"Ok." it comes out like a question but really its the only response I can muster up. I didn't know where this was going.
"I know you're pregnant."
Time stopped. The breeze stopped blowing. Crickets stopped chirping. The honking below us stopped. The stars dimmed. I stopped breathing. But, in a second it all came back to me. My face blanked.
"I don't know what you're talking about. Maybe you have the wrong person because I'm not pregnant," I let out a laugh at the end but it comes out like a nervous guilty chuckle. I could feel my stomach churn as the lie slips past my lips.
Carter takes a seat at the end the elongated seat I was sitting on. His eyes bored into mine before he looked towards his drum kit on the further end, "When our mom was pregnant with Riley, I was young. Maybe like four or five, I can't really remember but I remember the way she acted before she told me and Cam we were gonna have another brother," he glances at me before turning around fully so we were facing each other.
"You've been eating a lot more than normal, more emotional than usual, you and Riley have been walking around here like you know some secret we all don't–"
"I'm a girl and all of that is what happens when you have this thing called a period," I bite out while he's talking but Carter only shakes his head.
"That pack of pads under the sink hasn't been touched in almost two maybe three months. It Hasn't even moved an inch from its spot. And not to mention I can hear you vomiting at all hours of the morning and the middle of night."
Suffocating. It felt like all the wind had been knocked out of me. Carter simply just watches me. Waiting for me to say something but I can't. Instead a tear slips past my eye before I can wipe it away but the others I catch before taking a deep inhale. The universe was against me, I was sure of it. It felt like pretty soon the entire house would know except for Derrick, and hell who knows maybe he already knows and was just waiting for me to say something.
"Aaron...How?" Carter voices the question softly. Simply just curious but I let out a bitter laugh.
"The last couple that fostered me was this rich white couple who literally couldn't give a damn about me but who cares, ya know? At least they're taking me in. And it was fine at first, really it was but I didn't miss the looks the husband would give me. It made me so uncomfortable but I didn't say anything because I'd rather be there than a girls home where they do nothing but beat up on each other and get trafficked."
"At first it was brushes of our skin and I thought I could handle it. Then it was groping and I kept trying to convince myself it was accidental and then one night...I guess he said fuck it and decided to just take what he really wanted from me. No more teasing himself. It was like that for months and I tried to stop it, and I tried and I fucking tried but at some point you just...give up. Its better than having some different do it every night."
"Aaron–"
"His wife...She caught us–caught him. I thought thank God, you know. She had been nice to me. Understanding sometimes. But then she screamed at me. Not him. They kicked me out. He usually wore condoms but the last few times he just didn't."
Carter stares at the ground his lips pursed in a grim line, "Why didn't you say something. Tell someone? Tell her if it had been going on for so long?"
My fist clenched. That was always the question wasn't it. Why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do that. Why didn't you tell someone. Why didn't you fight back. Why didn't you leave. Why did you drink so much. Why did you let them. They always ask the victims why they didn't do so many things but never the perpetrator why they raped.
