On the Plus Side (31 page)

“She made me a proposition that I couldn’t refuse.”

OK so maybe I didn’t need to hear it. Maybe hearing it would rip my heart out, slam it to the floor, and spit all over it.

“How much?” I asked.

I didn’t want him to finish after all. I could feel the bile rising in my throat. The room suddenly started to spin. I leaned my head against the back of the couch and closed my eyes, hoping it would slow the spinning.

“How much did she pay you to sleep with me?” I asked calmly.

“It wasn’t like that, Lilly. I fell…”

“I said how much?” I yelled loudly. “What was the going price for my virginity?”

“I wasn’t supposed to touch you. It was strictly forbidden, but I couldn’t stop myself with you. You make me so weak.” He grabbed the tops of my arms as if willing me to understand.

“Oh, but let me guess, I’m just so
beautiful
and
sexy
!” I threw his words back at him. I felt disgusted that I’d let him see me naked.

Just knowing that the entire time he was probably turned off by me made me sick to my stomach. My mom didn’t have to tie a
porkchop around my neck to get the dog to play with me; she just had to pay the son of a bitch!

“You are, baby. You’re so beautiful and I…”

“Don’t you dare call me baby! I’m not your fucking baby, and I’m sick of your lies already! Just tell me how much!” My voice cracked and that pissed me off even more.

I didn’t want explanations. I didn’t want to hear another word except for the amount of money
I’d
paid to have Devin in my life for the brief time he was in it. I needed to know how much it cost me to conceive my child.

My heart was officially broken and it hurt worse than being kicked by a mob of spiteful cheerleaders, worse than a grown man beating the shit out of me. It hurt like nothing I’d ever known in my life.

“Twenty-three thousand all together. She gave me three thousand in the beginning and I was supposed to get another twenty when I…..” He stopped.

“When you what?” I asked.

The fact that I couldn’t cry was starting to scare me. For the first time in my life, I was OK with bursting into tears. I welcomed the damn tears, anything that would relieve the amount of pressure on my chest, but no tears came. Instead, I just stared at him like a crazy person. 

“You get another twenty grand when you what, Devin?” I growled.

“When I break it off with you,” he whispered. “But now that I’m being honest with you, I probably won’t get the money and I don’t care anymore. I don’t want the money. I’m prepared to lose everything…everything but you.”

When he said those words, instead of hearing I love you and I don’t want to lose you, I heard,
“Why bargain with your mom, when I could just be with you and have more than twenty grand? Why fuck with the mother when I could have the daughter who’s loaded with millions?

He kept his head down the whole time. Of course he couldn’t look me in my face. For months he stared me in my eyes and told me things I’d never dreamt of hearing a man say to me. Months!

I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself.

The room was closing in on me. I needed to get out of there. I needed to run far away and never see his face again, but just the thought of being without him already started to burn my stomach.

I felt like someone had just knocked the air out of me. How could my mother do this to me? How could she dangle something so perfect in my face and then snatch it away? I’d never be able to forgive her for this.

I wasn’t breathing and the lack of oxygen was making my head swim.

I stood quickly and the room spun harder as I turned toward the door.  I felt his arm on me to help me from falling, but I ripped my arm away from him as if his touched burned me. It did. The memories of his touch burned me all over.

“I am so sorry, Lilly,” he said.

I could hear what sounded like sadness in his voice, another act, I supposed.

Then he was in front of me on his knees holding my hand. “Please, forgive me. I’m so sorry. Please, forgive me.”

It was unnatural to see Devin on his knees begging. Such a beautifully broken man, but I’d seen people do worse for money. Money! It’s what made the world go ‘round and I’m so lucky that it was kind enough to snatch me up and sling me around with it.

“Don’t be sorry because I’m not. I can’t be sorry. If anything I should thank you.”

I looked down into his face. Even on his knees he was almost to my shoulders. I wanted to scream at him. How could he do this to us? We were going to have a baby!

“Thank me? For what?” he asked, confused. “I’m a horrible person and I hurt you, regardless of what you’re
gonna say, I know I hurt you. I just…” I cut him off.

“You just did what you had to do to take care of your family. I’m glad that I could help y’all out. I’ll make sure your balance to the bank is paid.”

His head snapped up with anger on his face. He looked so heated, that for a second I feared he would attack me.

“I don’t want her damn money!”

Her money? Did he not know all of it was mine?

A tiny bit of hope bloomed inside of me before I squashed it good and hard. A lie….he was
still
lying! Oh he knew, he knew it was mine and that’s why he was down on his knees in front of me begging.

“As far as you hurting me
goes, that’s just stupid. You gave me more than I gave you, trust me.” I could feel the tears tearing through my eyes.

The lump in my throat suddenly felt too large to swallow. I tried to clear it before continuing.

“The time we spent together was a lie, at least for you it was,” I choked.

“No! Not everything I…”

I cut him off again. “Let me finish. Even though the time I spent with you was just an act, I didn’t know that, and I’d rather have a moment of wonderfully altered reality no matter how much of it was false. I’d rather have had it fake, than never at all. At least now I can say that I know what it feels like to be in love.”

I somehow managed to smile through my pain. The liquid in my eyes felt like it was going to spill over at any minute and it wasn’t long before I could feel the tears streaming down my face. It was over. He was going to be gone out of my life for good as soon as I walked out the door and got into my car.

“Thank you, Devin. You’ll never know why I’m thanking you, but just know that once I walk out that door, I’ll be just fine.

