‹ Prequel: Let's Waste Time
Sequel: Around Our Heads
Status: Complete

Chasing Cars

Twenty-Four

Chris walked me to the box with Olivia and then hurried off for his game. Olivia was sitting on a cushion out in the heat. She already had a giant jug of water and was fanning herself. Why she decided to sit outside, I’d never know. But I wasn’t going to wander off on my own, and I got along better with her than the other baseball spouses.

Olivia was farther along than I was. Her belly was taking up most of her lap, and she had her feet propped up on the empty seat before us. I dropped down beside her and followed along, propping up my feet and sighing. She immediately handed over another fan.

“You’re the best,” I said.

“That’s because I sweat like a fucking pig everywhere I go.”

I really liked Olivia. She and Josh hadn’t been together as long as Chris and I had. Actually, their entire relationship had been really rushed. But they’d known each other when they were younger and interning for the same comic book company. Then they got back in touch years later when he wrote a comic book under a pseudonym and hired her for the artwork.

The fact that she was a comic book artist was only one of the things that made me like her. Mostly she was just a cool person who immediately claimed me as a friend the second we were introduced.

She also apparently had a bladder of steel. Which I did not possess. So it didn’t take long before I was wiggling in my seat, trying not to piss myself. I was too anxious to go to the bathroom alone, but I didn’t want to bother Olivia by asking her to join me.

Finally, I couldn’t handle it anymore and rushed off to find the nearest bathroom. I’d almost completely forgotten about Trent in my haste to relieve myself. But the hallways were relatively quiet save for a few stragglers and parents with kids with bladders the size of mine. I still tried not to linger long. Once I finished up, I headed right back out to return to her.

“Marley,” someone said as I headed into the hallway. I spun around to find Trent leaning against the wall beside the bathroom door. I mentally kicked myself for not looking both ways. I should have checked, locked the door, and called Chris. Or Olivia. Someone.

Without a word, I turned back around and shuffled off a lot faster.

“Marley, stop acting like a brat and just fucking talk to me,” he said with exasperation behind me.

I started running. I was pretty sure security had found him last time. But he either snuck back in or evaded them. The private section wasn’t easy to get into. But he must have found a place to hide out and knew my weak bladder would eventually have me rushing to the bathroom.

“Marley!” I’d always been pretty quick, but now I had extra weight and a new center of gravity. My slip-on shoes weren’t helping either. It also didn’t help that Trent used to run track in high school. I heard him when he decided to take on a burst of speed. So I yanked my bag off my shoulder, hoping I could get to my phone or pepper spray before he got to me.

But I wasn’t fast enough. He slammed into me and knocked me to the floor, right onto my stomach.

“Oh shit,” I squeaked out as pain rocked my body. I scrambled for my fallen bag, but it was just out of my reach. He swatted it away and turned me onto my back, roughly gripping me by the arms. “Let me go. You’re hurting me.” I was trying to sound calm, but it came out wobbly and terrified.

“I’m just trying to get your fucking attention!” he shouted.

“What do you want from me?” I started to cry again. I was scared and pregnant and hysterical.

“I just wanted you to listen. I wanted you to understand. To give me a chance!”

“I didn’t mean for anything bad to happen to you! I’m sorry! Just let me go, please? We can talk about this if you let me go.” Instead, he pulled me up and slammed me back down so roughly that my head smacked against the floor.

“I lost everything because of you, but I was still willing to give us another shot! You just wouldn’t listen! And you humiliated me! You had to go and get yourself knocked up by that prick!”

“You’re drunk! Sober up, and we can talk about it. I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”

“I think the time for talking has passed, Marley.”

I was sobbing now. So hard I almost missed the sound of a door opening down the hallway. We both looked up as some kid appeared, stopped, and looked at us.

“Help me, please!” I shrieked. Trent jumped into action and snapped his hand over my mouth before I could say anything else. The kid disappeared, and I hoped he was getting help rather than running away.

“Shit,” Trent swore as he jumped back to his feet. I tried to scramble away the second I was free, but I didn’t make it to my feet before he got ahold of me again and yanked me up.

“Please don’t hurt my baby?” I begged.

I was angry with myself for being so stupid. I was terrified of something happening to my baby. Trent yanked me back toward the restrooms, and I tried to stop him. I dug my feet into the floor and managed to hold him off for a moment before he got wise and grabbed a fistful of hair.

“Let me go!” I yelled.

“Marley!” I heard Chris call from far off down the hallway. There was a moment of genuine relief. But Chris didn’t come fast enough. Trent shoved me into the bathroom before I’d even finished letting out a terrified “Chris!”

Trent threw me onto the floor and then focused on locking the door. Chris was fast. But not fast enough to reach us in time. I heard a body slam into the door as I scuttled away and tried to find a place to hide.

“Open this fucking door!” Chris shouted from the hallway.

Trent turned around just as I tried to escape into a nearby stall. He reached out and yanked me back. So I changed my directory in a moment of panic and pulled away to crawl under the sink. It was a wasted effort. I shrieked as he grabbed the back of my shirt and yanked me out. Chris was still yelling, and my heart was pounding.

“Please, just let me go?” I asked Trent as he dragged across the floor and held me down by my arms.

“I just wanted to talk!” he yelled. “You wouldn’t fucking listen!”

“I’m listening now. Please just don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt my baby.”

“That should be my baby, Marley! You should have waited for me! We could have worked things out if you’d just waited!”

I just kept sobbing. I couldn’t stop myself. Chris was still yelling and pounding on the door. Fight had not worked. Neither had flight. So all I had left to do was cry.

“Not my baby, please?”

“Shut up about the baby!”

“Please! Please!”

“Shut up!”

“Please!”

Then he punched me. My face thudded against the linoleum, and I immediately tasted blood. He’d succeeded in shutting me up. I was too dazed to even keep crying.

“You shouldn’t have made me do that, Marley,” he said. As if he was actually upset. Like I’d forced him to punch me. I tried to lift my hand to touch my burning face, but he grabbed my wrist and forced it back down. “You should have just listened. You should have just waited for me. I was willing to give you everything. But you gave it all to him.”

My eyes focused on the door. I couldn’t hear Chris anymore, but I knew he was out there. He wouldn’t have left me.

“I hate you,” I said through the blood in my mouth. I turned to look back up at Trent. At the man I used to love. Or at least I thought I’d loved him. Because I hadn’t known what real love felt like until I had Chris. “You’ll never be even half the man that he is.”

I knew that I was making a mistake. But I couldn’t say nothing. The punch had broken me out of my terror. Trent was going to hurt me whether I cried about it or not. So I wanted to make sure I hurt him right back.

He snarled like an animal before his hands came around my throat. I immediately began to kick and scratch. But he was too strong. I dug my fingernails into his skin hard enough to draw blood. But he didn’t slow down as he tried to choke the life from me.

I couldn’t breathe. And all I could think of was Chris. Of how it would devastate him to lose our baby and me at once. It would destroy him. I wished that I’d been smarter. That I hadn’t let Trent manipulate me all those years. That I hadn’t gone to the bathroom by myself.

But I didn’t have much time to think beyond that. Bells were clanging in my head, and my vision was slipping. I couldn’t breathe, and I choked and sputtered one more time before everything went black.
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Honestly, the reason I haven't updated in a bazillion years is because I hate this chapter and the evil ex-boyfriend subplot. But whatever. It's already been written in full. So there's no reason for me to not update, other than me hating my own past writing styles.