Thunderstorm {Under Editing}

Chapter 14

Jennifer woke up. There was no dream this time. She walked out to the balcony. She looked out at the cars zooming by and the people walking down below.

"Enjoying the view?"

Jennifer was startled when she heard Ben's voice.

"You scared me." Jennifer said when she turned around.

"Sorry, I thought you heard me come in."

"It's fine."

He stood beside her, looking out.

"We never got married?" Jennifer asked after a long pause.

"No. We were going to, though. We had it scheduled for July 14."

"2 months after the asteroid."

She realized they didn't have much else to talk about, since Ben apparently wasn't going to say anything about what happened when they got engaged.

"Did we ever have kids?" Jennifer asked, almost jokingly.

Ben laughed softly, but then appeared to be deep in thought again.

"What is it?" Jennifer asked.

"Nothing. No, we didn't have kids."

"Stop lying to me! I've known you for 7 years, none of which I can fully remember. I have a right to know!"

"I never said you didn't have a right to know. Of course you do, I just-"

"Stop making excuses! For 5 days I've been trying to figure out what the hell it is that you're not telling me! I'm not going to wait for 5 more. I want to know now!"

"Do you realize how hard this is for me?!"

"How hard it is for you?! You're not the one who doesn't remember anything about what happened before! So don't say that this is in any way hard for you!"

"It's hard for me because I had to spend 2 years trying to forget about it!"

"Why?! What happened that was so horrible for you?!"

"I had to spend days trying to get you to stop crying. It hurt you so much that you said you wished you could just forget about it. You have your wish now!"

"I don't care what I said! Tell me what happened!"

"Why do you want to know? Why would you want to relive such pain?!"

"Because it's my memory! I decide what I want to remember, not you!"

"Believe me, you don't want to remember."

"Yes I do! Listen to me! You never listen to me!" Jennifer didn't know where the last sentence came from.

"I always listen to you, Jennifer! I'm tired of having this argument with you!"

"April 5th!" Jennifer still didn't know where that was coming from.

"Don't throw that in my face again! I already apologized for that!"

"When was that ever good enough?" It was almost as though there was someone else controlling what she said.

"I'm the one who told you everything was going to be okay! When the asteroid hit, when you had the mis-"

"Say it, Ben. You never acknowledged it after it happened!" Jennifer's tone suddenly became intimidating and aggressive.

"I never acknowledged it? You didn't talk to me for weeks, and even after that you still never talked about it!"

"Say it."

"After you had the miscarriage."

Jennifer's mind instantly became filled with images, memories.

"Jennifer, what's wrong?"

"I'm so sorry."

"What is it?"

"I'm.... pregnant."

.....

"Please say something. I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."

"How are we supposed to do this?"

"We'll find a way, Jennifer."

"Did they say-"

"They said it's too early to tell."

"I'm sure it will be fine, Jennifer."

"That's not what I'm concerned about."

"What is it, then?"

"We're not.... a family. We're not even engaged!"

"It's all my fault!"

"It isn't your fault, Jennifer. Neither of us could've known this was going to happen."

"I guess you want this back, then."

"Jennifer, I still want to marry you. It     doesn't matter what happened."

"I thought that you-"

"I want to marry you because I love you."

"But you said you were going to raise the baby with me. It's not- the baby isn't-"

"Don't cry, Jennifer. I also promised you I was going to spend the rest of my life with you, no matter what happened."

"Jennifer, I'm sorry about-"

"I don't want to talk about this anymore."

"I understand."

"I mean, I don't ever want to talk about it."

"That's okay, Jennifer. We won't ever talk about it again."

"Thank you."

"No! This can't be happening! We haven't gotten married yet! We were supposed to have kids-"

"It's going to be okay, Jennifer."

Jennifer woke up. She saw Ben by her side again. Then, she remembered the miscarriage. She now understood why she wanted to forget about it. The pain she felt when she thought about it was nearly unbearable.

They were in the living room now; she must have passed out on the balcony and Ben carried her to the couch.

"I'm sorry." Jennifer was surprised to see Ben saying that.

"Why?" she asked.

"For telling you about the miscarriage."

"You had to tell me at some point, I would've never given up."

Ben laughed. "That's true. I'm still sorry you even had to go through that."

"I don't know what happened out there, with April 5th."

"That was just an argument we had about me not listening to you."

"I figured."

They sat there in silence until Jennifer said, "Do you want to watch TV?"

"Ugh. I've been watching 15 year olds playing video games for the past week, I'm already sick of it."

"It looks like this is different though," Jennifer said, pointing to the TV. "Never mind, these are 16 year olds playing video games."

"Why is that popular now? It's boring. If I wanted to watch people play video games, I would go back to college."

They finally settled on a.... watchable show as Jennifer fell asleep.