Indigo Blues 🪼✔

22 - How The Past Haunts Us

*DELILAH*
"Oh, this?" I said, looking at my pregnant stomach. "Sure, come on in."
Grandma mumbled something in her chair about one of them being the father and I growled at her. She could be such a bitch sometimes.
We sat at the kitchen table and I went to the fridge.
"Drink? Beer? Shot of tequila? Something stronger?"
"I-I'll take a shot of scotch..." Oliver said, his hand shaking.
I smiled and poured him one, getting a beer for Johnsie.
"So, you finally found me. I was expecting Tannus, not you two."
Oliver lifted the glass to his lips with a shaking hand and downed the liquid in one swoop. Johnsie was still staring. I waved my hand at them and Oliver finally looked me in the eyes.
"What's going on?"
"Long story short: I got depressed and drunk one night. I had to bring my jelly beans with me for research and well, in a drunken state I decided to get revenge on Tannus and popped four jelly beans. Unfortunately, every damn one of them had his DNA in it. A month later, surprise! No period and a check up confirmed my growing suspicion after I couldn't figure out for the life of me where those laden jelly beans had gone. Happy birthday to me."
"You ate four of them?" Johnsie finally got out.
"Yeah, I was really pissed and I wanted him to pay lots of child support. But then I cried and realized I would never do that to him..."
"So... Uh..."
"What you guys here for anyhow?"
"Why didn't you answer our phone calls?" Oliver asked.
"First couple of times I was blatantly doing it and the rest was because I've been too sick to do much of anything. Morning sickness is a bitch with four little bodies wreaking havoc. Today is one of my rare calm days."
"So you don't know about Tannus?"
"What about him?" I said, sitting down carefully in the chair.
"He's in the hospital. He's really sick because of you." Oliver said accusatorily.
I frowned. "He's the one who said he hated me."
"In his sleep, Delilah!" Johnsie yelled at me, slamming his hands on the table. "What is with you? You are as mean as your grandmother."
I narrowed my eyes at him. "Watch your tongue, John. You know nothing."
"Tell me, please! I'm tired of all this shit!"
My eyes widened at his outburst and Oliver pulled him down beside him.
"He hasn't had a good sleep."
"Sorry... It's just, he's in really bad shape and it all has to do with the past but no one will tell me anything."
"All I can tell you is my side of the story."
"That would be a start..." he said, grabbing his hair.
I sighed, hating to remember everything but in order to help, I had to contribute.
"Alright... It all started when we were little. I wanted to be friends with Tannus since he lived close. I went up to him and asked him if he'd like to be my friend. His response was to dump dirt into my pants and laugh in my face. I cried for two days, not understanding why he was so mean to me. Through the years, we were always in competition with each other. Despite his looks, he was pretty smart. But I was smarter and so whatever I did, he tried to do better. This little competition went on like this for years.
"When we got to high school though, everything began to change. In middle school, the hormones begin to change and even though I wanted to hate him, I found myself liking Tannus secretly. In high school, we had the same science classes together. Our senior year we were to work on a huge project together that would give us a grant to the best collage.
"I still didn't trust Tannus since he never seemed to let up on the picking factor, but I realized when we worked on this project together that he could be really nice. I thought that maybe after all these years, we had finally come to an understanding. We were in harmony for the first time in years. Our project won the fair and we shared the trophy."
"Wait, the trophy to the science fair of 1993?" Oliver asked, looking at me expectantly.
"Yes."
"Hmmm, continue."
I gave him a confused look but continued on. "Anyhow, at this point Tannus' looks had started to definitely be known, for he was looked at by many girls. They announced that the Sadie Hawkins Dance was coming up and it was a time for all the girls to ask the guy they wanted out. I was so frightened but determined to ask him out. I had had a massive crush on him for about three months at that point. I was not going to let my shy nature get the better of me this time.
"I walked up to him and asked him to the dance. He looked surprised but smiled that charming smile of his and nodded. He told me the date, the time, everything. My grandmother was one of those who didn't like it when girls wore makeup before they were twenty but because I had actually gotten a date for the dance, she was going let me wear some. She bought me a new dress and let me wear some very nice heels. I felt like a princess, a queen. Tannus Bracken, one of the cutest guys in school, was going to go with me.
"When the day came for him to take me to the dance, I planned the whole thing out and then got dressed. Waiting for him to come and get me at the designated time: 7:00. I waited and waited and waited for him. By the time that 8:30 came around, he had not called to say he was late or that he wasn't coming; nothing. I hoped that nothing had happened to him and I went to the dance to check, just in case.
"I walked in and who do I find but Tannus, dancing with that tramp Melonie Sellsburger, the head cheerleader. I got his attention and he had the audacity to ask why I was there. And the sad part was that he looked like he was genuinely wondering why I was there. When I made it clear on why I was there and that he had just bailed on me, he had the gall to laugh in my face. Laugh. Then he told me that he would have never gone out with me and that I was stupid to think that he would have. Everything was a joke to him. So, I got mad and I slapped him."
"So you're mad at him for making a fool of you?" Johnsie said.
"It's deeper than that. He lead me on so far as to make me think that he liked me, that he wanted to be with me. He ruined me. I could never trust anything that any guy said for the longest time. I felt like I had been played and it wasn't far from it. He lifted my spirits up so high and then to have them crash down like that?"
"Then what does that have to do with what happened at the hospital?"
I rubbed my stomach slowly, thinking.
"Even though I hated Tannus for what he did to me, it wasn't the fact of a grudge or anger that made me hate him even more. It was the fact that he tried to act like everything was back to normal with us. After the dance, he acted like he hadn't just broken my heart, that he hadn't just embarrassed the hell out of me, that he hadn't completely shattered my feelings. It was like he was mocking my emotions. So, I always kept my distance from him and tried to get away from him, but dammit if he didn't follow me to the labs and keep coming into my room.
"When all of this happened, I tried and tried to resist but he was... scared... I felt like I was to blame anyway and working with him, seeing him at his worst, seeing him so sweet, loving the baby, I thought that maybe things had finally closed between us. I thought that maybe we could come together after the baby was born. Then she died and..." I sighed. "I was ready to confess my feelings to him. I was ready to tell him how much I felt for him and that I wanted a second try at this being together business. So, I decided, to keep from embarrassing myself, I'd do it while he was unconscious. And the rest is history."
Oliver and Johnsie looked at for a moment and Johnsie sipped his beer.
"So, you left because you felt just like you did way back then? That your feelings were being mocked again?"
"No... Not being mocked. I really, truly love him and wanted to be with him to raise our child. I was even hoping he would ask me to marry him." I said with a nervous laugh. "I was hoping the past would be behind us. But to hear him say he hated me, not even waking up and telling me to my face, it was like a blow. I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. I figured it was sleep talk when I had calmed down enough after raging for the longest time. But then all this happened and I figured I should stay out of sight." I said, looking at my stomach.
Oliver looked like he was trying to stifle a laugh.
"Oliver?"
"Tell me what you did with that trophy you won. What did you do with it?"
"I threw it at Tannus and it hit him in the shoulder, falling to the floor and breaking to pieces. Why?"
Oliver finally burst into laughter. Johnsie looked at me in confusion and I shrugged. He finally stopped and looked at me.
"He kept that stupid thing! Delilah, he's kept it for years. Oh, I think you need to talk to Tannus about what happened. There's a lot of mix ups that's happened."
"Oliver?" I asked, really confused.
"Woman, the man has been in love with you ever since he put sand down your pants."