Page 16 of Psycho

“Wait.” I stammered as he popped open the jar and stabbed a fork into a pickle and then held it out to me.

“Are you going to puke again?” He recoiled comically, and I glared at him.

“No. The body the digits were once affixed to—” I droned on, trying not to say any words that might trigger the nausea again.

“Uh huh—” He tilted his head, waiting for more.

“Is it still warm?”

He sat back up fully and grinned and his perfect white teeth momentarily blinded me before he sarcastically replied, “Stone cold.”

“You killed him?”

“Deader than a doornail.”

“Which one was it? Or who, I mean?” I took the offered pickle and took a bite of it, no longer able to resist the snack so easily presented to me.

“Terrance Gaves.” He watched me closely as I chewed, mulling that over in my head.

Terrance Gaves was sick and demented in the head, every time he visited a woman from the Velvet Cage, she left with some sort of wound, visible or not it didn’t matter.

“Good.” I chewed and looked back up at him. “He was a sick fuck.”

His eyebrows rose slightly, and he grinned again, “So you’re saying I should have played with him longer—”

“Shut up.” I barked, pausing to see if the nausea would come or not from his flippant words, but there was none, so I took another bite. “No descriptive words. Or I’ll puke in your lap.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He took the fork and speared another pickle and handed it to me. “So, pickles, huh?”

“I fucking hate them, actually.” I deadpanned even as I groaned from my next bite. “But I can’t stop.”

“Whatever the baby wants, right?” He asked, and his words felt like a physical shift into a conversation I didn’t want to have.

“You didn’t tell Dane or P, did you?”

“No.” He watched me closely, “But can you tell me why you didn’t?”

I picked at a stray string on the blanket as I contemplated how to answer that correctly. Then I decided just to speak it into existence. “Because I’m not sure I’m going to keep it. So, there doesn’t seem to be a reason to tell them if I don’t.”

He watched me silently for a long time, like he didn’t know what to say exactly. Then he asked a question I had hoped he’d spare me. “Who’s the father?”

I took a deep breath and instinctively placed my hand on my still non-existent bump and whispered the answer. “Damon.”

“Did you—,” He paused and turned to face me on the couch with one leg bent between us. “Did he—?”

“Rape me?” I filled in the missing words for him, and he nodded. “No.” I sighed again, “But it wasn’t consensual either. Sex was part of the blackmail.” I shrugged like it didn’t kill me to expose myself so openly, “But my birth control didn’t work and now I’m here.”

“And you’re thinking of abortion? Or adoption?”

“I can’t carry a baby to term and give it away.” I admitted. “I’m not that brave.”

“I think carrying a baby to term period is brave, Olivia.”

“I don’t think I can do that either.” A tear fell over my lashes, landing on the blanket covering my growing little baby, as I whispered.

He slid his hand under the blanket and into the pocket of my hoodie where mine rested against my stomach, lacing our fingers together. I blinked away the tears and looked up at him, and damn if it didn’t feel like my entire world hung on whatever he was about to say.

I needed someone to have something to say that would help me.

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