Page 633 of Rage

“No,” I say hesitantly.

“It means ‘little dark one’ and I think that fits you.”

“Why?”

“Because you have some darkness inside you,” he answers. “Your darkness calls to mine, just like our darkness craves Noah’s light. We need each other to feel whole.”

I stare at the man tied to the chair with furrowed brows, seeing the shadows swirling in his eyes, the darkness he was talking about. “I don’t want to have this baby,” I blurt out again.

A dark look crosses over his face. “I don’t care.”

“It’s MY body, it’s MY choice!” I scream at him.

“See sweetheart, that’s where you’re wrong,” he replies with a sardonic laugh. “It may be your body, but it’s MY choice, and I’ve decided you’re keeping the baby.”

I let out a growl. “How can you sit there and force a pregnancy on me and take away all my choices?”

“Because, sweetheart, I can,” he answers with a cruel smile.

“I’ll just leave, and take care of it on my own.”

“I’ll find you, Kieran. Anywhere you go, I will find you,” he promises.

“You have to understand.”

“Understand what?” he snaps.

“This baby, you love them already, right?” I ask, pleading with him.

“Yes,” he answers. “I’ll do anything I can to protect them, even if it’s from you.”

“How would you feel if the baby’s a girl and someone did this to her?” I question with an urgency I hope he picks up on.

He stares at me with an unreadable expression. “I’d kill them.”

“Would you honestly think it’s her body, but it’s someone else’s choice what she does with her body?” I ask, with a pointed look.

“No, I’d want her to make the choice for herself,” he admits, his eyes falling to the floor.

“Do you see how hypocritical you sound? You want the baby if she’s a girl to decide for herself, but you won’t grant me the same respect. As a woman I need to have the right to decide what to do with my body. We fought so hard for our rights, and for them to be taken from us… it feels like a huge loss in the progress we’ve made.”

“But what about me? What about what I want?” He says.

“We can have that conversation, but when I told you how I felt you just shut me down, no conversation or anything. YOU decided. Not US. WE need to decide together. You already took the choice of if I wanted a kid in the first place. You can’t take this choice from me too.” I let out a helpless sob, wondering if my breath was wasted on trying to explain why this was so important.

“Okay,” he sighs.

“Okay?” I question, hopefully.

I release a heavy sigh, It feels like a weight was lifted from my shoulders.

“Me, you and Noah can talk about this.”

My stomach does a little flip because he wants to include Noah in the decision. Now I need to make him understand why I can’t have this baby. That’s the hardest part. I hate talking about my past, even Noah only knows a very small part. Now I’m gonna have to come clean and tell him everything.

“Do you know anything about my history?” I question. My stomach roils with tension–I don’t want to have this conversation, and I’m furious that he’s making me dig up old, unhappy memories.

“Some,” he answers. “I know you lived in foster care from ten until you aged out at eighteen. You bounced around from home to home, never staying longer than a year,” he says. “And I knowyour parents had a terrible marriage, at least until your mother killed your father then took her own life.”

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