Page 71 of Finding Fate
I wrap my arms around his waist and press the side of my face against his chest. “I love you too. I’m just scared.”
The door finally opens and Sayler’s dad walks in, quietly closing the door behind him. He’s handsome for his age. Like really handsome. And as he walks across the room, he has zero expression on his face. I wonder if doctors have to practice that straight face that they all seem to have. Doesn’t matter if they’re giving you good news or telling you that you have cancer—they all wear the same expression. Maddox is now standing beside me with his arm around my back. Dr. McKenzie sits on the corner of his desk and crosses his arms at his chest and his feet at the ankles, staring at me. “Daddy, why did you—”
He holds his hand out at Sayler, stopping her midsentence. The man radiates a lot of power. Can silence a person with a simple physical command. He reminds me of my father in ways. My heart feels like it’s rising like acid reflux and beating in my throat. “Where did you get the birth control?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but where?”
“Did a physician administer it? More specifically, did a Gynecologist administer it?”
“I think so?”
His eyes narrow a little. “I’m going to need a better explanation than that, Gabby.”
I look at Maddox, silently pleading with him to help me out somehow, but really, how could he? He wasn’t there. “Dr. McKenzie, should I be worried?”
“That depends on your answer, Gabby. I can’t help you until you’re honest with me. Do you want the others to step out of the room? I’m not your friend’s dad right now, I’m your doctor.”
I glance at Maddox first. “I’m not leaving you,” he assures me.
I nod, going to Sayler. She gives me a small smile. “We can step out if you want us to. No hard feelings.”
My eyes sweep beside her to Riggan, where they’re both sitting on the couch. He’s looking at the floor, but as if he can sense me looking at him, he tilts his head up until his eyes are on mine. Within seconds he stands and helps Sayler up, both of them walking toward the door.
Maddox grabs my hand, breaking my line of vision as I glance down at the two of them together. I can see my name tattooed on the inside of his wrist, remembering what he told me about Riggan coming to see him at his brother’s place not too long after he moved away, where he tattooed my name on Maddox at the kitchen table. I’m reminded of every talk we had in the past where Riggan’s name came up. They’ve been best friends since they were kids, and although I was never really around Riggan last time we were together, I can see how close they are.
One thing I’ve tried hard to do since we got back together is catch up on things we missed out on with each other over the years. Maddox has told me tons of stories, including that Riggan has been there for him, like when I went to get my things and my dad took me. He was drinking pretty heavily and Riggan was there. Maddox was there as much as he could be for Riggan after Abby died, which still seems surreal even though I didn’t know her. There have been so many times when I had a gut feeling his friends hated me over everything that happened, and I want to be in their good graces. It doesn’t matter how little you care of what others think about you. The best friends of the love of your life are different. I want them to like me, because I want us to have a happy life.
Despite everything I had concocted in my head, Riggan hasn’t treated me any differently. If he hates me, I wouldn’t know it, and I don’t know if that has to do with Maddox or just because that’s Riggan. When I was at the tattoo shop and the stick came back positive, it never occurred to me to keep it a secret from Riggan. They all know the gist anyway.
They’re Maddox’s family, which means they are my family, and Sayler has been nothing but nice to me, like right now, at the drop of a hat getting her dad to do this. She’s made me feel included when she could have made me feel like an outsider. It’s time I stop shutting people out. Not everyone is out to destroy my happiness.
Riggan grabs the doorknob. “Wait,” I call out, halting them. They both look back at us, Riggan’s eyes meeting Maddox’s. My shoulders drop, trying to relax when I’m used to always keeping myself so put together around people not in my immediate circle. “I want you to stay.”
They turn around and Riggan pulls Sayler in front of him as he leans against the door, wrapping his arms around her front. Maddox kisses my temple. I assume I’m wearing my anxiety all over my face. I look back at Sayler’s dad, who is studying me. “When Maddox and I met I was thirteen, he seventeen. My dad is very busy, but he’s very traditional in how he was raised. I had few rules since he was raising me alone. We would have been together for a year at the end of May. My dad found out in February that I was dating an older guy. I was fourteen. He had not long turned eighteen. My dad could see how I felt about him. That jeopardized his plan for me to marry in a much higher social and financial class—someone he and my grandfather arranged for me. He threatened to press statutory rape charges . . .”
I glance at Maddox, my eyes filled with tears. “He demanded for me to break up with you. I tried to distance myself from you after he said he wanted you gone and that he would make sure it happened one way or another. I couldn’t do it. I love you too much. That’s when we all met—me, you, our parents. Remember?”
