Wednesday, August 13, 2008

I Can't Walk Away Chapter 5

(Mika's Note & an Apology: See, I'm already forgetting the disclaimers...  This one has a bit of bad words and a lot of emotional trauma. LOL)

I awoke from a sleep I hadn’t realized I’d been sleeping to a pounding at my front door. I looked around my darkened bedroom groggily, trying to get my bearings.

“Morgan!” I heard Jonas rage at my closed door. “Damnit, open up!”

Pushing myself into an upright position was getting harder by the day. Groaning, I managed to get my feet on the floor and stop the room from spinning, but not before he started pounding again. I sighed and stood, balancing myself against the wall.

“Morgan! I’m not joking!”

“Obviously,” I muttered, a bit peeved at his impatience. I trudged the short distance down the hallway and flung the door open, glaring at him. “Shut the hell up before my neighbors complain!”

“I don’t care about your neighbors right now,” he snarled, pushing past me into my living room.

“Gee, Jonas, come on in,” I shot back, closing the door on us.

“I’m in no mood for games, Morgie.”

“Me either seeing as I was asleep until you started to abuse my door.”

He looked at me then and must’ve notice my whiter shade of pale complexion and purple circles under my eyes because his face softened suddenly. “I’m sorry, Morgan, I’m just angry and upset and you weren’t answering…”

Ahh, see, there’s the real reason for the anger. I’ve been at his beck and call for two years and the first time I’m not there when he needs me, he freaks. Typical. And all along I thought he was the calm, cool and collected type. “Sorry Jo, but like I said…”

“I know, I know,” he interrupted, pacing my small living room. “You were sleeping. What were you doing when I called earlier?”

I hate that suspicious tone. As if I was cheating on him or some crap. Jerk. Something really had his panties in a knot tonight because he’s never been so nasty to me, not even when I’d deserved it. “I was in bed, alone, feeling sorry for myself because I was abandoned.” I left out the part about ‘by the man I love’ because those words were forbidden between us. Me, I was afraid to hear them from any man after the last one that had said them to me and him, well, he wasn’t available to really love me after all.

He stopped his pacing and came to stand before me. Touching my face with a hand, he frowned. “I’m sorry baby, but you know I had to go.”

I shrugged and pulled away. “I know you had to leave but that never makes it any easier.” A line from one of my favorite Sugarland songs suddenly started playing on a loop in my brain. And I don't like being used and I'm tired of waiting/It's too much pain to have to bare/To love a man you have to share … I shook my head to stop the impromptu concert before it got to the last verse and I burst into tears like every other time I listened to it lately. “And while I know I don’t have right to complain, it’s not very fair either.”

Jonas threw his hands into the air. “Why do you continue to do this to me?” He picked back up pacing and glowered at me. “Why do you push when you know I don’t have any more to give?”

Was he fucking kidding me? “Um, I dunno, Jonas. You are the one who showed up on my doorstep a moment ago, demanding to be let in. Why do you keep coming back? And even better, why are you here now?” I admit, I don’t always make his life easy; I’m in love with the jerk and I do everything I can to stake my claim on him, but there was something else going on her and I needed to know what.

He threw his hands up again, but this time there was more resignation behind it than anger. Exhausted, he fell onto my couch and started massaging his temples. “I’m going to be a father, Morgan.”

Panic flooded my brain and a thousand and one questions demanded answers. How did he know? Who told him when I hadn’t told anyone? What was he going to do to me for keeping it a secret? And then reality hit me.

The phone call.

It’s not our baby he was fretting over; it was theirs.

Aw, shit.

“Did you hear me, Morgan? Macy’s pregnant.”

Yeah, I heard you, loud and clear. “Yeah,” I muttered. “Congratulations. Are you exited?”

“Excited?” he asked incredulously. “Are you crazy? You know I don’t want kids.”

No doubt. There’s one more reason why she’d had such trouble breaking the news to him. “I thought she didn’t either?”

He shook his head. “She hadn’t. I guess it was an accident, or something.”

Sabotage? “So, what next?”

“For her and I, I’m not sure, but she says she’s keeping it and that I’ve gotta live with it.”

Lovely. “And?”

“And what,” he questioned, turning to look at me for the first time since dropping the bomb.

“And what about us, what little there is left?” My heart pounded; I swear he could hear it from across the room.

“There isn’t any more us. It has to end and now. I have a tough enough time splitting my time between you and her. No way I can do that with a baby in the picture. I’m sorry, Morgie, but this is goodbye.”

As if he ‘split’ his time anyway. All I managed to get was the leftovers. “I don’t want to lose you, I need you.” I will not cry, I will not cry, I will NOT… oh hell, I’m crying.

I covered my face with my hands and let loose. All the emotions that I’d bottled up over the last sixteen weeks came pouring out of me. Sometime during my breakdown, he’d come to stand before me again. He gently lifted my chin until my watery blue eyes were level with his serious green ones.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know what else to do. I have to be there for her now. She needs me.”

And I need you. If you only knew how much. But then, curiosity nagged at my brain. “How far along is she?”

“Ten weeks,” he told me and my heart leapt a little at that. I’d beaten her out in that at least. I had a good six week head start on her. “Why?”

I shrugged. “Just curious, it’s a woman thing,” I lied.

He nodded as if he understood. Leaning forward, he pressed his lips lightly to mine. A chaste, brotherly kiss if I’d ever had one. “Goodbye Morgan Delaney.”

“Goodbye, Jonas.”

He let his fingers trail through my hair as he turned and walked out of my life. I stood and watched until the door closed. I don’t remember anything after that.

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