I would be
, I had no other choice.

I swore to myself I’d never let him find out about the baby. It would be just another reason for him to suddenly want to be with me. I thought he was just as deep in this as I was. He’d said he loved me for money; I didn’t want to hear him lie again for our baby. 

“Please, Lilly, don’t leave me. I love you so much.”

His words echoed like they were screamed across a deep canyon. That’s how it would forever be—me on one side and him on the other. I couldn’t hear his lies anymore. It hurt every time he said he loved me because I knew it had nothing to do with me and everything to do with my money.

There were so many things I wanted to say, but nothing would come out except, “I’ll never know if you’re with me for me. I’m sorry, Devin. I can’t.”

I finally took a good look at him and saw the tears on his cheeks. He reached out and grabbed my hand, but his touch made me nauseated. I shook his fingers away from mine, turned, and walked away.

I could hear him calling from behind me, begging me to please just give him another chance, but Hell would freeze over before that happened.

The tears kept coming as I made my way to my car. Once I was inside, they poured heavily.

I knew it would be a long while before the tears stopped. I had never in my life felt that kind of pain. It cut me so deep emotionally that it physically hurt. My stomach hurt, my chest hurt, everything inside me hurt.

Was I dying inside?

This is what it’s all about. This is why people are afraid to fall in love, because losing the person you love hurts like Hell. 

I cried the entire drive home.

   Thirty-One

Payday

I’d rather get my ass kicked five times a day every day for the rest of my life than feel the pain I felt in that moment. When Lilly walked out of my door and I knew I’d never see her face again, the small part of me that had started to flourish because of her suddenly died.

Just when I was starting to feel alive again, Lilly pulled out a metaphorical gun and shot me at close range in the heart. It was like she didn’t even hear me begging her. She just stared off into nothing like I’d broken her and deep down I knew I had. It wasn’t enough that I was shattered into a million pieces my entire life, I had to drag a perfectly put-together person into my world and shatter her as well.

My legs suddenly gave out on me and I collapsed onto the front porch. The fact that I was never going to see her again ate at my heart. Parts of me screamed to go after her, but I knew she didn’t deserve that, nor did she want that. She deserved better. She was too good for a piece of shit like me and I’d give her a chance at a better life without me. It was the least I could do.

I was about to lose what little bit I did have. I had nothing but broken parts of a man to offer her.

Her tail lights disappeared down the road and felt my insides take their final breath. She was gone. It was over and the best thing for me to do was let her leave.

I went back inside and collapsed on the couch again. Part of me wanted to go drown myself in Dad’s liquor cabinet, but I didn’t deserve to be numb. I deserved to hurt, deserved to feel my heart crumble inside of me.

I don’t know how long I sat there staring off into space. Time ceased to exist, but at some point, I heard Jenny talking to me. She was snapping her fingers in my face trying to get me to flinch.

“Dev, you’re scaring me, damn it! What’s going on? I swear to Christ you’re gonna drive me to drink!”

Then she reached back and smacked me across the face. The sting of her tiny palm shook me as it snapped my head to the side.  I wanted to beg her to hit me again. I deserved to have my ass whipped.

“She’s gone,” I croaked.

“What do you mean she’s gone?” She didn’t even ask who I was talking about, she just knew. “What did you, Devin?” She sounded panicked.

Not only did I hurt Lilly, I dragged her into my world and let my dad and Jenny fall in love with her, too. They were going to hurt, too. They were losing her, too. How could I not have seen this coming? Lilly had become a part of our family and I had single-handedly ripped away Jenny’s sister and my dad’s daughter. That’s how they looked at her. That’s what she had become to them.

I couldn’t even bring myself to tell Jenny what I had done. I didn’t want her to see what her brother really was; I didn’t want to see what I really was anymore. I was beneath any descriptive word I could think of, worse than a piece of shit, worse than selfish.

I didn’t even respond. I just got up, grabbed my car keys, and left.  I don’t know where I planned on going, but I ended up parked outside of Lilly’s apartment. I didn’t get out of the car and bang on her door. I didn’t go beg her like I wanted to, I Just sat there. Somehow, knowing she was within reach soothed me.

At some point, I fell asleep sitting up in the driver’s seat of my car. When I woke up there was a bird on the hood staring at me, judging me. I worked the kink out of my neck and cranked the engine. There was no need to prolong the inevitable. I had to go home and tell my family it was time to start packing. We had living arrangements to make and I had to start job hunting as soon as possible. There was no way in Hell I’d take that bitch’s money even if she
did
offer it to me.

When I got home Dad was sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast. I fell into the chair across from him and it slid across the linoleum floor.

“Well, you look like Hell,” he said as he scooped up a fork full of eggs.

“Maybe that’s because I spent the night there.” I sounded as hollow as I felt.

“You need to eat somethin’ and get a shower. You can’t win a woman back smelling like a dog. Then I want you to take the rest of the day off and go on over there and get our girl.” He got up and rinsed his plate in the sink.

“Dad, she’ll never forgive me for what I’ve done. You don’t know the half. I wouldn’t blame her if she never talked to me again. I love Lilly, so I’m going to let her go.” I rested my elbow on the table.

“I wasn’t talking about Lilly, although I sure wish y’all would patch things up. I meant our other girl.”

“
You been drinking already this morning?”

“Nah, I’m sober. I found this on the floor.” He pulled a black and white picture from his pocket and slid it across the table to me. “I’m
talkin’ ‘bout this girl.”