager in the aftermath of his father’s death and in the midst of his mother losing her shit.
I’d birthed an alien. A freak of nature.
“Mrs. Langmore?” Emma asked.
I realized I’d lapsed into my zombie state right here in my son’s English classroom. My eyes were dangerously watery and I could not break down right now. Not when I’d taken all this effort to pull myself together. Made a promise to be a mom instead of a mess.
I cleared my throat. “His father is responsible for his love of literature,” I replied. “For both of the boys. It was always his dream for one of them to be the writer and one to be the director. Creative powerhouses, he said.”
I’d blurted this all out in a relatively even tone. I was proud of myself, since saying the words and remembering that conversation was similar to what acid spilling on my skin might feel like.
David hadn’t wanted our boys to follow in his footsteps. To be like all the other Langmore men, successful lawyers who worked long hours to make rich assholes even richer.
Emma smiled with that slight twinge of pity. It was kinder, though, than the other ones I’d been treated to this very evening. “I think your husband would’ve been very proud of Ryder.”
I nodded, biting my lip. “He was.”
“You have a good son,” she said, softer now. “You raised a good, kind, and intelligent son. Kids are somehow more resilient than we are.”
I nodded again, said my goodbyes, and all but ran out of the room, almost colliding with someone in the hallway. Someone I really didn’t want to see at all, let alone be in close proximity to. David’s friend Martin, who I’d never liked and who always stared at my boobs when David wasn’t looking.
“Wow!” Martin said, grasping my shoulders to steady me. But his hands stayed there, despite the fact I was now steady.
“Bridget! It’s so good to run into you. Even literally,” he said, squeezing my shoulders. Still, he didn’t let them go.
His smile was blinding, too white, too straight. His tan was far too fake, something David found great amusement in. He was wearing a cashmere sweater with an expertly pressed shirt underneath. Slacks. An expensive watch. The uniform of the cookie cutter elite.
I moved backward so he was forced to let me go. “Martin, good to see you,” I lied.
I had planned on making it through tonight without interacting with any other parents, friends, or enemies.
I’d always found him misogynistic, slimy, and arrogant, both before and after his divorce. I didn’t like the way he looked at me, talked about women, in that subtle way that wasn’t bad enough to call him out but powerful enough to know I didn’t want to be alone with him.
Which I was.
Somehow, this cavernous hall, previously milling with parents pretending not to stare at me, was empty.
Martin’s eyes ran over me and my skin prickled. “It’s really good to see you too, Bridget. I’ve been thinking about you.”
Ick.
I smiled tightly in the ‘fuck you’ smile I’d worked on perfecting over these past years. “That’s so nice of you. If you don’t mind, I’ve got to get back to the boys.” I tried to move but he deftly sidestepped in his thousand-dollar loafers.
“I’ve been meaning to call you,” he said, eyes running over me again.
I narrowed my eyes and jerked my chin up. “I can’t imagine why.”
My tone caught him. It was no longer pleasant and much closer to bitchy. The flicker of darkness in his eyes told me he didn’t like his women bitchy. He liked them empty-headed and subservient.
“Well, you alone in that big house. I’m sure there’s some things you need help with. Thought you might need a night off. We could go to dinner.” He stepped even closer so I could smell his expensive cologne that offended me and made me want to vomit. The last cologne I’d smelled was David’s, and he was ruining it. He was stealing the scent of my husband and replacing it with his obnoxious and tasteless stench.
I hated him.
Hated his fake tan, his fucking sweater. I wanted to take off my shoe and embed it into his fucking moisturized neck.