103-High Ground

**PIPPA**

Cold seeps from my insides outward as he comes into the room.

I feel nothing.

*You* are *nothing,* my stepfather jeers. He is back in full force to torment me.

Just like* this* man.

He left me when I needed him.

They all did. Everyone does.

It hurts so much.

To think.

To *exist.*

“Pi… God… Pi,” his voice sounds broken.

Like I feel.

Broken.

Empty.

Numb.

He stops at the edge of my bed. His hair is a tangled mess as if he has been raking through it with his large hands. His eyes are red-rimmed and puffy, haunting me like they did two years ago.

When they spoke to my soul.

I close my own with regret. Regret at seeing him in the first place. Regret at recognizing that his anguish is so similar to my own.

*No! No more.*

There is no falling back. I need to move forward.

I stare at the sheet clutched in my hand. The one without the IV.

When the doctor asked me questions, each syllable I uttered had felt like sandpaper in my throat. Now, it is even worse. The betrayal and the anguish I feel at Xaver’s callous behavior makes me push through the pain.

I need to empty myself of all my secrets so he can leave. I can’t take looking at him.

It hurts too damn much.

“The first time I saw you was at this hospital. You were there to identify Sonia’s body. You had bumped into me and our eyes met... They drew me to you—the pain I saw in them had—because I had suffered too.”

My body goes rigid with the memory. The monitor for my blood pressure climbs.

*I need to end this. I must think of myself and the babies. The children he said he didn’t want.*

“I thought I could find peace in you. I stupidly thought you could heal me, and I could help you.”

“Pi… *please.*”

His plea clutches at my heart. The words and the force behind it, wraps itself around the chambers and squeezes like a vice.

*Don’t let him in.*

I won’t.

Instead, I will tell him my last secret, so he knows what he has lost because of his anger. I had sworn to myself that if he ever hurt me again, I would end it. I am making good on that promise now.

And I’m going to be a bitch about it.

“I have a lacerated wound in my scalp that needed stitches. A slight concussion. A cut lip that should heal in a few days. A bruised shoulder… and I’m pregnant with twins. I want nothing from you, except that you leave. Now.”

A moan, deep with pain, bursts from his lips.

Not something I expected to hear. I thought he would be cold. Detached. Untouched.

Not so.

His mouth works to utter a sentence, but nothing comes out. His wounded expression fills my heart with an ache so keen, it knocks me breathless.

He doesn’t say a word when he leaves the room.

I close my lids, shutting out the image of his hurt, as I wallow in my own. The satisfaction I thought I would feel doesn’t come. There is only regret at telling him so callously that he is about to become a father.

***

I wake when I hear voices.

They come from *him* and Justice.

*I told him to leave. He is still here.*

*Why?*

My eyes go wide when footsteps approach. I am only slightly disappointed when Justice fills the doorway. He has washed his face and hands of Craig’s blood and, from somewhere, he has gotten a shirt that fits him.

“Hey, Justice.”

“Hey, Pip.”

“Thanks for...”

Justice nods, understanding what I want to say. His eyes rake over me. His expression volleys between concern and anger. “We have been here all night. I checked on you earlier, but you were out.”

*We…*

*He stayed. Even after I had uttered such hateful words. Xaver had stayed.*

I don’t want to think about what that means, so I change the subject.

“How did you know to come to me?”

*My mouth is dust-dry.*

Without my having to tell him, Justice grabs the cup from a tray by my bedside and tilts the straw to my mouth. The water is cool and soothing. I take small sips while he tells the story.

“On Thanksgiving, Seth saw a strange man near your door. He thought the man was there to see the apartment when the man went inside. Later, he came down and listened for a while, but heard nothing. This evening, he was coming down the stairs when he saw you go in and he heard a…” Justice rakes a hand down his face and tightens his other hand into a fist. “He heard a noise. He had Cameron and D’Andre come and get me. And the rest you know.”

Gratitude replaces the numbness I feel at the thought of those brave boys helping me. “Thank them for me, will you?”

Justice nods and gives me more water.

We stay silent for a minute.

I lean back and close my eyes.

A question pops into my fuzzy brain. Opening my eyes, I ask, “Why would Craig wait for me there?”

*He had to know I’m living… was living, with…*

I leave the thought unfinished. Too many decisions come attached to it and I don’t want to go there now.

“Not sure, Pip. My guess is that he had nowhere else to go. Xaver—” Justice quickly corrects himself at my look. “Uh, I heard his wife had thrown him out and his baby momma dropped him when he could no longer pay her bills.” He shrugs. “It was probably common knowledge you had an empty apartment, and people know you used to live near Clancy’s…”

I had told Julia where I was living.

*Stupid. Stupid.*

I am too damn trusting. I had gotten lax, being with him. I had let my walls down and look where it has gotten me.

Beaten and trodden on. Again.

*Love sucks.*

Why any reasonable person puts themselves on the relationship rollercoaster and rides with eyes open wide, I will never know.

Sophia is a good example.

I’d asked her why she didn’t call the police on Craig.

