No Going Back (30 page)

The DA had told us that we’d only be asked to testify if for some reason all the evidence wasn’t enough, but since all Allison had was a court appointed lawyer and not some big wig, he didn’t really expect it to be a problem. The video proves she was there, which she originally lied about when she was caught, and shows her placing the sign on the elevator and running out soon after I go into the stairwell. Seth holds my hand tightly the whole time. I hated that he had to see it. The few people that were seated inside the courtroom all gasped as she pushed me. There was no sound on the video, but it was very clear the point Allison had been making that day. I can clearly remember her saying
“If I can’t have Seth, no one will,”
as I try to keep from reliving the exact details from that day in my head.

It’s hard to believe some people are filled with so much hate. From what I had heard she had a fairly normal life growing up. She’s the typical
never judge a book by its cover
type of scenario. By her previous outside appearance you’d only think she was a
loosey goosey
and gave up the goods easily and on an hourly basis, maybe even got paid for it. But the thought of her being a heartless loon was the furthest thing from my mind.

Surprisingly, they didn’t try using the insanity plea. That girl is fucking bat shit crazy, but not the straight jacket kind.

“How do you find the defendant in regards to voluntary manslaughter of an unborn child?” The judge asks with no emotion evident in his voice.

“Guilty,” the man standing in the juror section answers.

“How do you find the defendant in regards to the aggravated assault and battery charge against Mrs. Jordan?”

“Guilty.”

“I didn’t push her down the stairs. She’s lying. I went to apologize to her. She fell on her own. You can’t put me in jail. I didn’t do it!” Allison screams.

She pays no attention to the judge telling her to settle down as she turns and runs in our direction. I don’t know what her plans are, but I could tell by the evil look on her face she wasn’t coming to get a goodbye hug. The guard reaches her, grabbing her arm just as she makes it to where we are standing. She looks down to where Seth’s hand is resting over mine on my stomach and a look of defeat washes over her face.

“Game over, bitch,” I say before grabbing Seth’s hand and leading the way out.

She had originally been sentenced twenty years with a chance of parole in ten, but the little stunt she pulled revoked her chance of parole. Even though the psycho didn’t receive life, a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders that had been weighing down on me for so long. I didn’t realize how much I was still holding on to it. I pray Seth feels the same peace about it as I do. I know he has carried around so much guilt when it came to losing our baby. But I’m equally as guilty. Hell, if I would have told him things could have been different. We’ve both made our share of mistakes, but we never stopped loving each other the whole time. In fact, I think it made our love for each other stronger. Seems crazy, I know. I always thought the whole
absence makes the heart grow fonder
was a bunch of bullshit, but with our case I believe it was our saving grace.

How will you ever know you can’t live without the person you love until you are forced to? Sometimes it takes losing it all to find out what is really important. Sometimes I think life wants to see you fight for what you love. Finding love when you aren’t looking for it is easy but holding on to it when everything around you is trying to pull it away is hard. Seth and I have experienced more together than most couples do in a lifetime. We both came into this damaged, not expecting anything and now we are still slightly damaged, but with each other and the little boy I’m carrying…we have the world.

Seth wraps his arm around me as we make our way through the courthouse to his jeep. “How you doing, foxy?” He pulls me tighter into his side.

“Honestly?” I let out a heavy breath. “Way better than I thought I’d be doing.” I look over at him and smile. “I guess I just thought that it’d take me to a dark place. You know, reliving all of that? I didn’t want it to. I was scared it’d put some weirdness between us because of the whole situation. That’s the last thing I wanted. But in reality, it has replaced all that sadness I had felt and pain and it’s been filled with calmness and understanding. I now realize that things happen for a reason. They suck. And can tear you down if you let them. Or you can learn from them and grow stronger. And damn did it feel good to finally be able to say something to her. God, how I wanted to deck her, but seeing the look of defeat in her eyes was a sweet revenge.” I stop walking and turn towards Seth and grab his hands. “You and me have been through so much. We’ve had to deal with way more pain then some people will ever experience. It took us both a while, but we each on our own decided to let our experiences make us stronger. And that can only make us that much stronger together.”

“You’re so right babe. We’re a fucking force to be reckoned with and this little guy is going to be fucking amazing. I can’t wait to meet him.” He rubs my belly, which lets out a very audible growl. “Let’s get you something to eat. I have a surprise for you.”

“Eek, I love surprises!” I squeal. “But I also love food. Can we do both?”

“Anything for you, Mal,” he says before tenderly kissing me.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

*SETH*

I’m literally bursting with excitement. I cannot wait to get Mallory home. She is going to flip her wig. I know I’m cheesing like a mad man, but she just assumes it has to do with how well court went today. That is a part of it, but I knew Allison had no hope. Especially if Doug was a part of it at all, which I don’t think he was.

We pull in the driveway and Mallory instantly has a surprised look on her face upon seeing Derek’s truck and my mom’s car. She looks in her side mirror as Doug pulls in behind us and then looks at me with a
what-did-you-do
look. I simply shrug my shoulders and attempt to play it off.

“We all wanted to celebrate. This has been a dreaded day that brought back a shitload of memories. They wanted to make it a brighter day for us. One that we can put behind us with a family gathering. And what better place to celebrate at than our new house.” All sadness from today’s events leaves her face and is replaced with hope and excitement. Her blue eyes just shine up at me.

“Our house. Family gathering,” she says out loud. “I love the way both of those sound. Let’s go hang with the family in our house.” She bends over and kisses me then quickly looks back up, “Wait, does this mean our furniture was delivered?” she asks with excitement.

Jesika and my mom pretty much tackle us as soon as we walk in. I quickly bypass all the hugs and baby bump rubbings to find Derek in the kitchen.

