Addicted | ✔

P a r t S e v e n t y - N i n e

Night, had been hard on me since I started the drugs. But now they were harder. When I couldn't fall asleep I would think about how how much I'd messed up, and when I did sleep it wasn't restful. Infact I was haunted by flashbacks and night terrors, of the night where Jack forced me on my knees infront of him, and stabbed me for trying to protect our child. In the mornings, I would spend kneeling in front of the toilet throwing up. Evie, had not left my side. She would simply cry all night if I wasn't there, and she would stop eating if I wasn't the one whom was feeding her. In rehab, I had gone once to the doctor to check on the baby, who apparently was faring quite well despite the circumstances. 

When I woke up this morning and found my way into the kitchen, I found Leo sitting there. Holding Evie, who'd apparently woken up before me. When he saw me, instead of his normal smile he looked rather glum. I knew why, he was supposed to be driving me to see Jack, and I'd made the choice to bring Evie with me. I'd already dressed myself, wearing black pants, and a sage green shirt with a scoop neck decorated with lace. It was his favorite color, I'd also braided my long hair into two dutch braids and placed two cheap earings in my ears. It was the best I'd looked in years, the scars on my face had faded and my fair complextion had come back. I sighed looking at Leo.

"You don't have to drive me anymore, I think I'm just going to take an uber." I said, I had enough cash leftover and I felt it was a gross request of Leo to drive me to the man who had tried to kill me. Leo nodded, normally he would've insisted to help me but instead nodded and said:

"That would be best." I took Evie from his arms and went to dress her, it was rather cold out so I dressed her in a pink onesie and a warm hat. As well as a coat, a very nice white one that encompassed her whole body. As I said goodbye to Leo he looked at me.

"Just, don't second guess yourself while your there. You are doing the right thing, for her." He said as I walked out the door. I nodded. I proceeded to stand there, in the cold holding my daughter in one hand and the divorce paper's in the other, while I waited for the uber. When he showed up, and I gave the prison as the address he entered it into the gps, twenty five minutes away. I scrolled through old photos, the entire twenty five minutes. A photo where I, probably at my worst had been holding Evie, smiling in our bathroom. My collarbones had been sticking out of my chest, and my cheeks looked sunken in. I shuddered, and scrolled past it. In another, was one of Jack and I, kissing at a park. Back when I still thought he was a good guy. A photo of when Evie was born, Jack and I in a hospital bed holding her looking at her like she was the best thing to ever happen to us.  

When we arrived at the prison and I stepped from the car with Evie I looked at the menacing building in front of me. A certain level of fear filling me, I wanted to open the door to the car and demand to be taken home but instead I sat there, feeling fearful and scared. Like he was still there, taunting me. I took slow steps to the doors, swinging them open. As I spoke to the guards, I also walked through the sensor and was shown into a room filled with chairs on both sides, a phone on each desk, and a sheet of plexiglass in front of them. I clutched Evie to my chest, as I sat down. Waiting for Jack to be told I was there to see him. When he sat down in front of me, my heart stopped. He looked like only a trace of the man I once knew, frail and strung out. Like withdrawls had almost killed him. His face looked sunken in, and sick he looked like complete shit.

"Kaitlyn." He said, picking up the phone. I picked up the one on my side as well. 

"Jack, it's good to see you." My voice was breathy, and sick sounding. I all of sudden felt naseaus. 

"You look really good sweetheart." Jack said, and I felt a shade of pink rise in my cheeks. Feeling worse now I struggled to answer. Why speaking to him was so hard, I wasn't particularly sure.

"Jack, I-I miss you. But that's not why I'm here, I went to rehab. I got better, I'm clean. I learned a lot, and I've realized we're not good for each other. You're not good for me." I slid under the plexiglass, the divorce papers. Jack sucked in air. Instead of screaming of freaking out, he just nodded.

"Kaitlyn." He said, looking into my eyes with his. I felt tears stinging in my eyes, I blinked hard three times. 

"I love you. I hope you realize, one day that I always will but I can't keep loving someone who doesn't love me back." I said, as Evie flipped around on my chest and began to worm her way toward the plexiglass.

"Daddy, Daddy!!" She cried out reaching toward him. Jack put a hand out to the glass, to touch her. She put her hand out as well, and I felt quite in love still, with the man who made my baby. 

"Hi sweet girl." He said, and he looked less like the frozen solid excuse of a man I once knew, and more like a father who missed his daughter, and his wife.

"Kaitlyn, I love you, now and forever." Jack said staring into my eyes again. I exhaled the breath I'd been holding since the first time he hit me.

"You don't beat, rape, try to kill the woman you love." I said, sharply. I saw him adapt a look of surprise. The papers i'd given him were only copies, it wasn't as though he actually had to sign them. But he pushed them back to me.

"I'm sorry." He said, standing up. "If this is what you want, it's what I'll give you. I've done enough." He continued. Then I watched him, walk away from me for the last time, and Evie began sobbing. Like she knew too, and maybe she did.