Page 58 of Twisted

Carter’s voice was soft, verging on sorrowful and attentive, as though he cared what Maisie was about to endure. With his arm around her shoulders, he gave her a reassuring squeeze.

“It’s for the best, too. We can move past this. We’ll go on more dates, Maisie, I’ll take more time off work, I’ve…I won’t speak to Linds anymore. We’ll fix our marriage, you’ll see.”

She stared across the waiting room at a cheap watercolor painting, the red and blue hues mingling into purple. It was abstract, but if she tilted her head just right, the painting appeared to be some sort of flowers. Maybe lilies. Weren’t those for funerals? Weren’t they also for purity, for motherhood? Funny, how one thing could symbolize so much.

Her fingers curled around her belly. There was the faintest bump now. She wasn’t sure when she was supposed to start showing for real. Her breasts were on fire, and the morning sickness was a pain, but she would endure that and more for her child. Her precious little bean, growing so innocently despite how it’d been conceived.

Growing up, she’d played with dolls, would always play house with Marie and demand to be the mom figure. Her own mother had always said how great a mother she would one day be. She loved her niece and nephew. They brought such joy even in the darkest of times. Why couldn’t Carter let her go? Let her have this one thing she wanted more than life itself?

It hadn’t been easy, getting to this point, but aside from the child in her womb, she felt utterly empty, desolate. Her skin crawled wherever Carter touched her. He’d been so…loving lately, after the turmoil, that is. The fights were extreme, leaving Maisie a confused, defeated mess. As soon as she’d fallen, as soon as the fight had left her, he’d been there to scoop her up, to hold her tight, to give her all the attention and love she’d needed for their entire marriage.

A family entered the waiting room, the mother’s belly swollen, her waddle indicating she was close to birthing a beautiful little child. Tears pricked Maisie’s eyes. The woman’s husband was beaming down at her, holding the door open, rushing to get her a seat and a cup of water, even signing her in. Carter had told Maisie to make the appointment. Had stood over her with crossed arms and a sneering face she didn’t recognize. It was almost like that story she’d read in high school, where the doctor had two distinct personalities, one benevolent and one wicked. That was Carter. A two-faced piece of shit.

In her position, she had no recourse.

There was one thing Maisie had done in her life that had eaten her alive, well before Carter had entered the scene. She’d told him years ago when their marriage was more stable, more happy. She’d told him all her darkest secrets, as one does with their significant other. Slowly, insidiously, he’d begun to use each thing against her when need dictated. Every time he was about to lose her, he’d mind fuck her for hours or days until she didn’t know what she believed anymore.

But this time and this situation was far, far worse.

If Carter told Maisie’s family her secret, she would have no one else in her corner. She saw it clearly, then; that was Carter’s intent all along. To isolate her from all sides. To control her through fear and manipulation. The reprieve and relief she felt when he calmed was like a drug to her. He would put on the pressure, twist the knives of her secrets, her insecurities, wouldn’t let up until he netted a satisfying enough reaction, and after he forced her to suffer for hours or days, he’d snap out of it just as quickly, would apologize, would love-bomb her.

The relief was what kept her going, what made her feel crazy. It made it seem like he wasn’t that bad of a man. Like it was truly her fault, why he would rage. He would force her to sleep on the couch only to wake her and force her to go back to bed, where he would rage again and call her stupid, useless, fat.

The relief when he took that pressure away was bliss. No one else would ever understand, not unless they’d been with a man like Carter. He was so good at what he did that it had taken her the entirety of their marriage to see the problem wasn’t her, but him. He was the most selfish, egotistical, manipulative piece of shit in this world.

And she couldn’t escape no matter how hard she tried.

“Your family will be disgusted when they hear you cheated on me and got knocked up.”

“Marie already thinks you’re a slut. She told me at Christmas dinner when she was drunk how you came onto Parker one night.”

“If you don’t go through with this abortion, I’ll tell your father the truth of what you did in high school, you little whore.”

It had been the nail in her coffin. Forced to choose between a family to catch her when she inevitably fell and the prospect of a child, the decision had all but been made for her. Her heart thudded in her chest so hard her ears rang. Would it be painful? How would she feel after? She felt numb enough now, her emotions carefully tucked away until later. She prayed she’d never have to face them head on. She knew she was a coward for thinking that.

“Hale?”

The name didn’t register; she hadn’t considered herself a Hale in years. She would always be Maisie Jane Walkup, a vivacious teen with the world at her feet. As she stood, coaxed up by her faux-doting husband, her motions were nothing short of robotic. A few tears trickled down her cheeks, stinging the stitches where her cut had been pulled back together.

Carter left her at the door to the back hallways where procedures took place. She was soon in a gown. Laying on the table. Cold. So, so cold. Tears slipping into her hair. The lights above her were blinding. A gloved hand tapped her knee as beeps and other hushed voices spoke. She jumped, glancing down.

“Sorry it’s so cold today, hun. Just spread your knees for me and we will get this taken care of.”

Taken care of.

Chin wobbling, she obeyed. She had no choice, she reminded herself. But as she stared up into the lights, wondering if she could ever forgive herself for this, she knew the answer already. Her eyes slipped closed, and in the darkness of her mind, an image of herself, smiling and bright and excited as she graduated high school crossed her mind. How had she let her younger self down so badly? That innocent Maisie who had such grand dreams would be so disappointed in who she’d turned out to be. This was her. This was what Carter had made her into.

Perhaps that was the most sorrowful part of it all. Not her failing marriage, not her loneliness, not her scar or the rape. No, it was knowing how badly she’d let herself down. She’d allowed everyone around her to dictate her every move since she’d met Carter. Taking a deep breath through trembling lips, she clutched at her stomach with both hands, as if to save her child.

Her only consolation was that she (for Maisie somehow pictured the baby as a girl) would never feel the pain this life brought with it. Her daughter would be free. Free of men like Carter and Randy. Free of a society that touted how much they helped women in need but never backed it up with action. Free of the oppression all women face, their choices still heavily dictated by men who thought they knew best.

It brought a small smile to her lips.

Her nana had once told Maisie she’d actually been pregnant five times, but had only carried three to term. It was evident it had pained her grandmother in the way she’d spoken about it in clipped tones, needing to convey the truth to her granddaughter with as little emotion as possible. The consolation for losing those two babies had come in the form of a kind doctor, her nana had said. He’d told her that someday, when she passed from this earthly life, that her babies would be healthy and well and waiting for her. That sometimes children are too pure and good for this life and the hell it brings with it, that they are meant for heaven alone.

Maisie knew at the time that her nana’s story was absolute truth; those babies were waiting for her in heaven, wherever heaven was. It gave her comfort in that knowledge. They were saved from all possibilities—the good and the bad. And though Maisie wanted a child despite what that child would face in the future, she found her consolation alone in that cold room under the bright lights.

This baby would never take its first breath, but she had a family already waiting with open arms up in heaven. She would be safe. She would be with her nana. She would be loved forever. The first and last sound her baby would ever hear would be the beating of her mother’s heart. Maisie would never forgive herself.

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