“Hey bro.” I nod and look back to where the women are now sitting on the new sectional. “Did y’all get it done?”

“Yeah, you have to look at it. She’s going to fucking love it.” I follow Derek down the hallway and take a look. He’s so right.

“She’s going to wig out.” Derek gives me an odd look.

“That’s a good thing, right?” I clasp his shoulder and laugh.

“Yeah man, a very good thing.”

They ordered Chinese for us since it’s Mallory’s favorite food. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel amazing having everyone in my house…getting along like how families are supposed to. It was a feeling I thought I’d never fully get to experience.

“Uncle Seth! Uncle Seth!” Jaxon and Emma come running in from outside. “Are you going to show Mallory the room?” Busted.

“What room?” she asks as she walks back into the kitchen.

“I lied to you earlier.” She looks at me, telling me to go on with her eyes. “When I said everyone was here to throw us a party, well, that was a lie. Besides waiting here for the furniture guys to show, they were here because they put together a surprise for you.”

I take her hand in mine and lead her down the hallway. Jaxon and Emma are running ahead of us. The rest of the gang slowly following behind. I push open the door and turn on the light and take a step to the side, making way for Mallory to fully see it.

She gasps and her hand flies to her mouth. She looks back at me with tears in her eyes. And then walks into the room further. She makes her way to the crib and runs her hand along the fancy comforter I paid my mother to have made. Hell, as far as I’m concerned, this whole damn baby room is custom made. Well, except for most of the wall hangings. As non-manly as it sounds, I made Derek take a trip to Hobby Lobby with me because I was told they had amazing musical wall hangings.

The crib set and curtains are black with silver and red musical notes on it. The crib is black and so is the dresser and changing table. The drawers on them are red. There’s metal guitar, microphone and drum set hangings all over the wall. Above his crib I had my mom, who apparently has hidden her mad painting talent for my whole life, paint a sheet of music as the back drop and then she will paint our baby boys name in it when we name him, to represent him being the best song of our life.

She turns around after making her way around the room a good five times, and makes her way back to me with tears streaming down her face. She places her hand on my cheek. “It’s perfect Seth.”

“You deserve nothing less, foxy.”

“Thank you guys so much. I love it so hard. Our baby boy is going to love it.”

“Yeah, I personally thought the little man needed his own drum set. Having mom paint his name on the bass of it will need a much needed flare,” Derek boasts with pride.

“You might be on to something uncle Derek,” Mal says. “This little feller is always banging around in my stomach. This guy is gonna be above and beyond musically gifted.”

“You know that’s right, because us Jordan boys are also gifted in the package department.” I snickered and turn to high-five Derek.

“You got that right,” he says while slapping my hand, then pulling me in for a brotherly hug. “I’m so happy for you. You deserve this man. Never think you don’t.”

I roll over and face Mallory. I’m not being able to snuggle up as close as I’d want to with her ever growing belly in the way. The idea of knowing our son is resting between us puts a smile on my face. “So, have you thought of any names yet? I know we’ve both mentioned some, but nothing has stood out.”

She sighs. “No, and I’m getting kind of depressed. Now that his room is done I want his name on everything. It’s so perfect.”

“You deserve nothing less.”

“Neither do you. Now let’s pick out the best name for our little future rocker. It has to be something epic.”

“Epic?” I ask.

“Yeah, you know. Larger than life. Something that isn’t like Bob or Joe. I want his name to stick out but not in one of those crazy ways like naming him after fruit or some shit. Maybe we should think of musical brands, or like bands.”

“Well, I know naming kids with musical brands is pretty popular for people in the industry. I know many artists that have named their kids after guitars. Such as Jackson and Taylor being the most popular. Oh, and Gibson drums is hot one too.”

“Hmm, then how bout we look into some of our favorite bands and the members and see if anything screams at us? Some of my favorite bands were the 80’s hair bands. I use to have a fetish I think for the fluffy hair and spandex. That is, until you graced my life.”

“I like where you’re going with this, but I’m not so sure naming a baby Poison or Damn Yankees would be a good idea.” I laugh at his silliness.

“Really? Because I think we should name him Damn Yankees Jordan. It has a nice ring. Plus, it covers the middle name as well.”

“About his middle name... can use my gramps name?”

“Sure, what was it?”

“Lewis.”

“I really like that. I think it will be perfect once we agree on a first name.” I yawn and Seth maneuvers around my belly to give me a goodnight kiss.

“Get some rest beautiful. Only a couple more months til we get to hold this little guy.” He rubs my stomach before bending down to tell our baby boy goodnight. “Goodnight son. I love you.”

Epilogue

*MALLORY*

I wake up in the middle of the night with the extreme urge to pee. I hurry as fast as I can to the bathroom with my legs clamped together to my knees and walking I’m sure in a way that resembles a zombie. The trickling down my leg doesn’t stop despite my efforts of squeezing everything tightly shut. Or at least that’s what it feels like I’m doing. I strip my shorts and panties off and plop my pregnant ass on the toilet. Relief is what I feel…but it doesn’t end. It never fucking ends. I can’t stop peeing.

“Seth!” I yell.

I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen him run that fast. He’s been slightly on high alert these days. “What’s wrong? Do I need to grab the suitcase? Do I need to go start the car? Are we going to the hospital? Is it time?” He finally quits looking around in a panic and gives me his attention.

“I think my bladder broke. I can’t stop peeing. As soon as I think I’m done and stand up it’s as if the damn flood gate has reopened. This baby of yours has broken all my goods and his chubby gobblin-ish body hasn’t even stretched my shit past capacity yet.” I start sobbing. “You aren’t going to love me anymore when my crotch is all stretched and I have stretch marks.”