DEATH TO KINDNESS
1548 Words
“Peace Point Hotel, two minutes.” his four word message came few hours later.
Blinking, slightly breathless, I watched the words until they danced in front of my eyes and blended together. Still, none of them made sense.
He just found out he was having a child. As a teenager, I expected he would have a full melt down like I did, or at least call me.
And when I call him back, it goes straight to voicemail.
Heart in throat, I imagine how shocked he must have been. I mean we used protection always. But the one time he didn’t, because we were too consumed with each other to remember…
My hand crosses in front of my belly again.
Our love child. A product and testimony of our love.
Jumping out of bed, ignoring the red digits on the digital clock that said 3am, and the fact that we never met at a hotel ever, much less one that has rumors of being a love motel.
Something flickers to life in my chest.
He chose me. He still wants me. He loves me.
The road is quiet, and the hotel is not that far from my house, but I want to see him as quickly as I can. So I run.
My feet hits the pavement, and I am reminded of every time I watched him run laps on the field early in the morning. He would look over to me and wink, and it made waking up so early worth it.
I would save us. Whatever happened in that one week of Spring break, it will go back to being the way it was.
The receptionist in the lobby sitting below the red blinking lights, blinks at me blearily. And I know how I look, I had thrown on my fanciest dress. A cute sundress, and sandals. For a second I worry she wouldn’t let me in without an ID.
But she exhales.
“Ella Hart?”
Mutely, I nod.
Then she stretches a key card into my hand,
“Room 404. There’s snacks, I was told to tell you to eat and wait.”
And she goes back to scrolling through her phone.
With an exhale, I purge out all the questions I might have had, like did he say anything else to me specifically?
The room is drowning in dark red lights, and when my eyes adjust I see the food he set out for me. On the table beside the bed, there’s biscuits, and drinks. The mango juice I always had in my locker.
Smiling to myself, I perch at the edge.
Any moment now.
My palms are sweaty, throat parched, the constant swallowing does nothing to help.
When five minutes pass and he still isn’t here, I walk downstairs to find the receptionist, she doesn’t glance up, and I hesitate.
“Did… did he say what time he’ll get here?” I ask, voice quiet, not wanting to disturb her.
She exhales like I asked her to give me a limb, dragging her eyes away from her phone, she looks at me in exasperation.
“Eat and wait. All I know.”
“Sorry.” I squeak, hurrying back to the room.
My throat is so parched when I return I open the juice, the familiar mango taste bursting on my tongue and I drink more than half of it.
Taking in the room, I walk around it, that’s when I realize the rumors were never just rumors, a hammock thingy hangs from the wall, an X cross by the side…
He wouldn’t want to do that… I mean we never discussed it, and doing it to celebrate the baby… on this thing?
My hand goes to my hot cheeks.
Slowly the heat starts to spread all over my body. And suddenly the room is too hot for me. But the air con is humming in the background, working over time.
Still…
I fan myself with my hand.
It doesn’t help. The heat is oppressive, like a cloak thrown on me.
My throat gets even drier.
“What is wrong with me…?” I murmur to myself, and my speech comes out slowly.
Is this another symptom of pregnancy??
God, I hope not.
It would be embarrassing if Mark wanted that and I was a sweating mess.
My clothes stick to my skin, drenched in sweat.
Moving my head felt like the room was spinning. I felt like I was going to overheat.
“Mark won’t mind… he will love it.” I murmur to myself as I peel off the dress, it falls to my feet easily.
But the heat doesn’t stop.
No.
God. I thought I could handle pregnancy symptoms alone.
Thank God I have the sweet and attentive Mark.
The last piece of clothing was gone now, as with the ability to stay on my feet.
Sitting on the bed and waiting for the fog in my head to clear, I breathe through it, teeth gritted.
And like the savior he was, the door swings open and Mark walks in. Shutting the door behind him, leaving the bright light out, he pulls his shirt off.
I let out a small moan.
Squinting in the dim light, he doesn’t spot me so I walk to him.
Without looking up at him, I collapse against him.
“You’re here. You’re finally here. You chose me.” I hear myself slur the words.
Arms going around him, feeling more now that my head is swimming and nausea keeps churning at the bottom of my stomach.
Someone throws the door open again.
Mark does nothing to shield my nakedness from them. And I can’t see the face, so I squint.
The second man looks a lot like Mark when he was enraged.
“What the f**k are you two doing??”
Why are there two Marks?
The first man pries himself out of my hand, and that’s when I see who it was, Archer, one of Mark’s friends.
Mark’s eyes find me, then fall on my stomach, his eyes, they hold disgust.
“Of course you had another person’s child inside you. I knew you were too easy.”
“Mark…” I wanted to say, but it comes out as a gargled sound. My tongue isn’t working like it’s supposed to.
My mind is slow to catch on but I know what this looks like.
I try again but my tongue won’t obey me. Th words come out thick, swollen, wrong.
“It’s… you. I came for you…”
He doesn’t move closer. if anything he steps back.
My hands shake as I reach for him, clumsy, desperate.
“I didn’t know he would be here… I thought…” my thoughts slide over each other, slow and sticky.
“The message. The baby. You told me to come.”
For a second, just one, like in the hallway, his eyes flicker. Confusion wars with fury. I see it, and cling to it.
Then Archer speaks, “I swear bro, I didn’t touch her like that. I walked in and she was already…”
Mark laughs. It’s short. Cracked. Disbelieving. “You expect me to believe that?”
His gaze drops again. Not my face, to my stomach.
And whatever doubt lived in him dies there.
“So it’s true,” he says quietly. “All of it.”
“No,” I whisper. Or I think I do. My mouth barely forms the sound.
“It’s yours.”
He shakes his head slowly, like he’s mourning something, standing at a grave only he can see.
“You really had the nerve, to try to trap me with another man’s child.”
My vision doubles. The room shifts.
“Mark, please. I am not lying. I swear…”
He cuts to Archer, “First my spot on the team, and now this?”
Archer tries to defend himself, but Mark was done. He turns.
“Get help. Both of you.”
The door opens.
Light floods in.
Then it’s gone.
I don’t remember Archer leaving.
I remember sliding down the hall, sandals in hand.
I remember my room carpet against my cheek.
I remember vomiting until my body forgot what empty felt like.
After that, days folded on each other.
Sleep comes in suffocating waves, waking is worse. My head pounds, limbs feel like they belong to someone else. My mouth is always dry, skin constantly on fire.
Sometimes I cry.
Sometimes I lay there and let the ceiling blur.
At some point the pain changed.
It gathers low in my belly.
Dull at first.
Then sharp. Then constant.
When the blood comes I tell myself it’s nothing. I press my hands between my thighs and whisper,
“Please, please, please.”
My body doesn’t listen, the universe doesn’t listen. Nothing ever listened to Ella Hart.
By the time I understood what my body has done, my small room smells like rust, rot, and sickness.
Mark’s baby is gone.
My baby is gone.
The child I already loved.
The one I named in my head.
The one that made everything make sense.
My body let go of the only thing that chose me.
Whatever was gentle in me, died on that carpet.
- Writer
