Shame: A Stepbrother Romance (19 page)

I’m not alone either. There are three other women waiting, so I use the time until my name is called to inspect them and guess the reason why they are here. Well, the actual reason is obvious, isn’t it, but what I try to imagine is why they have decided to get rid of their babies.

The first one is so young and her nervousness so palpable that I’m almost positive she isn’t even eighteen and is trying to cover up a huge mistake. She’s alone though, so she might just be looking to assess her options. No one would perform a procedure on her without an adult present, at least that’s what I think from my limited knowledge about abortions.

The other two women are here together and seem like a mother and daughter. Again, the daughter is way too young to be starting a family, but they also look quite poor, judging by their clothes, so the pregnancy might be unwanted for financial reasons.

So, it looks like I, at twenty-seven, am the oddball here. I’m the one who
should
want her baby and should be in an entirely different clinic, unable to contain my joyful laughter at the first sight of my child on the ultrasound monitor.

Okay, what the hell am I doing? I’m really just trying to escape the enormous guilt that weighs down on me by distracting myself with irrelevant things. Who cares why the other women are here? Who cares what mistakes they have or haven’t made and who am I exactly to judge them? What does it matter where I should be instead of here?

Abortion. What an ugly word. I’m trying my hardest to push it out of my head and put a different name to what I’m doing. I only manage to come up with worse definitions. Am I committing murder? The question keeps crawling forward and again I shake my head and grab yet another magazine from the side table.

10 original Christmas centerpieces for your dining room table. How to get rid of stretch marks… for good. 35 unusual, but cute names for your puppy.

Perfect. I don’t have a dining room table or stretch marks or a puppy, but that seems exactly the type of mindless reading I need right now. In a few minutes, they’ll call my name and in a few more it will all be over. I have no time for doubting my decision now.

This isn’t a movie. I won’t change my mind in the last moment. Plus, the cards were pretty clear in their message: I should listen to my gut instinct, which tells me I need to start over and how exactly do you start over with a newborn baby on your hands that will forever tie you to your past?

A woman in scrubs emerges from behind one of the closed doors to the manipulation rooms and after looking over the waiting room, checks her notes. My heart is suddenly almost in my throat. I can literally feel my limbs going numb and my entire body shuddering with fear.
Not me, not me, please
, I scream inside my head.

Come on, Jo! Get a grip. It’s the only way. It will be over before you know it
.

“Miss Highfield?” the woman chirps.

I stand up like a soldier having received an order and I immediately feel lightheaded and weak. Will I even be able to walk the short distance to the exam room?

“That’s me,” I hear myself say.

“Alright, we are ready for you now. Have you had the chance to fill out the paper work?” Her voice is gentle and almost cloying with sweetness. She must know how I feel, or how pretty much every woman coming here feels, so she is doing her best to soften the shock and the guilt and the overwhelming fear. I mentally thank her for that.

She takes the clip board from my shaking hands and runs her pen down each field. She looks like a teacher scoring a test and there it is. She pauses. She’s found a mistake.

“Miss Highfield,” she says in the same friendly tone, but she is speaking quietly, discreetly, “We require that you list a contact for your designated driver today. You won’t be in a position to drive and you might need some help getting settled at home at first.”

“I… I thought I might order a taxi to pick me up,” I suggest.

“I know the situation is delicate and you might not feel comfortable sharing this… experience with anyone, but we cannot proceed until we are sure you will be safe and taken care of. Isn’t there anyone you’d feel comfortable asking?”

Oh God, I know this. I’ve watched a million films and they always say this in abortion clinics and yet I completely forgot about it. Who can I call? My mother? No way. She won’t leave me alone until she knows who the father is. The father himself? I’d rather die than ever speak to him again and I’ve already sworn to myself he’s never finding out about this child.

“Okay. I can call someone,” I say finally, “Could you give me a moment?”

“Sure, sure, please, take your time.”

The screen of my muted phone informs me I have two more missed calls from Andrew, one from my mother and one from Ashleigh. I hit the call button under Ashleigh’s name and wait nervously. I’m trying to come up with a decent explanation of why I’m suddenly such a fuck up who gets outed for a porn film and gets pregnant the first time she has sex in years. Ashleigh says she’d love me no matter what. I wonder if there is a limit to this no-matter-what friendship.

“Hello?” Her sleepy voice comes through.

“Ash? It’s me. Listen, I need you to do something for me and I’d really appreciate it if you ask all your questions later. It’s urgent and it can’t wait and there’s no time to explain now, but I swear I’ll tell you all about—”

“Jo? Jo! Slow down! What’s going on?” She sounds alarmed now. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” I say impatiently, “But Ash? I really need you to not ask any questions right now. Just come.”

I give her the address and I can only imagine her eyes flying out of their orbits when I tell her what to look for at the address, but I remind her again she can’t ask a thing and hang up.

“She’ll be here soon,” I let the nurse know.

“If you’d just fill out her contact information over here, we’ll be ready to start.”

While I scribble down the number, I feel like I’m on death row. I keep going through the motions and performing what I’m being asked to, so I can get sufficiently distracted from what’s coming. But the moment is inevitable and it’s here.

“Follow me, please,” the woman says with a sympathetic smile and disappears inside the room. I know that the moment I hear the door close behind me will be the moment of no return. First I thought the point of no return was the moment I made that call for the appointment yesterday, but now I keep pushing it away in time and I don’t even know why I’m doing it. I know and the cards confirmed that I’m doing the right thing.

I take a deep breath and walk in.

“Jo!”

It’s like I’m in a dream. I haven’t even touched the door to push it closed behind me when I hear my consciousness’ deafening shout.

“Jo, wait!”

