Swallow

Chapter 1.74:

"Please. You're scaring me." Riley's soft voice sliced through the thick haze inside my head.

When I blinked, I returned to existence with my enormous body pinning Riley's miniature one against the wall.  I had my fingers wrapped around her arms and I was gripping them so hard that her bones were going to snap under the pressure. I made the mistake of locking eyes with her as the veil dropped and my surroundings merged back into focus. The expression Riley wore was one I had never seen before.

My girl was terrified of me.

Riley's hair was all over the place in knots on one side of her head. The shirt she had borrowed from me was lying lopsided on her body with the collar stretched and there was a nice chunk of fabric missing from the front. One of her tear-stained cheeks was pink like she had been in the sun too long.

Did I hit her? I didn't remember doing it, but I didn't remember anything at all.

I looked down at my hands as I took a step back. I had blood on my knuckles.  I couldn't feel the ache, but they looked puffy and discolored, like they had been bashed into something repeatedly.

Fuck.

I stumbled back and turned to run upstairs to get away from her until I figured out what had just happened.  I had to make sure I wasn't going to blackout again. If I hurt her, I sure as hell didn't want it to happen a second time. 

I slammed the bathroom door and locked it.  I swiped at the clutter on the vanity and it went flying across the room. Some cream in a red glass jar that must have been Anna's shattered and left a large white gloppy splatter on the wall.

I turned on the hot water and stuck my hands under the faucet to wash away the blood from my knuckles. It didn't want to come off. I scrubbed and scrubbed at the raw skin until it was red and blistering under the heat. Little blotches of red clung to my skin like they had been inked into my skin like a tattoo.

I didn't hurt her. There was no way I could have hurt Riley. It was the drugs making me act this way. It couldn't have been me doing this.  I loved the crazy, beautiful girl more than I could even put into words. I wanted everything about her every second of the day.

I just didn't want the baby—not now or ever.

Shit.

I had forgotten about how this whole thing started. 

I had to go take Riley to the store so we could get a test to be sure.  We had to go right now.

I started to walk out of the bathroom and turn off the light when I noticed a brown paper bag on the floor with a small pink and white box sitting next to it. 

It wasn't there before I left.

I walked over to look to see what it was.

It was a box for a pregnancy test and it was empty.   There were three open wrappers on the floor next to the toilet and another open box behind it with another test missing.

She took them and she didn't even tell me.

My head pivoted in a full circle like I was possessed. The tests still had to be in here somewhere.  They weren't on the counter or the floor with the other pile of things I knocked over. I grabbed the trash can, dumped out the contents, and came up with nothing but wadded-up tissues and an empty shampoo bottle.

I spun around and noticed three little white sticks lined up on the bathtub's edge. 

The tests.

My heart was pounding in my ears.