Jenny (Babysitter's Club 5)

When I thought she’d had enough, she wrapped her damn legs around me and pulled my head down to hers to whisper in my ear. “Gimme all you got, Mr. Masters.” Shit, her teenage ass is trying to kill me.

Lauren

My heart raced when I drove into town in the late evening. I’m usually happy this time of year, something about the season just seems to wipe everything bad away and leave me with a feeling of immense joy. The fact that it’s gone the very next day is neither here nor there.

I felt excitement build the closer I got to home. It would be good to see the girls again. I couldn’t bring myself to think about Derrick right now. I’m sure I’ll have to do some fast talking there, but as long as I get through the door, I can achieve anything. I just need to step one foot inside, and the rest will follow.

I couldn’t quite bring myself to pull into the driveway, so I parked at the end and walked up. There were lights in the windows, and I could see the lights on the big tree through the windows outside. I could already feel the warmth from the fireplace.

I must’ve been crazy to leave all this behind, what was I thinking? I wasn’t thinking, and maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to stop taking my pills again. But the last time I did, no one even hardly noticed, and nothing major happened.

Unlike this time! Waking up in a psych ward days after I left home wasn’t exactly high on my list of things to do, but apparently, I’d had some kind of meltdown in the first diner I’d pulled into after driving for hours and hours to get away.

Now wasn’t the time to think about my illness anyway. Derrick knows nothing about that part of my life, and I aim to keep it that way. I can’t have him knowing the truth about my weakness or any of the other things I’ve kept hidden from him over the years.

He’s not the kind of man who will be happy with a wife who wasn’t quite right in the head or any of the other cruel things that I’ve heard about myself over the years. I’d been doing really well keeping everything a secret he was so trusting he never questioned anything I told him.

It was the pregnancy that threw my system off somehow. I started feeling tired all the time with the new pills the doctor prescribed so as not to hurt the babies. They were supposed to be less potent than the ones I’d been on for years, but somehow they had a much worse effect.

I didn’t think anything would happen, or that I’d be so affected by not taking them. But I’m sure it wasn’t just the pills, it was that bitch and what she represented that had made me lose control that day. I would never hurt my girls. Okay, maybe once or twice when they wouldn’t shut up, I might’ve shaken them a little, but nothing that had hurt them obviously.

And those early days when I was too tired to watch them while Derrick was at work and I’d let them cry in their cribs until they cried themselves out hadn’t harmed them as far as I can see. So there was no reason for me not to come back home, no reason why I can’t be with my husband and kids at the most joyous time of the year, especially since it’s my girls’ first Xmas.

I was so lost in thought that I didn’t hear the laughter until I was almost to the door. The driveway is so long that I had to stop to catch my breath, leaning against the red brick of the mansion, and that’s how I heard the laughter coming from inside.

My heart felt sick, I wasn’t expecting my mother in law to be here, but maybe I should’ve. With me gone, Derrick must’ve relied on her a lot to help with the twins. I took a deep breath and prepared to walk to the door, but Derrick’s next words stopped me.

“Come here, you little shit.” Then there was a squeal, a very teenage sounding squeal and then running feet, and then nothing, just silence. I made my way back around the front of the house, where I could see through the window into the room.

I didn’t see them at first since I’d been looking for two people standing, but then my eyes cased the room and fell on the rug in front of the fireplace. The rug I’d meant to christen with my husband so many times and never got around to it because we were both always too tired.

They were there, the two of them, naked, making love. That’s not what burned the hole in my gut though it was bad enough. It was the way he looked at her, so tenderly, the way he kissed her brow as he moved in and out of her.