*“For the good times,”* she had whispered. *“I loved him once. Would’ve given my life for him, even. That kind of love doesn’t just leave you.”*

It has to. It *must.*

Justice sits on the bed, staring at his hands clasped in between his knees.

“What are you going to do now, Pip?”

I sigh. “Don’t know, Justice.”

My future is a gray void. In six months, I will have two people depending on me. Between now and then, I’ll have to set my world right. *He* can wait in the hallway now, but I can’t count on him being in the babies lives for the long haul. I can’t count on anyone but myself.

Justice clears his throat. I know a profound statement is coming by the tense set of his shoulders.

“Look, Pip… I can hardly say I *like* the guy, but I *know* he loves you.”

I sit silently, letting his words wash over me. Words I don’t care to hear... yet I am straining to catch every syllable.

“You should have seen him on the way over. I have never seen anyone that torn up since — “ he shakes his head, dismissing the memory. “Well… not in a long time.

People don’t look like he did without there being some deep feeling there. Without some all-consuming regret.”

*He* has consumed my thoughts and fed my emotions for weeks. Right now, I just want to draw blanks. I don’t want to see his face when I close my eyes. I don’t want to feel the emptiness when he doesn’t spoon me as I fall sleep.

*Just give me one night…*

“I am tired,” I say, closing my eyes.

The bed shifts and Justice pats my thigh.

“Don’t worry about a thing, Pip. You take care of yourself and those babies and *we will* take care of everything else.”

As weariness overtakes me, I can’t help feeling that I am safe.

***

After a flurry of kisses and “I will call you’s”, Jenna and Bobby leave. While I had related my story, Bobby looked on like someone had stolen his dog. Jenna wavered between tears and apologies she hadn’t been there “to help you take the bastard down.” She even hugged me or patted my leg every so often.

*I love the girl, but if she had said she was sorry one more time...*

Bobby, noting my distress, said I needed to rest. When Jenna had opened her mouth, he had done a great job of overcoming her protests.

He is learning, that one.

“Thanks for coming guys. I will keep you updated,” *he* says in a low voice.

“If you need anything, Mr. Sayle— “Bobby begins.

“Call me Xaver, please.”

“If you need anything, Xaver. Call us.”

Jenna chimes in, “We will be over right away.”

I guess he hasn’t told them I am basically jobless and homeless.

*I will make it.* I will make it. *If I have to get three jobs…*

Left with my thoughts, the stillness closes in on me.

*He* had me moved to a private room soon after I arrived. I was perfectly fine in the old one. All the other beds were empty, anyway.

Not for the first time does “money talk.”

That man is wealthy enough to buy whatever and whoever he wants. I had be worried if I thought he wanted the babies. I know he doesn’t though. He said he didn’t want kids. He said—

Sally’s voice cuts off the rant in my mind rant. “Is she awake?”

“I don’t know, Ma. She… ah… she asked me to leave—“

“I bet she did, after what you told us.” She lets out a deep sigh and in a stern voice that rings with a familiarity, she says, “As smart as you are, Xaver, you have no common sense sometimes.”

“Yeah, Ma. I know it.”

*He sounds much worse than I feel.*

I try not to care.

*Ah, but I do.*

*He* doesn’t show his vulnerable side often, but when he does, I am taken back to why I noticed him.

I lied when I told him that he hadn’t helped heal me. He has, in so many ways. I am stronger because of him. I would never have stood up to Craig if he...Xaver... hadn’t given me the strength of his love.

“Sally,” George says, “let us talk about this later.”

Their voices lower. Even straining, I can’t make out what they are saying. My gaze flies to the doorway when I hear footsteps approaching.

“Pippa? Honey? May we come in?” Sally and George stand hesitantly outside the door.

As if I would *ever* turn them away.

“Yes, please.”

I wave a hand at the chairs. Sally bypasses them and sits on the bed. George stands with the same stoic look I know too well from his son.

“We are so sorry this happened to you, Pippa.” She has lost the tone that her son inherited and is all motherly concern. “When...ah...we got the call this morning, we had to come and see you. I hope you don’t mind.”

“I’m glad you came.” I mean it to. I had fallen in love with them fast, like I had their son. Whatever my feelings for *him,* I won’t let *them* go.

“We heard the doctor will release you this afternoon.”

“Yes.” I let out a small sigh. I have come full circle to my mother. She was pregnant and alone and she made it. Somehow, I will too.

“Where will you go?”

Jenna and Bobby are starting their lives together and I am not going to intrude. I could check around if someone from Bene needs a roommate. I can’t check at The Sayle Group… not yet.

Probably never.

“I am not sure.”

“Well, dear,” Sally says with a determined glint in her eye. “We want you to come home with us. You can stay as long as you like.” She takes my hand, squeezing gently. “I’m doing this for *you* and my grandchildren.”

I shoot a look to the door. “What about your son?”

“Pippa, I am no interfering fool. You won’t have to see him until you are ready. We promise.”

Tears prick my eyes. I am surprised that his parents, as terrific as they are, would offer me a place to stay. I look to George for confirmation. He wipes at the corner of his left eye and nods.

It is all settled then.