Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 67211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 336(@200wpm)___ 269(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 336(@200wpm)___ 269(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
Rolling over onto his side, still in me, still throbbing and hot and united, he pulls me onto his chest.
“I love you. All of you. Who you were, who you are, and who you’re meant to be.”
“And I love you,” I tell him. There are things I need to tell him, and now’s the moment, when we’re bared like this.
“I… need to tell you something,” I say. Though he’s silent, his arms tighten, and he tenses. But I’m safe, and there’s nothing I can say he can’t handle. If I don’t tell him now, I’ll lose my nerve.
“There was a baby.” I don’t expect the sudden tears to spring to my eyes like this. I thought my emotions were already wrung out, but I was wrong. I can’t speak beyond that first sentence. My throat closes, a lump so big I can’t go on.
“A baby, Chandra?”
With monumental effort, I steady my voice and tell him. I have to. “After we broke up. I found out I was pregnant.” He tightens beneath me, but he doesn’t respond. He just holds me. “I didn’t test, because we were going through so much. You with the church and me with my family and both of us with our hometown. I knew it in my heart but didn’t want to confirm it. I finally took the test, and before I could come up with a plan to tell you—and I promise you, I was going to tell you—I…” I’m crying now and he’s silent, absorbing my pain and making it easier to bear.
He holds me impossibly tighter, his voice pained. “Baby. Oh, Chandra.”
“I lost it,” I say, sniffling on his chest, my nose all runny. It feels good, though, to finally tell him, so I don’t stop. “It was painful and sudden and one of the hardest things I’ve ever been through.”
“I could have helped you.”
I don’t respond, because I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to make this better. I’m not even sure I have to.
Minutes pass in silence. He needs to process this.
“It was too soon to know if it was a boy or a girl. After the pain passed, I was glad. I know you, and I knew then that if we’d had a baby you’d have felt obligated to raise that child with me. But you couldn’t do that then. I couldn’t, either. And then I felt guilty that I was glad I didn’t carry that baby to term. Like it was my fault.”
“No, honey. Don’t think that way. There’s nothing to feel guilty about. There was no easy answer to that. God, I’m sorry, Chandra. I’m so sorry.”
“Me, too. The thought of losing my only tie to you? I wanted to die. For days and weeks, I prayed that I would die. I mourned losing you. Us. But I let you go because it was best for us.”
He kisses my forehead tenderly and fiercely. “Baby, I felt the same. But that’s in the past now, Chandra. The judgment. The mistakes. The baby we lost. Now you’re mine, and I’m not ever letting you go.”
Chapter Thirteen
Axle
I sit on the padded bench at the little shop I’ve taken her to. I have no idea where to buy women’s clothes, but I asked around at the club, and Beatrice and Diana and Marla all told me this was the place to go to find affordable, beautiful clothes, so here we are.
Ever since that night at the club when she told me everything, I can’t let her out of my sight. I hate the thought that she bore that pain without me, the pain we should have borne together, and I’m determined to never let her experience anything like that alone again. Ever.
Our jobs keep us busy and I’ve let her get away with wearing a few of the outfits she already owned. It’s almost a game, and one I fucking love to play. She texts me her outfit of the day and I approve or disapprove. It’s a pretty simple benchmark: if she’s showing cleavage or too many curves, that outfit goes in the donate pile. One morning she got a wild hair and texted me a picture of her wearing a too-short, skimpy silver dress that showed so much cleavage it looked like little more than a negligee. I knew she was probably intentionally being a brat, but I took her straight across my knee for even owning something like that.
She loves it, though. I keep her on a tight leash. She has rules and I keep her accountable. I give her as much freedom as she needs but the control she craves. And I love watching her thrive under my dominance. She gets to bed on time, and no longer subsists on Diet Coke and peanut butter crackers. She tells me her word count on her books has skyrocketed, and I’m the one responsible.