Lotus Effect

I quickly got to my feet and turned, recognition slamming into me full force.

“Drew?”

Elation fluttered in my chest, until I remembered the last thing he said to me during our fight.

Should’ve never fucked you.

I swallowed the ache as he slowly approached. “Why are you here?”

“Do you know how embarrassing it is to have the cops escort you home?”

“Drew…” My eyes closed for a brief moment. “I’m tired. I’m just too tired to do this again.” I stuffed my hands into my hoodie pockets and started toward the other side.

I made it a few feet from him, deciding to hurriedly sidestep, when I glimpsed the knife in his hand. Shock snatched my breath. Ice-cold fear prickled my skin.

“We’re not done yet,” he said. His breath wreaked of alcohol. He tapped the flat of the blade against his jean-clad thigh. “What do you plan to do about the baby, Cynthia?”

I stepped backward. I’d never feared Drew…not in this sense. But there was something off in his voice. He wasn’t himself, the way he kept tapping the knife. Even when we were shouting in each other’s faces, a glass vase thrown against the wall. Shards spraying, fists hitting walls… I didn’t fear he’d physically harm me.

“Stop, Drew. You’re drunk.”

“We can be together,” he said, ignoring me, advancing. Knife tapping. “I just can’t have a baby ruin my life.”

I shook my head slowly. “So, you want me to get rid of it and then we’ll live happily ever after?”

“It makes more sense than trying to raise a child no one wants, doesn’t it?”

“And what about Chelsea?”

“She’s nothing to me.”

“I saw you. The way you looked at her…” I tried to force the image away, the memory still painful. Me walking up to his door. Her answering. Them together. I went to tell Drew about the baby, and instead I came face-to-face with my nightmare. “How could you make me feel like I was the crazy one? Like I was imagining things?”

“So you won’t get rid of it?”

I felt as if I’d been slapped. “No, Drew. I’m not just getting rid of it. This is my body. My choice.” Anger surging, I forgot the knife as stormed forward, needing to escape.

Drew blocked me. “I’m not much for philosophy, but Wittgenstein was pretty brilliant when he said: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”

Confusion twisted inside me, and then a terrifying reality shattered my world as Drew planted the knife in my belly.

31

Of Past and Present

Lakin: Now

The memory bursts. Cold water tunnels down my throat as I rel

ease a muffled scream beneath the black water. Thick stalks tangle my arms, my hands moving too slowly through the water to clear a path.

A sudden, sharp pain brings me back. Drew lances my side with the knife again. And I’m awake. The dream-like trance forgotten as I claw at his arm underwater, desperate for air.

Blood clouds the water, obscuring my vision further. I feel the blade swipe my shoulder, and I grab hold of Drew’s forearm. Our eyes lock. Through the murky lake water and the red haze of our mingled blood, I sense our bodies sinking.

He attempts to thrust the knife at my chest, but I have both hands anchored to his arm, the struggle twisting us farther down into the lotus stems. I kick out and plant my foot against his stomach. He tries to use his other arm to dislodge me—but he’s without a hand, the wound too new and shocking for him to use to his advantage.

His face twists in rage, and finally he drops the knife. I watch it drift down, becoming lost, before the severe grip around my throat steals my senses. Panic flares, and I gulp down lake water in an effort to scream, my temples pulsing with pressure as my vision darkens.