A Haze

Chapter 13. His Secrets

Nicole's POV

"Come sit down." He whispers, I follow him over to the couch sitting sideways to face him he sits sideways down beside me facing me running a hand through his hair then resting it on the back of the couch.

"Two years ago when I was sixteen I started dating a girl her name was Samantha she was sort of new to Chicago came here the year before from New York City." He whispers. "Her family was rich nothing like mine, religious even. She had one much younger brother and had both her parents still as far as I know good marriage or whatever." He explains.

"We were together for over a year when she found out she was pregnant, it was an accident as far as I know. It was on my part I know there was a couple times a condom tore or whatever so I figured whatever was my fault too. Her parents pleaded her to get an abortion but she refused and I wasn't for it either seemed wrong." He shrugs, he continues to look off in space very distant.

"On April 8th of last year I came home from school early, got suspended for fighting wasn't a rare thing to happen back then." He says and shrugs. "When I came home I started looking for my mom figured she was home and I heard noise coming from her bedroom so I figured she was in there. I opened the bedroom door my father and Samantha we're in my parents room having sex she was thirty weeks pregnant." He whispers.

I feel my jaw drop I don't even know how to close it. "What?" I gasp in shock burying my head into my hands shaking my head in disbelief.

"Samantha was the only girlfriend I ever had, I felt strongly for her I thought I did I wouldn't say I have those feelings anymore. It's complicated when you think you love someone and then they betray you it's like they somehow alter everything they were, she wasn't what I thought she was." He says looking away.

"I was in such shock, and they were so shocked to get caught I stood there for a good minute before I walked into the bedroom grabbed my mother's camera off her dresser and took a picture of them in bed together. My dad begged me not to tell my mom, Samantha pleaded with me not to tell anyone to forgive her that it was mistake." He says quickly.

"I left taking the camera with and I went to have the film processed. I showed it to my mother and of course she freaked out, my dad tried pleading with her...She kicked him out. April 10th he killed himself."

"When I asked her if the baby was mine, she told me she didn't know if it was mine or my dad's she was sleeping with my dad too around the time she got pregnant." He shakes his head running his hand over his face.

"I could care less you know I was so angry that I didn't care who it hurt, all I knew was how bad it fucked me up. So I broke it off with her, said I didn't want the baby I didn't care if it was mine or my dad's. Told her she could raise it by herself, people would ask me what was going on with Samantha and I, so I'd tell people she was fucking my old man. Like I said I didn't care how it affected anyone but myself. Rumors began spreading like wild fire through our high school, which is not the same one as the one I go to now." He explains.

"April 23rd 1990 around 11:30PM she got in her car, angry and upset I guess. Her parents were yelling at her they were all fighting and when she took off they called me." He whispers rubbing his forehead with his eyes closed. "So I went out looking for her." He shrugs.

"She'd wrecked the car overturned it in a ditch, I pulled her from the car as carefully as I could then took off to the nearest house to call an ambulance. They took her to the hospital, but she was basically dead they tried to keep oxygen flowing to her long enough to pull the baby out. She was 32 weeks pregnant April 24th 12:34 A.M. Gracie was born, and I was told they strongly doubted she was going to live but that they'd try." 

"Gracie weighed 4 pounds 3 ounces and was 17 inches long, I felt so guilty. I can't even describe it, everyone kept telling me how sorry they were but they really didn't know what the hell they were even sorry for. I knew that if I'd kept my mouth shut my dad wouldn't be dead, if I hadn't humiliated Samantha, Gracie would still have her mom."

"I saw her, in an incubator and she was so small, so fragile it made me sick that I did that to her I-" He cuts off shaking his head and looking away from me. "I decided I couldn't live with myself after all that'd happened, I was so mad at what they'd done to me what I had done to them that I went home grabbed a bottle of morphine pills that'd belonged to my mother from a surgery and went in my bedroom grabbed a bottle of vodka out from under the bed and mixed it which is deadly."

"I didn't want to live with it any longer, so I decided to end it and it almost worked." He whispers looking back at me. "My mother found me called an ambulance and they resuscitated me, brought me back to life at exactly 11:59 PM on April 24th. I was clinically dead, they were just about to call it that's what the doctor told me anyways." He whispers. "They said I shouldn't of lived, that I was lucky to take it as a good thing."

"Instead I become this numb shell of whatever the fuck I was, I never used to be so angry and serious all the time. Samantha was the only girl I've ever been with including sex, I chose not to get involved with other girls because I don't want to go through something like that again. When I decided to live for my daughter, I just began blocking out everyone else." He shrugs. "Dating was um no longer on my agenda, I was just numb until I met you and because of you it all fell apart, I fell apart you broke through the numbness." 

I'm staring at him dumbfounded, no wonder he doesn't want to tell this story. Tears begin rolling down my cheeks as I think about all the awful thing's he went through to know that he nearly took his own life because of them...

Strange how all that happened on my birthday...

I stare at him bewildered, he stares back waiting for my response I know I need to say something to him for confiding all that in me but how am I going to speak when I can't find my voice?