Another blow delivered. Noah keeps racking up the points in some kind of twisted game and this was definitely another point. This one wasn’t as powerful as the last, but it still was delivered and struck enough to cause more pain.
It counts.
“One in two-thousand vasectomies fail. Did you know that?”
“That would make me number two-thousand, not you, Rory.”
“Oh… right… whatever. I’m just saying—”
“I know what you’re saying. My vasectomy didn’t fail. There was a long line of women before you and not one of them pregnant.”
“I—”
“I went back to the doctor to confirm any sperm in my ejaculation—as you put it—were dead. There’s no miracle pregnancy here, Rory. Your research is useless. If you are really pregnant—”
“I am,” I whisper, my hand going around my stomach in comfort. Comfort for me, comfort for the child that will one day live in a world where it is hated by his father.
“Then, the only thing you need to know is that there’s a one hundred percent chance that I’m not the father.”
I swallow.
“My research shows that sometimes a man can intermittently produce active sperm after a vasectomy.”
“Did a true medical professional state this?” he asks, calmly.
My mind drifts over the pages and pages of data that I read and I shake my head no. I read about ten cases where the women became pregnant and the professionals said it wasn’t possible. Each of those cases but one, the mother had to take a DNA test to prove it to the father.
“Then, you need to leave.”
“You’re not even willing to be seen? To be tested?” I whisper.
“There’s no point,” he says and I can’t wrap my mind around his answer.
“You’re that positive I’m lying?”
“Yes,” he answers and that’s a different kind of blow, but a blow nonetheless. And, yes…it hurts.
“Nothing we shared means anything to you, does it, Noah?” I ask, but I don’t really expect an answer. I turn away from him, because suddenly the man I loved with the beautiful lion-maned hair is painful to see.
“It did. It could again,” he says, surprising me, but I’m more than done—so, I don’t turn around.
“You could get an abortion,” he responds.
That one word…. That’s not a blow at all. That’s a killing hit. It strikes so powerful that I stumble because my knees buckle. It causes my body to tremble and the blood flowing through my veins to freeze. That one word causes a pain so intense, so white hot that I know, know in a way that I know the sky is blue, that I will never recover from it.
Never.
Killing. Hit.
“Rory,” he says, but I ignore him.
Tears are silently pouring from my eyes. I can’t stop them. The pain and misery inside of me is so thick, so intense that I can’t breathe. I feel like I might die before I even make it to my door.
“Rory!” Noah growls, again.
I didn’t know it, had no realization that he had followed me. My hand is on the doorknob, it’s turning it right as Noah wraps his hand around my free wrist and pulls to make me look at him. I yank my arm free, but I do turn to the side to look at the man who just destroyed me. His face is blurred through the river of pain leaking from my eyes, but I see him. I close my eyes at the wave of pain that threatens to overtake me.
I thought he was beautiful. I thought he was mine. I never learn. I’m not made for beauty in this world. I’m not made for love.
“Wha…t,” I whisper, the word coming out as broken as I feel inside.
“You can’t explain…” he starts, and then stops. “There’s no way you can make me believe you. You’ve been lying to me from the beginning,” he says, almost as if he’s trying to justify his cruelness… but there’s no way to justify it—even if I have been lying to him from the beginning.
Which I haven’t.
“Whatever,” I respond in the same dead, broken whisper as before. I open my door and Noah is still standing there beside me, not leaving. It doesn’t matter anymore, nothing about Noah matters anymore.
“What’s your real name, Rory? Because I know for sure it’s not Rory McDaniels. Don’t even bother denying it, my sources are ironclad.
“You had me investigated?” I ask, that’s not a blow—or maybe I’m so dead inside now from that last one that I can’t feel anymore. That’s a definite possibility.
“Answer me,” he says.
I start to go inside. I owe Noah nothing. I never did, and after this, I owe him even less. Still, I have nothing to hide and I’m tired… so tired.
“You remind me of my father, Noah.”
He doesn’t reply, though, I think I see surprise in his eyes. I can’t be sure, because the tears are still silently leaking down my face and he’s blurry.