Page 12 of Curvalicious

Did he really think it would make me feel better? I would cry. Smile. Then, we would talk about the missing years? He simply nodded and his silence angered me even more.

“I was weak and a coward. I wasn’t in a good place, but that’s no excuse for how I treated you. A slap is nothing compared to what I deserved for my cowardice.”

There were times where I’d sat and rehearsed the words I would say to him. One time, it resulted in me learning some killer moves, as if I was one of Charlie's Angels and I knew kung-fu. I would act like some ninja or something and I would kick him and punch him until he was black and blue, then I would walk away with a smile on my face, knowing the pain I'd inflicted on him was enough to bring my broken heart some semblance of satisfaction. The disappointment of knowing the slaps I’d given him were nothing in comparison to the way he made me feel back then, and even worse now, gnawed at me. He’d hurt me, broke my heart, a pain which I'd experienced once before when I was fifteen and my parents died.

I snatched my hand away from his. He had no fucking right to touch me.

“Don’t touch me. If it wasn’t for Kylie’s obsession with social media and Pete posting about your club and your lifestyle, then I wouldn't have figured out where you lived. I didn't even know I was pregnant. You left and who knows what would have happened to the twins back then?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I was desperate. I didn’t know I was pregnant when you left, and imagine the shock when I did find out that I was carrying not one baby, but two.”

I paused for a second, trying to catch my breath. I shut my eyes and tried to explain to him exactly what had happened in the past.

“I didn't know what to do. This wasn’t entirely true…I could have had a termation. The girls had them all the time. I was no stranger to witnessing them, but the difference was that I saw what they became when they had them. It was so ugly. Numb. Dead inside. Alcoholics, or even worse, they became hooked on drugs to ease the pain. Not knowing what day or even month we were in. Most of the time they didn’t even care.”

He said nothing. He didn’t even look at me, but that didn't stop me from taking a sip of the hot chocolate and retelling the past.

“I waited for you, Rick. I fucking waited. I thought maybe you would realize the mistake you'd made and come back to me. Even when I hit four months, I didn’t give up. I kept waiting, living in some sick fantasy land, thinking that you would miss me, come back, and we would be one happy family. All you needed was time.”

Our eyes locked as if he'd woken from the place he went to for a few seconds. I remembered how much I used to love looking into his green eyes and finding myself lost in them. I hated myself even more now for feeling that way. I should hate him. I wanted to hate him. No, Ineededto, for my own sanity. He’d done me wrong, and belonged to another. Whenever I drifted into the good memories of the past, I needed to be brought back to reality by the fact that he left me.

“I thought about it. I won’t deny that. I did for a long time, wonder about you. I knew that I needed to go back to find out if you were okay. It was the least I could do. I knew you were illegal and at any moment, you could get sent back. When I did have the guts to do it, I heard you left the club, a conversation in which I had with one of the girls who’d left the old club to join our new one. I just figured you’d moved on. She never said you were pregnant, and in all honesty I didn’t ask any questions. I was a fucking pussy, not asking for details to make myself feel better. I knew that if you weren’t all right then I was responsible for it. A responsibility that I wasn’t willing to own.”

He shocked me, because I never knew or even thought that he would bother to think of me from the moment he left.

“You checked up on me?”

He nodded, not saying anything more as I replayed his words in my mind. He said he asked casually about me, that wasn’t the same thing as checking up on me.

I sipped on my chocolate, while he continued to stare at the table. I didn't know what to say to him. I felt as if I'd said enough, and if he apologized a thousand times, it wouldn’t make up for what he did.

“I thought you did it to punish me,” he practically whispered.

“What?”

I didn’t understand what he meant by that. What did I do in all this that was so wrong?

“I assumed you had some man in Mexico, or even here. So you had the kids and decided to dump them on me as some form of punishment for leaving. But it didn’t take long for me to figure out you hadn’t left them because you were riding into the sunset with someone, you’d left them because you were in trouble. I should have done something, anything, but I somehow decided the best thing I could do to help you was to look after our kids.”

I hated the idea of him knowing me so well, but there was no denying we had a past filled not only with the painful memory of him leaving, but the good times too.

“Yeah, immigration just seemed to be everywhere and I thought it was a matter of time before they caught up with me. I was lucky that the girls pitched in to help pay for their delivery. Otherwise, who knows what would have happened?”

He punched his legs, and I looked up, startled, and noticed a tear had swelled up in his eye. Rick wasn't a man for showing any emotion, especially in public. Maybe this really was a different Rick and the one who’d left me behind was under lock and key.

“Fuck! I’m so sorry, please forgive me…”

He pleaded as he went on bended knees next to me. I couldn’t even look at him as he took my hands and continued to plead with me. The idea of him being on his knees and everyone watching should have given me pleasure, as he appeared to feel like shit about the past. He should.

“I only found out they were twins when I went into premature labor. I’d never had a hospital visit or check-up. All I knew was that the price would be more to have them, but I had no choice.”

I started to cry, unable to fight the tears any longeras I started talking about the time I decided to leave my babies. The hardest decision of my life.

“I knew where you lived. I even followed Pete home once when I was six months pregnant. I thought about telling him then. I toyed with what to do every single day. Then, they came early. As soon as I left the hospital, I knew I couldn’t stay with Lara. Not indefinitely. I had no income. Nothing.

It felt stupid to even think about adoption, especially when I knew where you lived.”

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