Always and Forever (78 page)

“Our baby is in here, Jake. We need you so much; we can’t
do this without you. What happened to me was horrible but it could have been so
much worse, you saved me and I owe you my life.”

Jake’s eyes were locked onto my stomach, it was though he
was in a trance, all he could see was the baby, I wasn’t even sure if he could
hear me anymore.

“He could have really, really hurt you. He could have hurt
my baby.” He whispered painfully, lowering his forehead down to mine.

“But he didn’t. I’m fine and so is the baby. We’re both ok,
Jake.”

“I can’t believe he
touched
you. How am I supposed
to just let this go? I need to find him, Bethany.”

“No, you don’t.” I said firmly.

“I can’t let him get away with this; there will be other
girls he could do this to.” Jake said, taking a step back from me.

I inhaled sharply, I’d never even thought about that
before. I suddenly felt like I had a moral obligation to do something about
him. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I knew he had hurt someone else.

“But there’s no evidence now, if we go to the police
they’ll want to know why we didn’t report it in the first place. We’ll be
forced to admit that you attacked him, you almost killed him and they’ll charge
you. I can’t risk losing you, Jake. How will we cope if you get sent to
prison?”

“Bethany, you have no
idea what you’re asking me to
do. I know I won’t be able to forget this; it will torment me every second of
every day. How am I going to live knowing I let him get away with it?”

“You put him in the hospital; you didn’t let him get away
with anything Jake.” I said soothingly, reaching up to run my fingers through
his hair.

“I need to know one more thing. What made you tell me about
this tonight? What frightened you so badly?”

“It wasn’t your fault, it was nothing.” I avoided his eyes,
knowing he would be able to read the truth behind them.

“Tell me.”

He interlaced our fingers and pulled me towards him. We
were so close, our lips were centimetres apart. I was breathing in his air and
I could hear his heart beating.

“It was just something you said, it reminded me of him.”

“What did he say?”

“Let me feel how badly you want me.” I whispered, reluctant
to relive that memory.

Jake released his hold on me and spun around, I couldn’t
see his face but I knew it would be distorted with rage.

“
Fuck
! That monster should be six feet under by now;
he would be if I had my way!”

“Let’s just go home, Jake. We can forget about all of this
and just go to bed. Please.” I circled around him, wanting him to look at me.

“Baby, I love you but I
need
to be alone right now.
I want you to stay here with Carla until I get back.”

“What? Why? Where are you going?”

“I just have to do something.”

He stroked my cheek and placed a delicate kiss on the top
of my head. I clung to him but he removed my fingers from his shirt. He stalked
out the room and I heard the front door slam behind him. He had really gone.

I sat down on his bed, feeling quite at home amongst the
chaos and disruption of his things. His bedroom was ruined and my heart felt
exactly the same. Jake had told me to stay with Carla but I had no intention of
doing what he asked. I ignored her protests about walking home alone in the
dark; I just wanted to get out of there.

I returned home to an empty flat, the music from the bar
was still going and I also wanted something to drown out the darkness of the
thoughts in my head. I reached for the brand new iPod Jake had bought me and
pressed shuffle. ‘Marilyn Monroe’ by Nicki Minaj started to play as I threw
myself on the bed. I felt like I could indentify with every single word and
made sure the track was on repeat. I didn’t want to end up losing my soul and
half the time I didn’t know if my relationship with Jake was a blessing or a
curse.

 I wept for what felt like hours, everything in my
body hurt. My heart, my head, even my soul ached. I don’t know what time it was
when Jake came home. I never heard him come in and I only knew he had come back
when I felt a weight on the bed beside me.

“I’m so sorry.” He spoke directly into my ear, struggling
to be heard over the song as he tried to pull my body against him.

 I removed myself from his embrace and switched off
the music. I wanted to be mad at him, I thought I’d scream and shout at him for
leaving me when I needed him the most and hat had been my plan until I saw him.
I was so relieved he had come back to me, all of my anger just disappeared.

“Where have you been?” I asked.

 “That doesn’t matter. I asked you stay with Carla and
when I returned to pick you up she told me you had left. I can’t believe you
deliberately disobeyed me; it’s not safe for you to be out alone at night.
We’ve already been through this.” Jake groaned in frustration.

“I didn’t want to stay there, not after what you did.” I
said coldly.

He hung his head in shame and moved towards the edge of the
bed. I remained against the wall, reluctant to forgive him for storming out
like he did.

“I can understand that but you have to see how foolish it
was for to take off by yourself. I don’t want anything or anyone to hurt you
again and I can’t make sure you’re safe if I’m not there.”

“Jake, you can’t be with me all the time. I just needed
some space to clear my head and I couldn’t do that at your house.”

“Fine. Let’s not discuss this anymore, just get into bed with
me and we can go to sleep.”

“Not until you tell me where you’ve been.” I replied
stubbornly, folding my arms.

“Does it really matter? I’m home now.” He stood up, closing
the gap between us as he joined me on the other side of the road.

“Yes it matters; I want to know where you’ve been.” I
persisted.

“You’re not going to like it.” He warned me.

My heart was pounding inside my chest. All sorts of hideous
possibilities sprung to mine and I didn’t know which one was worse.

“Go on.” I urged him, preparing myself for the worst.

