Page 24 of Hale's Pawn
Ainslee lets out a frustrated sigh. “Oran! I can do things by myself. You’re up my ass! Why? You’re being super weird. I know what to avoid and what not to avoid. I have the fucking Fitbit on, is that not good enough? What is wrong with you? You don’t give two shits about me like that, so just... I don’t know, stop it!”
I feel like she just slapped me. “What are you talking about? I do give a shit. When did I act like I didn’t?”
Ainslee sighs. “Look, Oran, I’m not saying you weren’t scared when all that happened. I was scared too, but you don’t have to do that. All this,” she says and I know she’s not trying to be rude. She’s just saying, but for some reason, it ticks me off.
“You don’t know what the hell I was feeling when Esme ran up to me saying something happened to you! You don’t know how I felt when I was in the car holding on to your things because I couldn’t check on you myself.” I feel my anger growing. “You don’t know how I felt when I had to wait TWO HOURS! TWO FUCKING HOURS just to make sure everything was good. Don’t tell me how to feel! YOU DON’T KNOW ME!”
“Don’t yell at me!” Ainslee says firmly. “Stop yelling at me!”
“WHY THE FUCK NOT? You keep thinking that you have to do this alone! It’s not about you doing it all alone. I could have lost you like I lost my mother! You don’t understand, Ainslee. I wasn’t attentive enough! I didn’t pay her the attention that I should’ve. I let someone else take care of her. My mother deserved a chance to live. She shouldn’t have DIED! She didn’t deserve to die! You can’t die, Ainslee!” I yell out and I see the shock on her face. I feel the tears that I've been keeping in since the night in the shower.
Ainslee’s face falls. “Oran…” she calls my name softly. “Babe.” She moves closer to me and she wraps her arms around me. I don’t cry out loud, but the tears don’t stop. I hear her sniffling, “Don’t cry, please don’t cry,” Ainslee says.
I pull away from her and look at her. “Why are you crying, bug?”
Ainslee looks up at me. All the sadness in the world couldn’t stop her from looking like the sweetest girl alive. “Because…” she starts. “I don’t want you to cry.” She sniffles as she wraps her arms around me. This stops me from tearing up and I don’t know why it’s so funny. Instead of tearing up, I laugh hard. I don’t mean to laugh at her, but it’s funny that she’s crying for me so hard. My little crybaby.
She holds onto me tight and I kiss the top of her head.
After the cry-fest,Ainslee and I decided to try something we both do not do when we’re awake. We cuddle on the couch while looking for a movie to watch on Netflix. She doesn’t pressure me to talk or anything like that. We pick a random movie.
“Was she good to you?” Ainslee asks me softly.
I look at her, but she’s staring at the screen. I smile. “Yeah, she was. She was the best mother I could ever ask for. She’s from the States and one time, she came here on vacation. She had a whirlwind vacation affair with Elmer, but she didn’t find out she was pregnant until she went back home. During her time with Elmer, she saw him for what he truly was and his lies didn’t cover up what a piece of shit he was. So, she didn’t tell him. It was just her and me until I was 13. She was diagnosed with lupus. We weren’t well off, so Mom brought us back to Founders after some negotiations. I met the asshole who didn’t empty his load into a condom for the first time.” I sigh and Ainslee rubs my arm for comfort.
I know she’s listening. “The bastard didn’t acknowledge me. He actually wanted a fucking DNA test and didn’t acknowledge me until then. For the time that we stayed with him, he seemed...nice. There was something that just seemed off about him. I couldn’t put my finger on it then, but slowly he revealed what kind of monster he truly was. He started to call my mother names like ‘lazy’ whenever she had her flare ups. But whenever the camera was clicking and he was in public, he was the victim. He had people fooled for a lot of years. He made my mother seem like some gold digger who had a child just for the money. He made it out to be like he had no choice but to marry her. Things turned bad one night when my mother and I got back from a party. Elmer was jealous because of her popularity and he tried to choke her out. I got in between them and told him that if he ever tried to do that again, he would deal with me. My mom was a wonderful and caring woman, but it hurt both of us in the end. She hid things from me that Elmer would make her do in exchange for her medication. I didn’t know this until my mother went into kidney failure, but the motherfucker just fucked with her meds too much. It broke my heart when I found out I wasn’t a match. She was on the transplant list and the fucker wouldn’t quit messing with her dialysis appointments, so I took over. I took her to her appointments, made sure she was taking her meds and everything. Things were looking up and Jagger even helped out. But, one night, the night she passed, she had a cold. I checked on her and made sure she was good. I left, but Elmer, the fucking asshole, gave her Theraflu instead of warm water with lemon. That’s all he had to do. Just that. Just fucking that…” I hear my voice go quiet.
Ainslee sighs and moves out of my arms. “Get up,” she says. I look at her like she’s crazy, but I do it.
“Ainslee, I’m not fucking you after I just told you that about my mother,” I say defensively.
Ainslee sighs and sits back on the couch. She lays flat. “Come to me,” she says and I smirk at her use of words. “Lay your head on my heart.” I do as she tells me to, but I try to keep my weight off her.
“Am I hurting you?” I ask her.
“No,” she answers. She runs her fingers through my hair without saying anything for a moment. “Close your eyes.” I do as I’m told. “Feel, hear, and breathe in your surroundings. Don’t use your eyes.”
“Okay.”
“Do you hear my heart beating?” she asks me.
“Yeah.”
“I want you to know something. I’ve never told anyone this because of … things. Anyway, your mother, I didn’t know her well. I didn’t know her as you did, but I’ve met her. It was at some socialite party and I had gotten my period for the first time ever. I was 14 years old and a late bloomer, at that. I wore a white dress that day. I ran to the bathroom, too embarrassed, and cried my heart out because I thought I was dying. I know... dramatic AF, but I couldn’t ask Mikonos or Markos because they weren’t there. Your mom saw me run away and she followed me. She knocked on the bathroom door and I let her in. She sat with me, told me I wasn’t going to die, and that it meant I was becoming a woman. She gave me a pad out of her purse and told me to always carry one. She asked me where my room was and I told her. She brought me a clean pair of clothes. She saw the marks on my back, they were...fresh.” I suck a breath in. I keep my eyes shut, trying not to react. I just love that she met my mother. “She didn’t judge me or try to touch me. Instead, she turned away, letting me change, and when I was all done, she pulled me into a hug. I’m pretty sure she cried. I didn’t get it then. I didn’t know why she cried for me when I didn’t deserve that, but I’m happy she brought me a pad. It was probably the nicest thing a mother has ever done for me.”
Ainslee hums as she rises up a little. She kisses my hair and falls back on the couch. “Thank you,” I say to her. We stay quiet with the tv playing in the background. Ainslee is still playing in my hair.
“Oran…”
“Yeah, bug?”
“Thank you,” she says.
“For what?”
“For being there for me. For sharing that with me and for letting me into your world. Into your life. I want to be your wife.”
I turn, placing my forehead on her belly, exposed from her crop top riding higher. “And I want to be your husband,” I say.
