Pregnant by an Incubus

Six

I was going to beat the crap out of that red headed slut and then I was going to yell at my husband.

How could he be so heartless. How could he do this to me. Thrice. For years.

How had I always been so oblivious?

By this time I was stomping back up the stairs, adrenaline coursing through my veins, making me feel stronger and more energetic.

I was nobody’s doormat.

I couldn’t believe Seb would do this to me after all we’d been through.

He was my best friend. I’d given him a shoulder to lean on back at high school when he had nobody.

While the grips of poverty and child abuse had him in a chokehold, I’d reached down in the abyss of his f*****g misery and pulled him out.

I’d encouraged my family—my mom, dad, my little brother Ian, and my sister Shirley—to open up to him and accept him as one of our us.

I remember the way he gripped his tattered school bag when, after classes, Mrs Clarke introduced him to us, as the new member of of the IT club.

We had inter school Information Technology and Computer Science Competitions and he was supposed to be a ‘valuable addition’.

I was a sophomore then, he, a junior. He was gangly and shy and trying his hardest to be invisible.

When he came to take a seat, everyone inched away from him, or put something on the sit next to them.

Not me though.

I removed my bag and told him to come sit by me.

I remember how his clothes were all hanging on by a thread.

I saw the concealer patched around his face, trying it’s best to hide the huge bruises underneath.

I knew that look.

No matter how well it was blended so expertly like he had years of experience doing this. I also did the same to hide the hickeys my then boyfriend—Mark—gave me, from my parents.

As we prepared for the competitions, I started packing extra lunches because I noticed he ate nothing at all while at school.

As he warmed up to me and let me in, I started inviting him over to my house. Not just him but everyone else working on the project competition.

I however let him to the stay longest because he seemed the most reluctant to leave.

Like my house was a safe haven.

He was so smart.

Smarter than all of us in the IT club by a mile. He’d held the entire competition on his shoulders and not once did he complain.

In fact he looked more alive, more confident doing this. Because of him, our school had won the competitions.

Even after then, I still invited him over to my house, and thankfully my parents had warmed up to him, majorly because he was a good cook, making elaborate meals and saving us from the takeout or meatloaf we eat almost every night.

I remember my boyfriend Mark telling me.

“That brokie is in love with you.”

“Everyone is in love with me mark.” I had replied.

“No I see the way he looks at you. Like you’re his savior. Like you’re something he wants to be.”

Then mark had given me an ultimatum.

“Stop hanging out with him or we break up.”

I chose Seb. I felt like he needed me more.

By this time we were inseparable.

Best friends.

Once, when he was removing his jumper, I saw harsh purple bruises covering his torso, and old cigarette burn scars on his back.

I’d asked him about them.

His mom had left him and his dad when he was just a baby. And his dad had not taken it lightly, turning into a violent alcoholic, who beat him up every chance he got.

I’d told my parents about this with his permission, and them being the generous people they were, started helping him out.

They gave him money for clothes, food and any basic needs he needed.

His dad, realizing that Seb was spending a lot of time with us, chased him away from home.

I told my parents and they had given him my brother Ian’s room, since Ian had moved into the basement.

We weren’t rich but both my parents had financially stable jobs, good enough to afford three children and an extra mouth.

One thing about Seb, he had an amazing personality.

He was gentle, compassionate, kindhearted, empathetic, considerate and also very hardworking.

He often helped my mom with the laundry, and worked with my dad in the garage, and always cooked breakfast and dinner.

He helped Shirley and Ian with their home works, taught me how to cook and in all this, still managed to get As all through his junior and senior years.

His dad died two weeks before his graduation and left him the old property.

Seb didn’t grief him.

In fact he looked lighter and happier at the news of his father’s death.

Seb was declared valedictorian of his year and got a scholarship to MIT to study a FinTech program.

He sold off the old property his dad had left him, and with that money moved to Massachusetts.

I didn’t see Seb physically again for a while until his final year at university, when he came back to visit my parents during thanksgiving holiday.

We’d been in touch, though, through phone mostly.

By then I was doing business administration at the local community college and I was in my final year.

I remember the first time I saw him after all those years.

He had become so hot.

Not the gangly shy poverty stricken teenager I had known.

He was more confident. More sure of himself.

Different in a sexy way.

It’s like he had morphed into Chris Evans.

I’d felt my simple best friend feelings transform into romantic ones for him.

Luckily for me, he had felt the same way too.

We’d started dating and then a couple of years later, he had asked me to marry him.

I’d said yes.

He had gotten a good job in the city with a finance corporation and he was making good money.

After we got married, Seb had decided that I stay at home and that he would provide for me everything I wanted and every single month, he would pay me a salary.

I had agreed.

We had decided to immediately try for babies and increase the size of our family.

Little did I know that I would have infertility issues.

That my babies would refuse to implant on my uterus.

Little did I know that all this would cause a rift in our marriage and friendship.