“Before I met you I used to fight. I don’t mean the odd
beating after a drunken argument, I mean underground fighting. It’s illegal and
I’m not proud of it, that’s why I never told you about it before. I haven’t
done it for a long time; I had no reason to… until tonight. I had to go there,
Bethany. I was dangerous; I had so much fury inside of me. I had to release it,
I had to let it out and that’s where I went.” He actually smiled at me; he was
acting like it was no big deal.

“Are you serious? That’s where you’ve been this whole time?
I’ve been going out of my mind with worry and you were fighting?” I looked at
him in disgust and noticed his knuckles were all bandaged up.

“I
knew
you wouldn’t like it.” He sighed.

“Of course I don’t like it! Do you know how unbelievably
stupid and dangerous something like that is?”

“Only if you don’t know what you’re doing and I do!
Bethany, I’ve been fighting for years, I’ve yet to be beaten and it pays a shit
load of money.”

I was hit by a sudden realisation. All the money I had been
wondering about must have come from there, from Jake’s victorious fights. I now
knew the reason for Jake being so unbelievably strong and powerful. I was
appalled and revolted to find out he had been involved with something so
immoral and it all started to make sense to me. I had watched Jake almost
annihilated the guy who tried to rape me that night and I now understood what
an expert he really was when it came to violence. He was ruthless, unmerciful
and unrelenting. The man I had fallen in love with, the father of my unborn
baby was an absolute pro and it sickened me.

“That’s where all your money has been coming from?” I
murmured, not wanting to believe it.

“I told you I haven’t done it for months. They money I used
to buy your clothes and to get this flat is my own. Yes, it might have come
from fights I won in the past but its still my money. I swore I wouldn’t do it
again, as soon as I met you I knew I wanted to change and become a better
person for you, someone worthy.”

“And now?”

“Now I know I might have to return to it for a little
while. I have enough fucking rage inside me right now to obliterate fifty men
and I’m going to need that release if I want to stay sane.”

“You’re going to fight to stop you from going insane?” I
asked incredulously.

“That’s right! Every time I step into that ring from now
on, I’m going to imagine my opponent is the same cunt who attacked you. I gave
the best performance of my life tonight and believe me; it felt good to pretend
it was him on the receiving end of my rage.”

“God, Jake. I don’t know how to deal with this. This isn’t
normal, what if you accidentally end up really hurting somebody? It happens all
the time and you’re not invincible, you could be the one who gets hurt.” I
cried, angrily wiping away my tears.

“Don’t cry, baby. No one’s going to hurt me, I’ve never
lost a fight and I don’t intend to start now. I don’t want there to be anymore
secrets between us and that’s why I told you about it, it’s a little different
than you keeping the fact that you were sexually assaulted from me.” The agony
on his face was raw and I could see it was tearing him to pieces.

 “What about what you did to your room? What are you
going to do about it?” I asked, chancing the subject.

“I’ll clean it up and I’ll pay for the damage.”

“Damage? It was completely wrecked. You owe Carla an
apology.”

“I know, I’ll go round there first thing and apologise.”

When we finally got to bed that night, Jake clung onto me
for dear life. He refused to let me go; he even tightened his hold on me when I
got up to go to the bathroom. As I crawled into bed beside him he whispered my
name.

“What is it?” I asked, all I wanted to do was go back to
sleep.

“I can’t promise you I won’t fight anymore, it really helps
me and it straightens out my head. It helps to control my anger and I think
that’s why I’ve been struggling lately, I haven’t done it for months and I’ve
had no release when it comes to my anger.”

“I don’t approve and I’m not going to change my mind. Do
what you like but don’t think for one second that I want a single penny of the
money you make.” I said spitefully, turning away from him.

For the first time that night
we went to sleep with so much distance between us. Jake slept on his side of
the bed and I curled up in mine. The wedge was already there, I wasn’t sure if
we could overcome it and to be honest, I didn’t know if I had the energy to
try.

I woke early the morning after the worst night of my life.
Jake was still asleep and I tried so hard to sneak out of bed without waking
him. I padded into the kitchen to make myself a cup of coffee. I made sure I
didn’t make a sound, the last thing I wanted do was wake up Jake, we had been
up half the night and he was due back at work in twelve hours. I opened the
fridge and sighed when I realised we hadn’t any milk. I was desperate for
caffeine and knew I’d have to go out and get some. I quietly changed, pulling
on one of the new skirts I hadn’t worn yet and a light blue T-shirt. The
weather was definitely warming up so I didn’t think I needed a jacket if I was
only popping out for some milk. I tugged a hairbrush through my tangled hair
and put on a bit of mascara and some lip gloss. I grabbed my phone and some coins
off the coffee table, hoping it would be enough to buy some milk. I glanced
back towards the bedroom, Jake was still asleep and I figured it was safe for
me to sneak out.

I was in a world of my own as I made my way to the corner
shop, lost in thought and deep contemplation. My eyes were fixed on the ground
before me but I still noticed someone come to a standstill directly in front of
me. I tried to move out of the way but a hand reached out and took hold of my
arm, preventing me from moving to the side.

“Bethany?” A hopeful voice said my name, as though he
couldn’t quite believe it was me.

I gasped, meeting the concerned gaze of those familiar
eyes, the ones I knew so well but never thought I’d see again.