His expression saddens. That was one of the worst days of my life. That whole short period was a nightmare. He places his hand on the side of my face. “Yeah, baby, I remember.”
“He made our love sound insignificant. He made you out to be a predator. He made it sound like I was raped. I was embarrassed and angry. He threatened your parents that he’d have you arrested if you didn’t move and transfer to another school. I prayed that your parents would fight him. Instead, they sent you to live with your brother. Everyone made us wrong. I wasn’t letting you leave without saying goodbye. I wanted something to hold onto.”
I finally look back at Sayler’s dad, my face soaked. “I got pregnant. Maddox was long gone by the time I found out. My dad was going to make me abort it. I begged, swore I’d never tell Maddox, told him I’d do anything he wanted. He said the only way I was carrying him was if I kept it quiet and gave him up for an adoption and stayed out of the process. I had to leave everything up to my dad. I started showing during the summer. He put me on house arrest. I wasn’t allowed to go back to school come fall until the baby was gone. There was an Obstetrician that lived in our subdivision. My dad worked out house calls for anything that didn’t require me going to the clinic. I gave birth in November. I’d barely gotten him in my arms when my dad forced me to turn him loose, using Maddox as leverage before having him taken out of the hospital room. He knew he could use Maddox against me. I’d never let him go to jail. I let our son go. There were so many people in and out of the room between nurses, doctors, and techs. I never paid them any attention. I was mourning the loss of my son. My dad told me I wasn’t leaving the hospital without birth control. I didn’t argue. I didn’t want to go through that again. He said it was an implant—good for three years—so I wouldn’t screw it up. My senior year he had someone come by the house to change it out even though I wasn’t having sex. I couldn’t do it—go all the way. In my head there was always the possibility he’d come back for me. I wanted him to know my loyalty. At twenty-one, I’ve still only had sex with Maddox. I wasn’t late having the implant changed again and I have nothing to do with my dad anymore if I can stay away from him, so imagine my surprise when Riggan told me to take a pregnancy test to get a tattoo for our son and it was positive. Was it just a fluke, Dr. McKenzie? One of those rare percentages where I still got pregnant despite the fact that I was on birth control?”
“I don’t think you were ever on birth control, Gabby.”
I’m waiting for the punchline of the joke, but it doesn’t come. He never cracks a smile. “Are you saying I’m imagining it? Didn’t you just take it out? I’m not sure I understand.” I think about what it sounds like he’s saying, and my eyes quickly find Maddox’s, filled to the brim with more tears. “I’m not making it up, I swear. I’m not trying to trap you.”
He rolls his eyes at me. Like seriously rolls his eyes. I don’t think this is a joke at all. This isn’t a time for sarcasm. “You could have told me you wanted a baby, Gabby, and I would have knocked you up on purpose. I’m almost twenty-five and you’re twenty-one. I would have even done it when we were younger. Would you shut up with that shit?”
“That’s not what I meant, Gabby,” Dr. McKenzie says, pulling me back to him. “What I removed from your arm wasn’t birth control.”
I blink at him, trying to let my brain catch up to what he said. That doesn’t make sense. “Then what was it?”
“I spoke with a colleague and sent him photos. He sent back a photo of what they use at the clinic for birth control implants. They looked nothing alike. I did some research. It’s a microchip implant that’s placed just beneath the skin in the tissue. There are scanners that can read them. They can be used for anything from credit card usage to medical records. There are GPS tracking capabilities, though I don’t know the range. They’re hardly common in the sense of human implantation. Most put GPS transmitters on objects like vehicles and jewelry. They mostly appeal to the wealthy class in the incident of human trafficking, but to most it’s still an invasion of privacy. My guess is your father wanted to keep tabs on your whereabouts if you were constantly in a fairly short range without you knowing.”
My jaw feels like it’s hanging. Maddox tightens his fist around the side of my shirt. I don’t know what to say. He was tracking me? That’s impossible. But then I remember the night in my room when my dad showed up and drugged me so he could take me back home without causing a scene. He knew I would have fought him conscious. That wasn’t the first time he suddenly appeared where I was either, and even though we don’t live in a small town, we don’t live in an urban city either.
Kidnapped . . . I’m reminded of getting whipped because I wouldn’t take the Plan B he was trying to force on me. I kept wondering how he was so sure I’d been with Maddox after all this time. My eyes close as everything starts to align. It all makes sense. The bad part is the signs were there. I just never caught on.