Assassins: Slow Agony Part 14

I thought about it.

I couldn't remember.

Wait. What was I doing thinking about this? I was having s.e.x with Griffin again, the thing I'd wanted the most since he left me, and I was missing it because I was contemplating other stupid stuff?

He picked up his pace, hammering into me, panting against my skin.

I tried to find the rhythm of it, allow myself to feel the pleasure. It didn't hurt anymore. I seemed to have gotten wet enough and stretched enough for him to move inside me. But I was disconnected from it, from him.

And then he suddenly grunted. Shuddered.

And stopped, going lifeless against my body.

"Sorry," he mumbled into my neck.

What? That was it?

Griffin pushed himself up on his arms. He cringed. "It's been a while. I really couldn't, um, hold back any longer."

So, what was I supposed to say to that? I touched him. "It's okay."

"No, it's not. That must have sucked for you."

Sucked? Well... "It was fine. I don't have to have an o.r.g.a.s.m every time we have s.e.x."

He rolled off of me, drawing me into his arms. "Yes, you should. I owe you." His hands roamed over me lazily. He yawned. "I'll make it up to you, I swear. In the morning."

The morning, huh?

He kissed the tip of my nose, then my forehead. "My doll."

He was asleep in minutes.

I lay in the circle of his sleeping arms for a minute, gazing at his face.

Then I got up. I pulled the covers aside and covered him up, tucking him in.

I turned off the light, intending to get back in bed with him. But as I stood over his sleeping form, looking at him in the darkness, I didn't feel the least bit tired.

I wandered over to the window of the Holiday Inn. I peered down at the dark parking lot. My legs were shaking. I felt a tender soreness between my legs. I'd wanted...

And then, for no reason I could figure out, I started crying. I wasn't crying because Griffin had hurt me when we had s.e.x, and I wasn't crying because it hadn't been pleasurable. Those were things that sometimes happened, and they didn't bother me.

I should have been happy. He wanted me.

And I wanted him.

But the tears were still coming, and as I cried, things were getting worse, not better. My sobs were deepening, growing louder. I tried to stifle them, shoving my fist into my mouth and biting down on my knuckles. It didn't seem to work.

"Doll?"

Griffin's voice from the other side of the room. I'd been too loud. I'd woken him up.

I couldn't answer. I was crying too hard.

He got out of bed and made his way over to me. In the scant light that came in from the window, he was nothing more than a hulking shadow.

He put a hand on my shoulder.

I pulled away.

"He did do something, didn't he?" His voice was gruff.

"No," I said through my tears. "No, it's not about that."

"Then what?" he asked.

I scrubbed at my face with my hands.

"Was the s.e.x that bad?"

I hiccupped, laughing a little. "No. No, I don't know what's wrong with me."

He drew me into his arms. "Nothing's wrong with you, doll. Nothing at all."

I tried to let him comfort me, but I couldn't. I pushed him away. "You don't really think that."

"Of course I do."

"You think I'm selfish," I said. "Did that change just because some psycho tied me up and cut me?"

He didn't say anything.

"That's what I thought," I said.

"G.o.d, I wish you wouldn't have brought that up," he said. "Me too," I said. I took a shuddering breath, trying to calm the last of my tears. "Let's go to bed." I went to the other bed, the one he hadn't gotten out of, the one that was still made, and pulled aside the covers. I slid into it alone. The sheets were cool and smooth.

He hadn't moved. I could see him by the window, silhouetted against the moonlight. "We aren't going to be able to fix this, are we?"

I pulled the covers close. "I don't know, Griffin."

"All I want to do is forget it happened."

"Do you think you can?" I rolled over so that my back was to him, but I could feel his presence behind me. "I thought that was what I wanted too. But now, now that I've touched you, I'm not sure that I can forget. It's all there, Griffin. It's in the way we made love. You were right. We're broken."

He sat down on the bed. I felt the weight of him tug at the covers.

I turned to look at him.

