Page 77 of Take My Hand

“And for me, because of what he did to her, trying to humiliate her with something like that.” Reid looks away from the camera. “He deserved it.”

“He did.”

“And I saw you snap in that moment and knew what you would do next, but I couldn’t let you be the one to throw that punch.”

“Why?” I ask, confused at why he couldn’t.

“That’s not who you are,” he says quietly. “In the moment, you would’ve felt good about it, but eventually you would’ve felt guilty because deep down, you don’t want to hurt anyone.”

He’s wrong. It would’ve filled me with great satisfaction to feel Daniel’s bones crunch under my fist and skin split under the force of my knuckles.

“I can live with that. Knowing that I’ve brought pain onto others and left bruises and scars behind. But you don’t have to. And I don’t want you to have to.”

He clicks off the call without another word, and I’m left dumbstruck, pondering his words.

I can’t see myself ever regretting hurting someone who hurt someone I love. Not a single part of me thinks I would be feeling any sense of guilt this morning if I had been the one to drive blow after blow against Daniel’s face instead of Reid.

But I’ve seen so much devastation because of violence. Felt so much fear in its aftermath, woken up panicked from nightmares reliving it.

Would I really want to perpetuate it?

Maybe Reid did me a favor.

And I’m not sure what to think of it.

26

CARTER

My eyes sting as the coffee slowly dispenses into my favorite mug. If there is anything that was going to get me through today, it’s going to have to be caffeine. A deep ache sits in my muscles and bones from holding so much tension within them.

Most of my night was spent in shock, mind thrown back to the worst days of my life last year where I had to make a choice that I never wanted to make.

We were careful. I was on birth control and tracked my cycles. But somehow it happened.

In the aftermath of everything, I had my suspicions that Daniel had tampered with my pills. I didn’t have proof, but the sense of satisfaction he wore on his face when I came to him crying, positive test in hand and panic coursing throughout my body, is an image I’ll never be able to get out of my head.

He was excited, but not in the way that someone who is going to become a father should be. He seemed excited about the wrong things. How I could now stay home and not worry about coming on the upcoming tour that we had both worked so hard to book. How he would take on the burden of our photography business himself and I’d never have to work again. He’d make sure all the finances were taken care of and I didn’t need to worry about tracking them now that he’d fully take over the business.

He didn’t listen to me when I told him I wasn’t ready. That I wanted to work. That I wanted a career. He brushed me off when I paced around our apartment, wondering aloud how this could’ve happened.

He didn’t hug me, kiss me, tell me that it would be okay and that we'd figure it out together. Because he seemed to already have it planned out in his mind.

I would stay home and raise his child while he got to go after his dreams and I sacrificed mine. He would never have to worry about me finding my own footing in life because he’d have me sheltered away at home with a child.

That first night after I found out and went to bed, Daniel pulled me into his body and wrapped his arms around me. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I was trapped. The man who held me didn’t hold me with love but with possession.

As his hand had lingered across my stomach that night, I could feel it in him that he was satisfied he had finally done it. He had finally tied me to him in a way that I couldn’t escape.

And I couldn’t do it.

I was scared. I was twenty-one years old, just starting to figure my life out. No college degree and all of my money and business contacts tied up in Daniel. Our apartment was in his name. My friends were his friends. There wasn’t a single part of my life that wasn’t somehow tangled up with his.

And when I called my dad, crying and panicking and told him the news, he cried with me. Because he could hear it in my voice how terrified I was.

It was a moment in my life that I wished that my mom was still alive. My dad more than made up for her absence and always made sure to show me how much I was loved. But in those dark, devastating weeks, I wished I had a mother’s shoulder to cry on.

But just like I knew he would be, my dad was there. I’ll never be able to thank him enough over the course of my life for how much he’s done for me. He understood without me needing to tell him that it wasn’t about me not wanting to be a mom one day. I’ve always known that I wanted to have children. I dreamed of having a big family of my own and having multiple children so they never had to grow up as an only child like myself.

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