Page 65 of Love Bank
My brain scrambled again, rolling through a rolodex of people I knew, girls I went to school with, women I’d slept with. I came up empty. Not one bubbly twenty-year-old with long blonde hair, red lipstick, and an insane gleeful look in her eye. I mean, she looked familiar, but that’s about as far as I got down memory lane.
“Vaguely. What can I help you with?” Dumbly, I thought maybe this had to do with someone who’d come through my prison in the city. I grabbed Lucy and pulled her into me, feeling better the second her body aligned with mine.
“Surprise! I’m pregnant.”
I nodded. “Congratulations.” I rubbed the back of my neck with my free hand, trying to ward off the chill that remained there. “I’m sorry, who are you again?”
Her smile slid right off her face, and to my horror, her eyes filled with tears. “You don’t remember me?”
I shook my head, trying to clear the cobwebs. “No. Am I supposed to?”
The girl’s jaw dropped. “Baby,” she whined, “we slept together two months ago. Remember that night at the Hilton?”
Lucy sagged into my body and I focused on that, wondering what her issue was. I tightened my arm around her, wondering if maybe her blood sugar was low. I had to get this girl out of here so Lucy could eat her eggs.
“Well, good luck to you. Congrats on the baby.” I let go of Lucy long enough to usher the girl out onto the porch and shut the door in her face.
Lucy had a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide, staring at the back of the door.
“Lucy? You okay? Come on, let’s get you fed.”
I put a hand on her back, wanting to help her to the kitchen so she could eat before the eggs got cold. She pulled away from me, turning those wide eyes to me instead.
“Don’ pouf me,” she said behind her hand.
I reached up and gently pried her hand away from her mouth. “What’s that, love?”
She ripped her hand out of mine, stepping back again. “Don’t touch me! And don’t call me love!”
I froze, wondering what parallel universe I just stepped into. She backed away farther, nearly halfway into the living room now.
“How can you be so blasé about this?” she whispered, looking at me like she’d never seen me before.
I screwed up my face. “What are you talking about? I don’t know that girl. Probably a neighbor or something welcoming me to the ’hood. Congratulations and all that, but you looked like you needed to eat.”
Lucy dropped the hand that had been frozen in midair, smacking her thigh. “How can you say that? She’s not a neighbor, Bain! I’ve never seen her in my life and I know everyone in Auburn Hill. Maybe not their names. But I know faces!”
“Okay?” I didn’t know what to say, what she was getting at, or why she looked afraid of me all of a sudden.
“No, not okay. Not even remotely close to okay.” She jabbed her finger in the air and I flinched, like she actually made contact with my chest. “You got that girl pregnant!”
Her words hit me like that one time when I was a rookie and a prisoner got out of his cuffs, delivering a cheap blow to the side of my head when I least expected it. It jarred me, making my vision tunnel. All I heard over and over were the words “you got that girl pregnant” until I felt motion sick and ready to vomit on my bare feet.
I swayed, my shoulder hitting the wall and just barely keeping me standing. “That’s not possible. I don’t know her.”
Lucy’s eyebrows shot up her forehead. “She sure seemed to know you!”
I shook my head back and forth real slow. “I swear to you, Lucy, I don’t know her and that’s not my baby.”
Her eyes filled with tears, spilling over and down her cheeks before she spun around and ran back to my bedroom. I followed her, terror shutting down my brain and making me move. I had to make her understand. Make her stay. Make her love me.
When I reached the bedroom, she already had her overnight bag out, shoving clothes and toiletries in it. She stepped into a pair of cutoff denim shorts, tucking the front of my T-shirt into the front waistband.
I blocked the doorway, my only thought to keep her there with me, by force if necessary. She grabbed her bag and pinned me with a look I would never forget. In her eyes, I saw a whole kaleidoscope of reactions: hurt, disappointment, confusion, anger, and finally resignation as her lids dropped and she blocked me out.
The bottom of my world fell out, tumbling me down to rock bottom with it.
Tears left tracks down her cheeks, silent and deadly.
