Rebecca
Gentle heat radiates over my cheek, waking me. The morning sun was breaking through the blinds. That's when I notice her slumped in the chair next to the bed, asleep. She looks terrible, was my first thought about her which to be honest surprised me. I figured I would feel unrelenting rage at the very sight of her but I actually pitied her. I sat there a long time thinking about everything, thinking about how tough it must be, how scared she probably is.
She started to wake.
"Morning," I say. My lips softly curl into a gentle smile. Her face morphs to surprise, then shock and panic in microseconds.
"I'm sorry," Samantha say, "I don't know what I'm doing here."
"No, stay. I'm glad you're here. I want to talk to you," I say. I guess I really did want to talk...
*The two women sat before each other, neither speaking for a long time. For a brief moment, in the beginning, the younger woman pleaded in silence to the other for mercy. Her eyes quaked and twisted with guilt as she sat before the dying woman whose life she aided in dismantling.
The dying woman smiled and pushed the thoughts of her impending but almost certain death away. Finally, she was the first to speak and after deliberating on what to say she opened with a joke.
"Don't ever fall in love. It turns out what's killing me is a broken heart." Rebecca says with a chuckle. Samantha doesn't smile. "Come on, don't be so serious. Life is already serious enough. It doesn't need your help."
"I'm sorry for what I did to your family," Samantha says.
"You should be," Rebecca says with flat seriousness. Another joke but neither woman laughed and Samantha squirmed in her seat as the uncomfortableness crept up the edges of the girl's small frame. Rebecca grinned and Samantha took a breath. "I know you are. But you're young and impressionable and he's an asshole."
"That's for sure, that guy is a fucking prick," Samantha says.
"So what are you doing here?" Rebecca says. Samantha thinks for a minute, deciding on how honest she wants to be.
"I don't know. I guess I just wanted to talk to someone," Samantha says.
"And you came to the conclusion that visiting the dying wife of the man you had an affair with and whose baby you are carrying would be a good person to talk too?" Rebecca says. "You're not very good at making critical decisions."
"I'm not looking for sympathy, okay?" Samantha says.
"Good, because I offered you none," Rebecca says.
"You know, if you weren't such an uptight bitch, maybe he wouldn't have slept around," Samantha says and as the words exit her mouth she suddenly wishes she had never spoken them.
"Thank you for the wonderful advice, you can leave now," Rebecca says.
"I didn't come here to fight with you, please don't kick me out. I'm sorry," Samantha says.
"So you do that? That's what you do? You just spout off whatever idiotic thought passes through your mind without reasoning whether or not it should be spoken?" Rebecca says.
"I guess. Yeah." Samantha says.
"And you wonder why you don't have friends? Jesus, you are more moronic than I presumed," Rebecca says.
"Don't sit there and judge me, how many friends do you have?" Samantha says.
"Excellent diversion. Let me turn this around so I can avoid internal-reflection at all cost. Are you that scared of who you really are?" Rebecca says.
"Wow, you're so smart, did you think that up all by yourself?" Samantha says.
"I have deeper conversations with my six-year-old," Rebecca says.
"Why are you tearing me down? Why are you attacking me? I said I was sorry for what I did and you are still digging on me," Samantha says.
Their voices have escalated and echoed down the hall to the nurse's station. A few moments later an RN charges into the room.
"Excuse me, who are you? You can't be here. You need to leave." The nurse says.
"It's fine," Rebecca says and waves the nurse away. "It's fine," she reiterates with more emphasis. The nurse instructs them to lower their voices then leaves.
For the first time in a long time, Samantha's heart truly ached. She longed for someone, anyone to accept her, to truly desire her. This wasn't that, at least not completely, but for a passing moment, it felt like Rebecca wanted her to stay.
"I don't know what your motivation for coming here is," Rebecca says.
"Me neither," Samantha says.
"Honestly, if it was shoulder to cry on, I think you have the wrong interpretation of me," Rebecca says.
"I didn't come here for that," Samantha says.
"So why did you come?" Rebecca says. Samantha swallows hard and tries to uncover some hidden strength to finally say what she feared most. The truth.
"I got knocked up by a married man," Samantha says, "slept with my best-friends lifelong crush then lied to him about being the father so he would help pay for the abortion because I can't afford it. I have lied to my parents and basically dropped out of school. I have no friends and I'm pretty sure I may go to jail for lying. I'm a shitty person, I know that. You don't have to sit there and psychoanalyze me, okay? I already know."
"You are pretty shitty," Rebecca says. Tears fill Samantha's eyes. "Samantha, wake up, we're all shitty," Rebecca says, "We're just a whole bunch of shitty people that does shitty shit to each other. You're not the first. You won't be the last."
"I slept with your husband and ruined your marriage," Samantha says through tears. Rebecca sits up and slaps her face, turning her cheek ruby red.
"Stop the self-loathing," Rebecca says. "I am not going to sit here with the little time I have left and listen to you bitch about things you can change."
"I can't change the past," Samantha says.
"Change the future," Rebecca says.
"How?" Samantha says.
"Figure it out. Grow up. I have news for you, you're not a child anymore. You make adult decisions you deal with adult consequences," Rebecca says.
"I'm not ready to be a mother," Samantha says.
"Then deal with it," Rebecca says.
"Should get the abortion?" Samantha says.
Could it truly be this easy? Rebecca thought. Had it always been this way and she just missed the signals? She wondered if the young girl was truly seeking advice. Rebecca realized she had been waiting for this moment, anticipating its arrival and everything had fallen into place for her to administer the antidote at this most effective moment. The raw power was intoxicating and she desired more.
"You're not ready to be a mother, sweety," Rebecca says and Samantha starts crying. "It's okay, it's going to be okay," Rebecca pulls Samantha close and holds her as she cries.
It was in that exchange that Rebecca truly understood the magnitude of her abilities. She was a soothsayer with unlimited power. She held the crying girl and planted dark seeds into her ear.
TO BE CONTINUED...
YOU ARE READING
The Babysitter
Teen Fiction"Falling in love with a married man wasn't what I wanted but it happened." - Samantha "Finding love again was all I wanted with him, but I had to find myself first." - Rebecca Love and lies collide in this riveting tale of adultery, as two women fig...
