The devil's advocate

Chapter 40 Damien

Past…

“You ever wonder what your life would be like if it weren’t for one major event?”

“Sure.” I rake my gaze up and down her naked body before I grab my cigarettes off the nightstand. “Just today I thought about all the good sex I’d be missing out on if I didn’t bend you over the table in the science lab that day.”

She smiles and lets out a small laugh, causing those big tits of hers to jiggle with the action. “I was being serious, Damien.”

I light a cigarette as I think about her question. We don’t usually get into such weighty conversations, but I don’t mind talking to her.

Mrs. Miller’s not only hot. She’s chill as fuck.

“Sometimes I think about what my life would be like if my mom didn’t die.”

I hate the pity shadowing her blue eyes. “I wish I knew what to say.”

Sometimes there isn’t anything to say. It just is what it is.

“She was a junkie who preferred drugs to her kid.” I take a long drag of my cigarette. “I’d say her death was upsetting, but you can’t lose something you never had, you know?”

“Yeah.” She winces. “Can I ask you something kind of messed up?”

“Shoot.”

She props herself up on her elbow. “If your mom wanted forgiveness for not being a good parent, would you give it to her?”

“Depends.”  

“On?”

I shrug. “Why she wanted it. Was it because she’s truly sorry, or because she wanted to make herself feel better about being a shitty mom?”

“The first,” she whispers.

“Then yeah. We all make mistakes. Some worse than others, but who the fuck am I to judge?”

“I wish there were more people in the world like you.”

That gets a laugh out of me. Usually people are wishing they don’t run into someone like me ever again.

I lean back against my headboard. It’s obvious she’s got some shit going on in her life and needs someone to lay it on.

“What’s your big event?”

“My daughter.”

I expected her to mutter some shit about marrying her husband, or maybe even fucking a student, but not this. She never mentioned kids before.

“You have a kid?”

“Yes...no...not exactly.” She looks at me. “It’s complicated. Promise you won’t judge me when I tell you this?”

“Like I said before. Who the fuck am I to judge?”

She sits up in my bed. “I ended up getting pregnant when I was twenty-one.” Her forehead creased as she continues. “Here’s some irony you’ll appreciate. I was sleeping with my teacher.” She exhales a small puff of air before she continues. “My very hot, very married professor. I went to his office after class one day to get extra help and he came on to me. It was dirty and wrong, but after fumbling teenagers and drunken frat boys, it was nice to have sex that actually ended in an orgasm.”

I can’t help the cocky smirk I throw her way. She already knows not to paint me with that same brush.

The tip of her mouth crooks up briefly, despite her serious tone. “It’s all fun and games until someone gets pregnant. I still remember the look of sheer terror on his face when I told him. The next day after class he said it was a huge mistake and he couldn’t lose his family.” Her eyes closed and a flash of pain pinches her features. “He told me to get an abortion... gave me three hundred bucks and an A for the semester and that was that.”

“Shit. Talk about leaving someone high and dry.”

“Yeah. I was scared and on my own, so I did what any girl would do, I called my mom...mistake number two. I knew better. My family was overly religious. Not the real kind where you accept everyone and help people in need. They were the hypocritical kind that only cared about appearances and judging people. When I told her I was pregnant, she said I was an embarrassment. When I told her who the father was, she declared my bastard baby and I would burn in hell and as far as she was concerned, I was no longer her daughter.”

I blow out a breath. “Sounds like your mom cast a few stones in her picture perfect glass house.”

“Yeah. Nice, right? At that point, the only thing I could think to do was call my cousin. She was four years older than me and had left the church the second she turned eighteen.” Reaching for my cigarette, she takes a deep drag and slowly exhales. “She doesn’t freely admit it to outsiders because she’s pursuing a career in law, but she’s gay. Which is the reason she was also kicked out of the family. I thought if anyone would understand, it would be her.”

She tucks a strand of long blonde hair behind her ear. “Anyway, I asked her if she could drive me to the clinic. She said yes, and that I could stay with her for the week to get my bearings. My spring break was coming up so I took her up on the offer. When I got there, I started getting cold feet. I wasn’t ready to have a baby, but…”

“You didn’t want to have an abortion either,” I finish for her and she nods.

“Exactly.” Her eyes become glassy. “It’s fu

She wipes her tears with the back of her hand. “That’s when my cousin asked if I would consider letting her keep the baby. She said she always wanted to be a mom but in vitro or adoption were her only options. If she adopted my baby, not only would they be family, she assured me I could see him or her whenever I wanted, and I’d know my baby was being taken care of.” She smiles, but there’s no humor in her expression, only pain. “I liked the idea. I knew Karen was in a much better position than I was and would give my baby a good life.”

“I’m sensing a but coming up.”

“But then I made mistake number three.”

I wouldn’t call anything she did a mistake, so much as being young and naive, but I digress. “What happened?”

“I trusted Karen. When my semester ended, I moved in with her for the summer. She took care of the medical expenses, bought baby stuff, drove me to doctor appointments. Basically everything I had hoped my own mother would do.” She looks up at the ceiling. “She was a lawyer, so it never occurred to me to have the adoption papers looked over before I signed them. I did ask her what a closed adoption was, and she said it meant that no one but the two of us would be able to find out she adopted my daughter.”

There’s despair in her gaze when she looks at me. “I had a minor complication when I gave birth, something to do with the iron levels in my blood. They wanted to keep me an extra night for observation, but my daughter was discharged. Karen and I decided she would take the baby home and come back for me the next day. I hugged my little girl, kissed her on the forehead and handed her to Karen.”

This time, she makes no attempt to wipe away the tears rolling down her cheeks.

“But Karen never came back. She didn’t answer her phone, either.” She presses a palm to her stomach. “I took a taxi to her house, but it was empty. When I went to her office, they told me she had given notice and left her job three weeks prior. She was just...gone.” She clenches her fist. “She didn’t have any friends that I knew of, and I didn’t have any money to look for her. God, I just remember the panic of thinking I’d never see my daughter again.”

“Did you call the police?”

In my experience, cops are usually nothing but assholes, but not when it comes to children.

She nods. “I did. Unfortunately, the state we lived in had restrictive adoption laws. I could only reverse consent for the first three days and I had already missed that window. My only other option was to take her to court, but in order to do that, I’d have to find her and come up with the money to hire a lawyer. I had no job, no money, and no help. So I gave up.”