Abbi Glines - Bad For You

I was going to protect her. She would never feel like this again. I would make damn sure of it. If it took the rest of my life to make this up to her, I would do it. Dropping my head into my hands, I let the regret and self-loathing eat away at me. If I’d only known she would come, I would have never touched anyone else. If I had only known that Blythe would walk into my life and make everything right, I would have been ready for her. To give her the life she deserved. I wouldn’t be a fucking singer in a band who had slept with more women than he could count.

The preacher’s son was probably so fucking pure, it was ridiculous. He probably had a job where girls didn’t throw their panties at him, and a college degree. Lifting my head, headlights pulled into the parking lot. It was almost midnight. Green would be coming in soon. He wouldn’t bring the party with him. I didn’t worry about that.

The car pulled up to the front of the building, but it didn’t park. Then I saw her dark hair as she ran toward it. Standing up, I watched as Blythe opened the passenger door and climbed inside. I couldn’t stop her. She was leaving with him. Linc’s car pulled out of the parking lot and shot off. But it wasn’t going toward town. It was headed for the interstate. Motherfucker! Grabbing my keys, I took off running. I’d find him, and when I did, I’d beat him until he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t take her from me. She was mine.

BLYTHE

“What did the doctor say? Did your dad talk to a doctor? Who called him?” I asked with a wide range of emotion running through me.

Linc had called me thirty minutes ago. I hadn’t answered because I couldn’t talk. My tears were dried up, but my body was aching from all the vomiting I had done when it had finally sunk in that another woman would carry Krit’s baby inside her and she would give birth to that baby. A part of him. I had lost it.

I had curled up on the bathroom floor and whimpered after the dry heaving stopped. Linc had called four more times, and I’d realized it had been almost midnight. Something was wrong.

I had been right. Something was wrong. Pastor Williams had been admitted to the hospital. He was in ICU. He’d suffered a heart attack. Not a good one either. Apparently, they were amazed he was still alive. I had grown up in a house with the man, but I didn’t know him. All I knew of him was the sermons he preached on Sunday and the times he’d stopped his wife from saying hurtful things to me. And when she had beaten me, he had stopped her when he’d caught her.

Then two months ago he had given me an apartment and car and a chance at a life by sending me away. It had been the nicest thing anyone had ever done for me. But he hadn’t hugged me when I left. He hadn’t stood at the door and waved like a parent would as I drove away. He hadn’t even been there the day I left. He had gotten up and gone to the church office without a good-bye.

But now he was in the hospital. I was his only living family . . . if that was even what I was. I was his ward, or I had been his ward for nineteen years of my life. His mother had passed away when I was ten. She had never come around or spoken to me. His father had died when Pastor Williams was a boy. I only knew that from a sermon he had given. Everything I knew about his life, the rest of his congregation did too.

“Blythe, I’ll stay with you. It’s okay. He made it. That’s something. He is a tough guy,” Linc said, reaching over to squeeze my hands.

Confused, I turned to look at him. And he frowned and touched my cheek. “You’ve been crying pretty hard. I shouldn’t have told you over the phone. I didn’t . . . Dad didn’t think you were very close to him. I’m so sorry.”

I had washed my face after Linc had called about Pastor Williams. He had asked if I wanted to go to South Carolina, and I’d said yes. I wanted to go. Not because I needed to see Pastor Williams, but because I needed to get away. This was an excuse to clear my head. It sounded cold. But what was I supposed to feel? I didn’t really know the man. Anyway, my eyes were swollen and bruised-looking from the vomiting and sobbing.

“It’s okay. I’m fine. It wasn’t—” I stopped myself. I wasn’t ready to tell anyone about Krit. I couldn’t handle it yet. Talking about it would make it worse. “I’m fine,” I repeated instead.

Linc’s phone lit up. He glanced down and muttered something. Then he glanced at me. “I gotta take this or she’ll keep calling.”

She who? I wondered, but I just shrugged.

“Hey,” he said. “No, uh, I’m having to take a friend to see her father. He’s in the hospital.” I stiffened. I didn’t refer to Pastor Williams as my father. “Yeah, I will. No, I’ll be in a hospital. Let me call you.” He sighed, pulled over into a shopping center parking lot, and parked behind a Starbucks. Then glanced at me. He mouthed, Be right back , then climbed out of the car.

I watched as he argued, or at least it looked like he was arguing, with whoever was on the phone. I laid my head back and closed my eyes. I was tired. My body was tired. This day had started out perfect. But I didn’t end perfect. I shouldn’t have allowed myself to think I could keep it.

Krit had been my perfect. He had marked me. Yet again. I had been molded by life. He had shown me what it felt like to belong. I would cherish that memory, and I would love him for the rest of my life. No matter what happened or where we both ended up, my heart would belong to him.

But I had been an unwanted child. I knew what that felt like. How lonely and painful it was. No kid deserved to feel that way. Every child deserved parents. If I stayed with Krit, there was a chance he wouldn’t allow himself to accept his baby. And that baby deserved to have its daddy. And if I stayed with him, I would be in the way. When he went to Britt to help with the baby, I would be alone. They would be bonding over their child, and I would be something hindering them.

The car door opened, and Linc climbed back in. “Sorry about that,” he said, tucking his phone into his pocket. “Want me to swing by the drive-thru and get us a coffee? I think I could use one.”

“Yeah, I could use one too,” I replied as I stared out the window.

Sometime after three in the morning Linc and I gave up trying to stay awake, and he pulled off onto an exit. We both got our own rooms, and I was asleep before my head even hit the pillow.

KRIT

The apartment was destroyed. I had even smashed the television. I’d slung the end table at it in my fit of rage. I stood among the broken pieces of furniture and felt completely numb. The blood on my knuckles was crusted over. I hadn’t taken the time to wash it off after I’d put my fist through the wall three different times.

I had called her all night. Every time it went straight to her voicemail. Her phone was off. I grabbed my phone to try again, and like the other fifty times I had called, it went to voicemail. I had gone after them, but his car was gone. I didn’t know if they went east or west on the interstate. I had tried going east, but after an hour and nothing, I had gone the other way. Stopping, I had called her phone and voicemail. Afraid she was back home, that he hadn’t taken her out of town, I headed back to the apartment and knocked on her door and waited for over fifteen minutes. She never came. She wasn’t there.

“Shiiiiit,” Preston drawled as he walked into the apartment. Turning, I glanced over at Rock, Trisha, and Preston. Green must have called them. He had come home an hour ago and just stared at me.

All I’d been able to say was “She left me.”