Free Someone to Watch Over Me by Anne Berkeley

day he just snapped , s lapped me so hard it brought tears to my eyes.
That fast the fight was over. He apologized ,
b egged , p leaded , cried actual tears. He was good that way. He made it believable. He was
manipulative, and good at it. Somehow, he always twisted my words
and turned them back on me. Naturally, I had blamed myself. I
yelled too loud , I was making a
scene , being irrational , people were staring. At the time, his excuses
seemed valid.
    “I didn’t answer his text
quickly enough. I missed a phone call. I was late coming out of
class. I took too long to walk to his dorm. I was dressed too
seductive ly . I looked at another guy too
long. Things like that. I’ve heard it all. Nothing could convince
him that I loved him. I was cheating on him. I was a terrible
girlfriend. I didn’t deserve him.
    “Anyhow, one
morning I was sick and I couldn’t
make it to the phone. Grant came to my dorm, checking on me. We
went through the normal routine. The questions. The accusations.
Why didn’t I answer the phone or his texts? Why wasn’t I in class?
Why was I in bed so late? Who else was in the room? Was I fu—” I
glanced at Levy in the back seat , “—sleeping with someone else? We’d been through it a million
times.
    “Only this time, someone had called and complained. So this guy,
Adam, he was a residential advisor. He came up to intervene. Of
course, Grant took his intervention as an admission of guilt. We
must’ve been having an affair for this guy to stand up for me.
Well, Grant lost it. Beat the heck out of
this guy. And when I tried to stop him, he beat the heck out of me too. Adam and I ended up in the
hospital and Grant ended up in jail.
    “It would be nice if things
ended there, but obviously that’s not what happened. I couldn’t go
home until after the surgery. In the meantime, Grant got out of
jail. He came straight to the hospital. Walked right in the front
door with a great big vase full of flowers, sweet-talked all the
nurses, who promptly escorted him to my room. Needless to say, once
I realized what he was capable of, I knew I had to get away from
him, so I nearly had a stroke when I woke
to find him sitting at the foot of my bed. I don’t know what he
would’ve done, but the nurse came in, complaining about my heart
monitor and he slipped out without a word.
    “I think that’s almost worse,
the silent threats. That’s his method now ,
has been the past two and a half years. He texts mostly, but
occasionally he’ll show up. I think he likes to keep me on my toes.
Still, he doesn’t say anything. He’ll sit in his car until I call the police .
    “So, no, I didn’t get to enjoy
the miracle of pregnancy,” I explained, wrapping up my tale . “I thought it was a curse. God hated me. I
must’ve done something wrong in a past life to deserve carrying
Grant’s child. It was awful. Lord, was I sick. All the time. Day or
night. And the birth, everything that could’ve gone wrong, did. He
was upside down and then — ”
    “What do you mean he was upside down, like
feet first?”
    “ No,
posterior. Face up. See , babies
are face down when they come out so that their neck and back can
bend when they navigate the birth canal. But Levy was facing up. Some women can still deliver that way, but Levy
just lodged himself in place. So they pushed him back up —”
    “Jesus Christ.”
    I laughed at Tate’s expression , the way he
squirmed in the seat . “It’s fine. I can laugh now. Trust me,
I didn’t at the time. But they pushed him
back up— what little he came down— and
turned him around. Then as luck would have it, the cord wrapped
around his neck. His vitals went all out of
whack. So after twenty hours of labor, I had to have a
cesarean section. ”
    “But it’s obvious you love him now.”
    “ I loved him
then,” I clarified. “Abortion was never an option. I went to all my
doctor appointments. I worried about his health. I tried to eat
right, what I could keep down.