Page 81 of Dirty Little Secret
Chapter 28
Zandra
Nothing felt right. My feet hit the tiled living room floor, but I didn’t feel them taking me to my bedroom. When I fell on the bed, face-first, I didn’t feel the impact of the mattress hitting the side of my face. I heard the air rush out of my lungs but didn’t feel it.
I’d become numb.
The feeling was familiar. It was the exact same way I’d felt after my baby son was taken away from me. I’d closed myself off from everyone. I’d kept to myself, stayed alone as much as possible, only allowing myself to cry when I was alone.
I knew I couldn’t risk being seen with tears in my eyes. Not after what had happened when Mom had caught me crying the day I came back from the hospital. “And what are those tears for, Zandra?”
Gasping, trying hard to catch my breath as the sobs had nearly robbed me of it, I said, “My son, Mother!” I’d held my side, the pain from crying making my whole body cramp.
“Your son?” She shook her head. “You don’t have a son, Zandra. You had a bastard child. You brought evil into this world—what’s made from sin will only bring more sin. Be glad we made you get rid of him. Let him be a problem for some other family.” Her finger wagged in my face as she leaned over me as I lay in my bed, making me feel even more helpless than I’d felt when I was pregnant.
“Mark my words, Zandra, that child will bring nothing but pain and misery to the poor people who took him in. You sinned. You gave your virginity to a stranger. You had sexual relations out of wedlock. You didn’t follow God’s laws, and now you and the bastard child you bore will suffer for the rest of your eternal lives. Be glad your father and I didn’t allow you to keep him. He would hate you for bringing this misery down on him anyway.”
“Please, stop,” I’d begged her as I felt the numbing sensation taking me over again. “Please don’t wish anything bad for him. Please just let him live in peace. Please pray that the family who has him takes good care of him and loves him as much as I would have.”
I sucked in a breath to replenish my lungs then closed my eyes, praying in silence inside my head so my parents couldn’t hear me. I prayed as much as I could that my son was okay and that the people who had him would love him and give him a great life. A life I wouldn’t have ever been able to give him.
How vividly I could recall her cackle as she left me there. My body felt as if it had been ripped apart from the emotional and physical trauma. She wouldn’t allow me to take the pain medication the doctor had sent home with me, either. She’d thrown that out as soon as I got back home.
I only had my mind to ease the pain. Shutting everything off was the only thing that worked, and once that numbness overtook me, it worked well. Taking me over, putting me in a state that hardly felt like living. No, it couldn’t be called living. I’d merely existed from that moment until the day I’d turned eighteen and left.
And I could go back to that state now that I’d given everything up again, I supposed. Then I opened my eyes as the sun shone in through the thin curtain. “I can’t go back there.”
There wasn’t anyone putting a roof over my head this time around. I no longer had the luxury of simply going numb. Not anymore.
My chance encounter with Kane and Fox seemed to have been my undoing. I had known from the moment I met them, that it would only be a matter of time before it all fell apart. Life hadn’t been great before, but it hadn’t felt this bad in a very long time.
Rolling over, I got up and went to my dresser to pull out the bag I always put my tips in. Thanks to the busy weekends I had been able to save quite a bit of money. I had enough to get me somewhere else, to start somewhere new. I just didn’t know where I wanted to go yet.
There was a clanking sound in the kitchen that drew my attention. I shoved the bag back into the drawer I’d pulled it out of then went to see what Taylor was up to.
She looked at me as I came into the kitchen. “What the hell has happened to you, Zandy?”
Wiping my eyes, I sat down with a thud at the dining table. “I’ve got to get the hell out of here, Taylor. I don’t have a job anymore.”
She yawned then took a bowl out of the cabinet. “I’m gonna make a bowl of cereal, want some? And what do you mean you don’t have a job anymore?”
“Rob was waiting for me when I came home today after meeting Kane for lunch.” I sniffled. “Oh, and we broke up, FYI.”
The bowl dropped out of her hands, crashing onto the granite countertop and bursting into pieces. “What the fuck?” Her black-rimmed eyes stared at me with a stunned look. “Did he break up with you?”
“No.” I shook my head then got up to help her clean up the mess, afraid she might cut herself. “I ended it all.”
“Huh,” she huffed. “Why would you do that?” She stepped back so I could move in and clean things up.
“Go sit.” I pointed at the table. “I’ll make you a new bowl of cereal.”
Staggering to the table, she took the seat I’d vacated. Resting her chin in her hand, she asked, “So, tell me why you broke up with him.”
“He offered to pay for me to go to college.” I wiped the broken pieces of bowl onto a paper towel then tossed it all in the garbage can. Opening the pantry, I looked at the boxes of cereal. “Frosted Flakes or Wheaties?”
“Flakes,” she said, and then her hand hit the table hard, making me look at her. “There’s got to be more, Zandy. Come on, tell me everything.”
Pouring the cereal into the bowl, I put the box down on the countertop. “Look, it happened kind of fast. One minute I was sitting there, happily waiting for Kane to show up. And then he said some things that pissed me off. I left. He followed me, found out I’d been fired and tried to play the hero. I wouldn’t let him. I don’t need a hero.”
