“Oh, I won’t keep you.” She smiles and I’m sure her eyes drop to my stomach for a split second. No. I’m being paranoid. My stress is playing mind games with me. “I won’t keep you. Jack will be home from work soon.”
He will? I’m speechless. “You’ve sorted things out?” I try not to pose it as a question, but my voice is high and squeaky, betraying me.
“Yes, didn’t he tell you?”
I pull back. Why would she say that? Why would she think that Jack would tell me? “I haven’t seen him.”
She smiles again, except this time there’s an evil edge and I’m definitely not imagining it. I’m not being paranoid. “Do you think I’m stupid?” she asks, stepping forward.
My lungs drain on a shaky exhale. Deny it. Just deny it. “What are you talking about?” I laugh. It’s nervous and she doesn’t miss it.
“All that time you were pretending to be my friend?”
I back away, aware of just how precarious this situation is. She might appear calm, but her words are telling me otherwise. Pretending to be her friend?
She looks volatile. Her eyes are on my stomach again, and her palm flattens across her belly. She smiles fondly as she circles her midriff, slowly, something disturbing in her deep-set eyes.
“It was you all along. You are a pathetic whore, Annie,” she muses quietly, looking up at me. “He’ll never leave me.”
My flesh goes cold. I mustn’t confirm what she suspects. I need to play dumb. Keep my cool. “Stephanie, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She sniffs, looking down at her wrist, inspecting it. She’s planning where she’s going to make the cut.
“It won’t work,” I blurt, losing control of my mouth, fighting down the anger her subtle hint has spiked. “Not again.”
Her eyebrows jump up, surprised. “Excuse me?”
“He’s told me,” I confirm. It’s too late now. “He’s told me everything.”
Her lips curls. “You’ll be a distant memory by tomorrow, you vindictive bitch. You and that bastard child of yours. A minor indiscretion. That’s all.”
I want to scream in her face, tell her he loves me, but something stops me. It’s not a sudden comprehension that I’m dealing with a woman who doesn’t think twice about lashing out at her husband, therefore won’t hold back from going at me with those talons of hers. It’s the sudden comprehension that she knows I’m pregnant. I snap my mouth shut and back up. She was looking at my stomach. No one else knows I’m expecting. Only Jack and Lizzy.
“How do you know I’m pregnant?”
She scowls. “Jack told me.”
“No he didn’t.” Jack wouldn’t do that, not with her being so volatile. He hasn’t even told her about me. Yet she knows. And she knows I’m carrying her husband’s child.
I rack my brain, and quickly step back when something crazy and very disturbing starts to itch at the corners of my mind. I rewind to the night Stephanie turned up unexpectedly at my apartment, looking for a friend after Jack left her. She used my bathroom. She had to go through my bedroom to get to my bathroom. My leather slouchy bag was on my bed. My pregnancy test was in my bag.
My thoughts seem ridiculously crazy. But then, this is Stephanie, and it’s confirmed how crazy she can be. I rush over and grab my bag from the floor where Jack tossed it in the lounge, rummaging through it to find the test. I’ve been using this same bag for over a week since that night. I don’t recall seeing it in here. Where is it?
I turn the bag upside down, emptying the contents onto the floor and scanning it all. No test. Then I rifle through the inside pockets, just to check it hasn’t slipped into one of those. Nothing.
I gasp, my eyes shooting upward, finding Stephanie in the doorway to my lounge, watching me frantically search. She knows what I’m looking for. I’m not losing my mind.
“You stole the test from my bag,” I accuse on a burst of stunned breath. “You took it and claimed it was yours.”
“You will stay away from him!” she screams, slamming her fist into the door frame. Her knuckles split on impact, the force of her strike echoing around my apartment. “Do you hear me!” she roars, her fists clenching. “I’ll fucking kill you and that bastard baby of yours! Don’t think I won’t!”
I see the scratches on Jack’s neck. The mark on his cheekbone. The state of his back. And then I see pure red fury but just hold my composure before I return the favor and rip her to shreds. “You can’t hurt me, and you can’t hurt Jack anymore either.”
Her eyes go wild and she lunges at me, catching me off guard. I’m dragged into the hallway and slammed into the wall. My breath is knocked out of me, and I don’t get a chance to get it back before her palm connects with my cheek. Pain slices me in half, and she just keeps coming and coming at me, attacking me. “You asked for this!”
As each blow connects, I struggle through the chaos to try to defend myself. My arms are wrapped around my stomach, protecting it, willing to accept her rage on any part of my body but there. But then her fingers are clawing around my wrists, trying to pull them away.
I see a baby. A defenseless baby relying on me for protection.
With sudden strength, I violently shove her away. She hits the wall opposite me with a bang, but I give her no opportunity to gather herself. I yank the front door open and grab her by her hair. My only purpose is to put a barrier between us. I feel murderous, and adrenaline’s thundering through my veins.
“I’ll kill you!” she shrieks. “I’ll make you pay for trying to take him from me!”
I don’t shout back at her. I don’t scream and wail, and I don’t try to hurt her. My only focus is just to get her away from me. Get her away before she does either of us any damage.
I use all my strength to shove her out. Slamming the door, I fall against it, gasping for breath. I expect her to start banging on the wood, but there’s nothing. I run into the lounge and grab my phone before I rush to the window. She comes into view, standing still on the pavement outside.
“Oh my God,” I whisper, my eyes falling to her wrists where she’s holding a knife. “Stephanie, no!” My instinct has me dashing for the door and running out to stop her. “Stephanie, stop!” My stare zeroes in on hers, and I manage to appreciate the intent in her deep-set blue eyes as I near. She’ll do it. I have no doubt. I pelt forward, ready to knock the knife away or snatch it; I’m not sure which. All I know is that I have to stop her.
She doesn’t move, doesn’t try to escape me. No. Instead, she smiles and turns the knife toward me. It takes a few too many seconds for my brain to engage and register what she’s doing, the reckless glint in her eyes confusing me. I tell my legs to stop running, to bring me to a stop before it’s too late.
Stop!