Instead of apologizing, he rolled his eyes.
“You went through my phone?”
I started crying. “I’m carrying your child!”
That’s when Denise stormed into the room.
“What’s all this yelling?”
“Your son is cheating on me,” I sobbed.
She crossed her arms.
Then she said something I will never forget.
“Men cheat. Shut up and accept it.”
I stared at her in disbelief.
“You should be grateful he’s staying with you at all.”
Something inside me broke that night.
For illustrative purposes only
After that, I became a prisoner in their house.
Tyler barely spoke to me unless he wanted something. Denise monitored everything I did. If I slept too long, she called me lazy. If I cried, she said I was trying to manipulate people.
I had nowhere else to go.
My parents hadn’t called once.
Every night, I lay awake rubbing my stomach and whispering apologies to my baby.
I’m so sorry. I’m trying.
The closer I got to my due date, the more invisible I became.
Tyler disappeared for entire weekends.
Then one morning, at thirty-eight weeks pregnant, I woke up with sharp pains in my back.
I called Tyler six times.
No answer.
By noon, I could barely breathe through the contractions.
Denise drove me to the hospital with obvious annoyance.
“You better not be overreacting,” she muttered while tapping the steering wheel.
At the entrance, she dropped me off with my overnight bag.
“I’m not sitting around for hours,” she said. “Call Tyler yourself.”
