Shallow River

“Have fun with your Billy 2.0 at home,” she says, cackling around her cigarette. I stand up and look down at her. She looks and smells like expired milk. How could her words ever hurt me?

Yet they stir something in me anyway. Not hurt. But something like determination.

“Oh, I will.”

“WHAT IN THE EVER-LOVING fuck happened to you?” Amelia roars, her face the perfect picture of rage and shock. I could photograph that picture and it’d sell for millions. The amount of emotion conveyed on her face is actually quite beautiful.

“Would you believe me if I said I fell?”

“He’s hitting you?!” she screeches, her little hands reaching up to cup my face. I’m a good few inches taller than Amelia, but her motherly instincts have always made her seem bigger than me. She’s going to be an amazing mother.

“What brought you to that conclusion?” I deflect, deftly removing my face from her warm hands and turning to walk towards my car.

“Oh, no you don’t,” she says, running past me and stopping right in my path. She puts her hands on her hips, her protruding stomach emphasized by her tiny hands, and stares at me with impatience and barely contained rage. Can’t really blame her. I’d kill anyone that did this to Amelia.

I sigh, my shoulders dropping in defeat. “You can’t say anything, Amelia. I… I got him handled.”

Her eyes widen like balloons overflowing with helium. Soon they’re going to pop. That can’t be good for the baby.

“Please don’t take this the wrong way, River, but it sure as hell looks like you’re the only one being handled,” she replies, her voice significantly gentler. I nod my head because she’s right. It doesn’t look like I have Ryan handled at all.

“I have to play this smart,” I say. She bites her lip, seeming to contemplate something.

&nb

sp; “I want you to stay with me. You can’t go back to that house.”

I’ve been pretty good at avoiding Ryan since the night he proposed, threatened to kill my cat and raped me within hours of each other. What was supposed to be the happiest day of my life, turned to the darkest far before Ryan got down on one knee.

I bet he’s fucking his secretary as we speak.

“And I plan on doing that… eventually,” I tack on with a pained look. “It’s a delicate situation that needs be handled as such. I don’t want to drag you into this, Amelia. I would rather die than involve you and your unborn baby in any type of danger.”

Amelia chews on her lips some more, looking even more distraught by the second.

She shakes her head. “No. I’m sorry, but I’m not allowing this. There’s no way in fucking hell that I will let you continue to put your life in danger. If you go back, he’ll kill you. And then I’ll be pregnant in prison.”

I crack a small smile.

“He won’t kill me,” I whisper. I won’t let him. Ryan had to wear a turtleneck to work the last week from how deep and red my marks were from when he raped me. Once they fade, he’ll just spin it to a night of wild sex and orgasms I clearly couldn’t handle.

“Of course, he won’t. I’ll kill him first,” a deep voice says from behind me. I freeze, which just makes every ache and pain in my body flare to life. My breath shortens, and I swear it’s only because it’s hotter outside than an athlete’s balls after practice.

Amelia’s brows plummet and she bends her torso to the side to see Mako better. “Who are you?” she asks, her voice pitched high. If I didn’t feel like such shit, I’d almost laugh.

Mako steps around me, his massive body dwarfing Amelia’s. She looks up at him awe, her little mouth open in perfect O. Her eyes slowly peruse his incredibly fit body, the tattoos coloring both arms down to his wrists and the pure sexual tension he radiates. I’d be jealous if I knew she wasn’t madly in love with David and carrying his child. I also am not keen on admitting that I’d be jealous.

I glare at Mako’s back as he sticks out a massive hand. My cheeks redden when I think about what those hands could do to me. With him, he’d use them for things that would only excite me, that’s a promise.

“I’m Mako. I’m the nice brother,” he greets. Amelia shakes his hand as if she’s the queen of England and he’s a lowly peasant. Despite my frustration of Mako popping up once again, I smile at Amelia’s sass.

“Uh huh,” she murmurs, unconvinced. The only thing Amelia knows is that I stayed at his house when Ryan was being a shit after Billy beat me within an inch of my life. I hadn’t told her that Mako was the one that came and picked me up after Ryan left me on the couch helpless and took care of me in ways Ryan never has, or about how he’s been keeping Bilby at his house for the past week. I’ve also never told her about all the times Mako has shown up after my classes to convince me to leave Ryan. Certainly didn’t tell her about the library incidences and how I lost all common sense and let Mako get too close. Whatever voodoo that library has on me, it’s dangerous when Mako’s around.

But worst of all, I never told her how sinfully delicious of a man Mako is. Amelia eyes him up and down, both hands now cocked on her rounded hip like a mother scorning her child. She really is going to be an awesome mother.

I pray I’m around to witness it.

When Amelia’s distrustful eyes slide over to me, I feel like that scorned child. Words don’t need to come out of her mouth in order for me to know she’s hurt. I’ve been lying to her. By omission, but keeping secrets is still lying.