"How far along would you have been now?" he asked.

"Six months."

He stared at his hands.

"I did it because you were gone," I said.

"Dammit, Leigh."

"It's a good thing, Griffin. Can you imagine how much worse all of this would be if I was pregnant?"

He flinched like I'd slapped him. "I would never have let him near you if-"

"Right," I said. "Because if I wasn't a selfish s.l.u.t, then you wouldn't have left me. Weren't those the words you used, Griffin?"

"I'm sorry." His voice was gravelly. "It's only that it doesn't make sense. If it really it was my baby, then why'd you get rid of it?"

"Because you disappeared," I said. "And... I thought we'd talked about it, anyway. I thought you knew that I didn't want-"

"I thought you were joking," he said. "I didn't think anyone could seriously terminate a pregnancy because she was worried about stretching out her stomach."

"I was joking about that," I said. "That's not why I did it."

He clenched his hands into fists. "You didn't even ask me."

"You weren't around to ask."

He got off the bed. "So, it's my fault?"

I pulled the covers tight against my chin, as if they could protect me. Yes, it was his fault. He'd blown up at me in January at the New Year's party over nothing. He was convinced I'd kissed Clint, and then he ran away. And I didn't see him for weeks.

That was when I missed my period.

By the time he came back, full of apologies, I'd already gotten rid of it.

I had to. I had to.

He'd left me all alone.

"How can it be my fault when you're the one who did it?"

I didn't know what to say. "It was your fault that you abandoned me."

"I wouldn't have left if I'd known," he said.

"I didn't know either."

"You were supposed to be on birth control. It wasn't supposed to happen."

"I was," I said. "But I must have missed a few pills. I don't know."

When he came back, I didn't have to tell him about it. I could have hidden the abortion from him. But I was angry with him, and I was hurting.

Right afterwards, I was pretty depressed. The doctor said it was hormones, and it was to be expected. My body had to readjust to its not-pregnant state, and it processed the whole thing something like an abrupt miscarriage. I knew there were physical reasons for why I felt the way I did, but that didn't stop me from feeling that way.

I was sad and lonely and a tiny bit guilty. Because...

Well, I was too young to have a baby.

Except for the fact that I wasn't so sure that was true anymore. It had easily been true when I was eighteen years old. It had been mostly true when I was twenty. But I was twenty-two now, and in my senior year of college. I was planning on going to grad school after college, and I wouldn't have been able to take care of a baby and get a master's.

But...

Well, I wasn't sure that I really should get a master's. Wasn't graduate school a little vain and unnecessary? Couldn't I have taken my degree and gotten some kind of management job and supported my baby and waited until she was five or six to go back to grad school?

Couldn't I have made a better decision?

After all, no one ever felt ready for children, did they?

At what point did my decision cross the line? Was it the responsible thing to do given that I wasn't ready to be a parent? Or was it indicative of my immaturity and selfishness? Was it time for me to grow up now?

But it didn't matter, anyway, because, when he came back, it was already done. Maybe I hadn't thought it through enough before, but...

I sat up in bed. "You have to understand, Griffin, what it felt like. I'd been invaded. I had this thing in me-"

"Don't say that." He sounded disgusted.

"I didn't ask for it, it was just there, and I wanted it out. I wanted it gone. I was afraid of it."

"You..." He sucked in breath through his nose. "It wasn't a thing. It was a baby."

"No, it wasn't. Not yet it wasn't. It was... part of my body, like a disease or a virus-"

"Don't say that," he said. He stalked over to me. He leaned down, his face inches from mine. "It belonged to me too."

I bit my lip.

"Didn't it? You claim it was mine."

"It was. Of course it was."

"Then don't call it a disease." His voice was breaking.

Oh. I hadn't thought that he would- He pointed at his chest. "My child. I couldn't protect it. I couldn't protect it from you."

"No, it wasn't like that," I said.

He sank down onto the opposite bed. "I'm supposed to be able to trust you."