The Boy I Married [hold]

20 | Weight of the World

Agony. Grief. Pain. My heart was at my feet before there was even enough time to process the faces of people who deceived me into believing they were my mother and father. A flash of the image Justin showed me days prior zips through my memory. Even with it burnt in my frontal, registering them as people I once knew never happened. Perhaps it was the way blonde made her glow, and the physique of a bodybuilder made him appear well kept. Happy. Had I meant nothing to them but a toy they stole then discarded once they were done? I felt used; like an object.

Balzac's doorbell chime centers me into the confides of the shop and back to the present where Jennifer—Laurie stands hand and hand with my other kidnapper. The joy in their faces dissipate as soon as they've spotted me. Only it isn't the reaction I excepted of them. They look as pale as sheets and startled to say the least. It left me questioning whether it was genuine or an opportunity to preform the role of the Bennett's.

None of us dare to speak. For a moment Jacob and I lock gazes. He looked more uneasy than I and it was my life imploding before us. Why couldn't they have just stayed dead and buried? If not that, then stayed gone? At least then I'd never have to face them knowing all they did to my family and I. Not to mention all the shit they let Robert drag them into back then. How far does one genuinely have to have fallen for abduction and illegally obtaining a child to sound like a good choice?

But then I remember just how desperate I'd been to bare a child and perhaps taking me was their last resort. It wasn't like I had a bad life prior to my initial move to Canada because I hadn't. My used to be parents were everything a child could ever ask for from the recollection of my childhood memories. They were present in practically every aspect of my life. Taught me the proper life skills it takes to be an independent functioning young adult—loved me.

Why was I defending them? Loved me? Of course they didn't love me. At least not the definition of love they'd originally introduced me to.

It was easier believing that if Justin hadn't shown me that picture or mentioned who they were, I'd have never known and would've been better off for it. Yet here they were before me—real as ever. Alive. Pretending the years they stole from me meant nothing and how they left me to grieve their fake death. Everything on or in my body ached. If my husband were to ask, I'd deny it, but he was right. I shouldn't have come back here.

"Um," Jacob utters, slightly dragging me towards the coffee counter for a stool. Maybe he sensed the wooziness spreading from my head to my limbs but I refuse to sit because I found more amusement in my stiff, deadlocked posture on them. They couldn't see me weak. They wouldn't see me weak. I focus my attention back towards them from afar, not really interested in anything Jacob had to say. Once we're alone and out of earshot, he continues. "Justin called and said you wouldn't be in for a few days. I took it upon myself to bring them in today for a formal termination. I promise I had no idea you'd be in."

It isn't that his words were unbelievable, because he had no reason to lie to me. It's the fact that yet again someone went behind my back in yet another situation regarding me. What the hell is with all the deception and lies? I wondered if Justin was working up the nerve to tell Jacob about the paternity of the baby. At least it would save me the devastation he'd most likely express.

"I figured it wasn't worth your sanity. I won't let them ruin this chance of a fresh start for either of us," the tips of his fingers delicately caress my back but I feel ill underneath his touch.

"Tell me, when did you start assuming you had the right to make decisions about me and my life? I must've missed that conversation," I spit, jerking his hand from my body. "It isn't your decision to make. I apologize for my husband's involvement in whatever this is, but for the foreseeable future, anything that is pertaining or concerning me is my business. Unless I mention otherwise, let's keep it that way."