All Your Fates (Currently editing/updating)

Chapter 20: Stays in Vegas ~ Carrie Cutforth

DAVID’S POV

With some wrestling and after watching a Youtube tutorial (which thankfully this ‘verse had), I managed to put the baby in her car seat, hopefully correctly. At least Gennifer wasn’t choking, that she made sure I knew (what I am implying here is she was screaming her tiny little head off – how is it possible this much LOUDNESS could come from something so tiny). I put the key in the ignition not quite sure where I was going. Could I just bring the baby along with me on a stakeout of my wife (presumed wife)? Gillie was bound to give me away.

The car started, but before I could put it into gear, a seductive anaesthetized female voice started to direct me to where I assumed I was supposed to go from the car dashboard. Thank you modern technology!

The daycare was not too far away and thankfully Gessica stopped screaming once I started to drive. I began to sing a song while she found a fat finger to suck on, and she seemed to like my rendition of Baby Got Back.

I pulled up to the daycare, which was in a small plaza next to a pizza shop. Happy Trails, the vinyl sign stuck on the door, had a worn and faded look in a retro meets vintage feel. It was like the 80’s trying to look like the 50’s only twenty years ago. You do the math. The letters were written in a lasso rope with colors that had mellowed over the years to yellow and green pastels.

Really, is this the best we can afford for our kid? I wondered and then laughed at my own judgement of myself. You know – me: the guy who was wondering if he could feed her salt-n-vinegar chips only 15 minutes ago (decided against it) only now wondering where to send her to college.

I was in the midst of unbuckling Gazelle when a pair of plump feminine hands were suddenly intruding their way towards the babe and taking her away from my grasp. I looked up and saw a familiar flash of hot emerald eyes.

“Don’t,” was all Pepper commanded me as she held Giselle in one arm while slinging the diaper bag around her shoulder before she spun on her heels towards the daycare; the Happy Trails logo emblazoned on the back of her uniform contained caricatures of stuffed animals that only served to mock me.

What did I do, now? There is no pleasing some people…no matter what the ‘verse.

I got in the car and drove to the motel feeling unsettled. Something about Pepper was off. I mean, I get why she gets mad at me times in our world, ‘cause she would tell me often, but this…lack of communication, the shutdown, was just not like her. Well yeah, dummy, this Pepper is not my Pepper, and by my Pepper, I don’t mean in a romantic declaration, but of my world. And yet, why would she be mad at the me who is not me but him? I mean, she’s my/his daycare worker? There are only so many scenarios in that kinda relationship where one would express this kind of peevishness. Default on account? That didn’t make sense…

I slowed down as I came up to the location that the skeevy GPS spy app was telling me where to find Emma: it was worse than I thought. Some no-tell motel with high hedges at the front to hide view of the cars parked along the salmon colored sunbaked walls. I had a sudden hit of déjà vu. Wasn’t I just at this place with Emma only a world back or so?

I parked the car in front of a Griddle Grits attached to the wing on the left side of the motel. Sin and grits. A twofer one indulgence combo. Comes with free air conditioning.

I skulked into the greasy spoon, hiding behind a large potted plant while I scoped the place and waited for the waitress to seat me at a table. I could see Emma’s pony tail bobbing from behind her where she sat in front of a man I couldn’t quite see the face of, only that they held hands across the table, and I felt a stab of ice crush into my heart.

Their table sat on one side of a partition with a lattice between rows of booths on either side. When the waitress came I asked to be seated at the booth beside theirs, concealed by the lattice between. Sitting down in the orange vinyl booth, I could not help feel the partition gave me the feeling of sitting in a confessional – although I’m not Catholic and have never been…I think (it gets confusing jumping all these worlds).

I ordered a coffee in a quiet murmur and tried not to shake my leg and draw undue attention to myself. Just melt into the background, close my eyes and listen in, which you think would be easy but the intense feeling of blind jealous rage made it almost impossible to concentrate. The humming noise in my ears didn’t help and I felt like soon I was going to not just lose my shit but my grip on this existence.

I started to breathe slowly through my nostrils as I heard Emma say something about, “…tired of the lies, and the deceit and the shame,” and him, the guy, taunting in a smooth charismatic but somewhat familiar voice, “If you want to go, all you have to do is walk away.”

I let go of the bile building up inside of me and cleared my mind of murderous thoughts just in time to catch Emma’s last sentence: “The heart wants what the heart wants,” she said with a resigned sigh, and then rose to leave while arranging to meet him in the motel room while he got the bill.

I rose on unsteady legs and walked slowly past the booths and tables stocked with secret couples concealing clandestine scandals, and around the partition to the other side. I just wanted to get a good look at the bastard before I tore him to pieces.

I waited for a moment to be sure Emma was far on her way to the room via the parking lot, and then I spun round to face the man who had stolen her away from me, seated at the last booth facing me on this side of the diner.

For a moment I felt as if the world had flipped upside down and felt that nausea you get when your perception of reality has been challenged.

“Hello, David,” the bastard said, grinning at me like a devilish fool.

“Hello, David,” I said as I stared at the mirror copy of me, not in my reflection, but at the booth where Emma had sat, flesh and blood, only moments before.

/// A/N

Mwahahahaha...I bet you didn't see THAT coming!!! :)

Just you wait till next week....

But if you are good and I get tons of comments and likes, I will release this chapter early.

:)

C