It must be the little devil on my shoulder, trying to dissuade me, looking to push me into more mischief. No, I’m not listening to him this time. Last time I did, nothing good came out of it.

“Jo, please! Hold on!”

My head is spinning. It’s not my devil. It’s not my consciousness either.

It’s Andrew.

I’ve suddenly gone mute. I can’t even slow my heart beat and breathing enough to be able to think straight. I react impulsively when I grab the door handle and push it forcefully in the face of the approaching figure. His giant hand lands on the other side of the door and freezes it midway, and not even my strongest effort can make it budge.

He is panting on the other side. I can hear his raspy breathing and even smell the mint on his breath. Still he collects himself enough to be able to speak.

“Fuck, Jo, let me see your face,” he says wheezily and I realize he’s been running.

I’m together enough now to know I don’t want to speak to him or even hear what he has to say. I can’t even stand to listen to his breathing. It’s too painful to hear and it makes me remember what I least want to remember right now.

Everything has happened so fast that the nurse only now realizes there’s something going on at the door and rushes to my side, pushing me away. The moment I let go of the door, it flies open and Andrew is inside at once. I only manage to take a couple of steps back into the room and then I’m paralyzed. The nurse steps in front of me as if she’s planning to block Andrew from reaching me.

“Excuse me, sir?” she says in her friendly, sweet voice, “You can’t be here. I’m going to have to ask you to—”

“I’m sorry,” he says mildly, “I don’t mean to disturb anything. I just need to talk to her for a moment.”

He looks dangerous and predatory the way he is towering over the petite woman, the stubble on his face and the wildness in his glinting eyes making him look even more like a criminal or a mental patient. He also doesn’t look like someone who would take no for an answer.

“But sir…”

“Jo,” he says, completely ignoring her and walking past her tiny body towards me. The only thing I can move is my eyes and they are huge and pleading.

“You need to leave, Andrew,” I manage to whisper.

“I’m calling security, if you don’t—” the nurse tries to interject, but no one is paying attention to her any more.

“Jo, fuck! What are you doing here? Is it mine?” His eyebrows are furrowed and he looks so serious, his eyes are piercing straight through me. I feel like his hands will tear me apart in a moment. My chin is trembling and I can’t speak. I can’t find words to tell him that it’s his and that he needs to get out and that I’m going through with this.

Still, the way he looks at me questioningly, my body rather than my mind responds and I produce a barely noticeable nod. My eyes have filled with tears, despite the hatred oozing out of my every pore. Doesn’t he get it? He’s the reason I’m standing here, he’s the reason my life has been brought down to this.

“Jo, please listen,” he says firmly and takes my hand into his, his strong fingers locking around mine with force. He shoots a warning look at the approaching nurse, who’s now holding a phone and she is silently suggesting she’s about to call security. “I’ll be gone in a minute,” he tells her and turns back to me, “I want you to listen to me. I’ve been trying to reach you for days, but the important thing is I’m here now and it’s not too late.”

“Too late for what, Andrew? Ruining me?” I say weakly. “Because it’s obviously not too late for that. You didn’t seem—”

“No,” he shouts to interrupt me, “It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. You and I, it wasn’t supposed to happen. It wasn’t in the plan at all.”

“The bring down Jo plan you mean?”

“Yes. No, Jo! You don’t understand. There was a plan, but it should have never worked out. I was supposed to stop it. I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know, Jo. It wasn’t supposed to happen. I need you to believe me.”

“What wasn’t supposed to happen?” I ask, thinking that he sounds like the madman he looks like.

“You,” he whispers hoarsely, “You and I. I was never supposed to fall in love with you, Jo.”

I try to pull away from his steel grip. He’s shot a dagger straight into my convulsing heart. I’m once again furious and I want all the security in the world to come and take this man off me. I’m so done trusting. And crying.

“Yes,” the nurse’s voice interrupts the sudden silence, “Second floor. We have an intruder.”

“Give me a chance to explain,” Andrew pleads, deaf for what’s happening outside of him and me. “I just want to talk to you and if you want to still do this, you can always come back. But I’ll never forgive myself if I let you go through it thinking I had anything to do with what happened. Ten minutes, Jo. Ten minutes and you can come back and do it. It will be your choice then.”

“It is my choice
now
,” I say defensively, the tears spilling past my lids.

At that moment two uniformed men charge in and stop just inside the door, assessing the situation.

“Sir?” one of them says and I see the nurse is looking anxiously at Andrew. She’s probably afraid he might become violent. He isn’t, but he doesn’t seem to have noticed the man addressing him either. He’s looking straight into my eyes instead, waiting for me to say something.

“Ten minutes, Jo. That’s all I ask.”

The security guards follow a nod from the nurse and step forward, one of them placing a hand on Andrew’s shoulder.

“Sir!” he warns him again.

Andrew shakes him off like an annoying fly, which prompts both of the guards to grab him by the arms and try to pull him towards the door. He is not having it. I’m only a shaken spectator who can’t understand her own feelings as I watch Andrew tear away from the men with ease, his tall athletic body no match for their average physique, and kneel down in front of me.

Then he does something I least expect. As he is down on his knees, he gently places both his giant hands on the sides of my waist and presses his ear to my stomach. The security guards seem stunned and so does the nurse, but they can’t have any idea I am the truly stunned one.

“Is this our baby, Jo? Are you carrying our child?” His voice, steady and firm so far, is wavering. “I can’t believe you were going to let it go. I love you, Jo, and I love this baby more than you can imagine. I know we can love it together. That’s all I want. Please, ten minutes and if you still want to go through with it even though it’s a mistake, I’ll understand, but you
need
to hear me out first. Please, if you don’t want to do it for me, at least do it for the baby.”