But there was still that little voice in the back of my head. The one that whispered to me asking me what happened if I was wrong? What if they found my DNA somewhere that made me look guilty?
I shook away the thoughts and closed my eyes. It was only six thirty in the morning, and I figured if I could fall back to sleep for a while, it would pass some time, and maybe I would even wake up with a clearer head.
I didn’t really think I would be able to sleep, but the accident had taken its toll on my body, and before I knew it, I was drifting back to sleep.
I'm standing beside the bed, Carlotta mirroring me on the other side of it. Candy stands in the doorway, looking first at Carlotta and then at me. She steps into the room, the shadows falling away. She has one hand raised, and I feel my ass clench when I see what she’s clutching in her fist.
It’s a knife, the blade long and serrated. It looks like the sort of knife that could do some real damage.
“Candy, what are you doing here?” I ask, trying to keep my voice soft and calm.
I really want to yell at her, to tell her to get the hell out of my house and out of my life but looking at that knife and at the hollow-eyed expression on Candy’s face, the last thing I want to do right now is anger her further.
She takes a step closer to me and smiles. It’s not her normal smile. Her normal smile lights her face up and makes her look radiant. This smile makes her eyes look even more sunken in. It’s a sick smile, the smile of a person who has lost their grip on reality.
“Aren’t you pleased to see me, William?” she asks in a low voice, so unlike her own.
Her voice is as hollow as her eyes, like there’s no life left in her. I glance at Carlotta, willing her to snap out of her stupor and call the damned cops. It’s a mistake. Candy is no longer dead looking. She comes to life, full of bristling anger.
“Don’t fucking look at her. Look at me. Look at the mother of your child, William,” she says.
“The mother of my ... ? Have you lost your damned mind?” I snap. “We don’t have a child.”
“No, I haven’t lost my mind.” She smiles. “For the first time in a long time, I think I’m in my right mind. See, William, we don’t have a child yet. But we will soon enough. I’m pregnant. And now we can be together forever. We can be a family.”
She says all of this with another of those sick looking smiles on her face, her eyes full of pent-up hysteria.
I am done trying to reason with Candy. Some people don’t understand a simple no. They need more convincing. I need Candy to see that what we had was just a fling, that it meant nothing to me and neither does she.
“I’ll pay for an abortion,” I say, resigning myself to the argument I know is going to implode between Carlotta and me once Candy is gone.
Again, I made a mistake. Candy’s anger explodes out of her like a rainstorm bursting from the sky.
“I don’t want a fucking abortion. I want us to be a family. You, me, and our baby. How can you just write our baby off like this?” She pauses and smiles knowingly. “Is it because Carlotta is here? You can drop the act, William. Just tell her you love me, and we can start our life together.”
“For the last time, Candy, he doesn’t love you. He loves me. He wants nothing to do with you. Or your bastard child,” Carlotta snaps.
Candy’s attention snaps to Carlotta, a manic gleam in her eye.
I woke up in a puddle of sweat, the sheet tangled around my legs. My breath was coming in short pants, my heart racing. That was some dream.
I sat bolt upright, ignoring the pain in my arm. Suddenly, I knew with certainty that it was no dream. It really happened. Candy was in our bedroom. She had a knife and she was screaming at me about a baby. My baby.
I felt the color drain from my face. The DNA test. They knew about the baby. They were going to think I killed Candy to keep her quiet.
I jumped out of bed, no longer caring that my arm was screaming in pain or that the room spun dizzily around me for a second. I went to the cabinet and pulled out a pair of pants and a shirt. I dressed myself as quickly as I could and then threw my things into a bag. I left the room in a daze. I didn’t get far before a nurse stopped me in the hallway.
“Mr. Alden, what’s going on? You shouldn’t be out of bed. Come on, let’s get you back to your room,” she said, reaching up to steer me back toward the room I had just escaped from. I ducked beneath her groping hand.
“I’m not going back to my room. I’m leaving,” I said firmly.
The nurse’s eyes landed on my bag and she frowned.
“You’re not due for discharge, Mr. Alden. Please, come back to your room and I’ll get the doctor to come and talk to you. You could be suffering from a concussion.”
“I’m fine,” I insisted. “And I’m leaving. This isn’t open to debate. I have a right to sign myself out of the hospital if I wish to do so, and that’s what I wish to do.”
Something in my tone of voice must have convinced the nurse I was deadly serious because she didn’t even try to talk me out of it. Instead, she nodded her head.