Quinn

Chapter 11

As Jack pulled in his parking garage, he could not help but smile. It was nearly noon and he had called into work in order to have breakfast with his wife and children. His heart felt full and a glimmer of hope gave his day purpose. A hope he had not felt in quite some time. Quinn had asked him to come for dinner again that night and he was excited to be near her again. Locking his car, he heard a voice echo off of the concrete walls that alarmed him to his very core.

"I saw you with her." Bianca yelled as Jack was walking from his car to the stairwell that led into his apartment building in Lower Manhattan. "I saw you with her yesterday, walking into her house. And then you come home in the morning wearing last night's clothes! How dare you?" She loudly continued.

"You have to stop yelling, this is where I live and these people know who I am." He replied, nodding toward the three couples walking past them to go inside. "And why in the world are you here? I told you it was over between us."

"Yes, you did tell me that; but you did not tell me you were going back to your coal-cracker wife!" She yelled again, making sure to be louder this time. "And, I need more money."

"What?" Jack asked, in complete shock that this conversation was even happening. He had not heard from Bianca in three weeks and had been so full of joy from the night before, and now, he was panicked. His heart started racing and he tried to calm it using one of the breathing techniques his therapist had taught him. Once he was a little settled, he began again. "Get into my car, I am taking you home. You are not getting any more money. You get twice the amount each month my actual wife gets in support! This is insane, get in the car!"

"But, the baby." Bianca said in a coy voice, rubbing her protruding belly. "He needs more stuff."

"You don't even know it is a boy! You have only had one ultrasound and, have you even been to the doctor lately?" He yelled, finally raising his voice in return.

"No." She replied, reluctantly getting into the passenger seat of his car. "It doesn't matter." She paused and thought quickly. "All that matters is that he is ours... right?" Her doe eyes looking up at him, trying to overpower his anger.

Jack was shocked that her looking at him in her purposefully innocent way did absolutely nothing for him. He was only filled with anger, disgust, and shame. This gave Jack a little boost of confidence in himself and, after internally high-fiving his sex drive for staying dormant, he continued yelling.

"No, that is not the only thing that is important. If you think I am going to have a child with you and only be the bank, you are wrong. I am a good father. And even though this is all happening with you, which I cannot believe." He trailed off as shame and grief washed over him once more before continuing. "I will still be there for him or her!"

"What do you mean you cannot believe it's with me?" She asked, eerily calm. They were driving down Washington St., away from his apartment now and traffic was moving surprisingly well. "What do you mean?" She demanded.

"I love my wife. You are not who I imagined having children with. And I regret our affair. I have told you this before, do you not remember why you moved out? I pay for you to have an apartment, I pay for you to live. Why are you here bothering me? Because I do not believe it is only for more money!" Jack said, driving quickly and full of anger.

"I am not here just for the money. I miss you and I wanted sex. No one wants to have sex with a woman who is almost nine months pregnant!" She said, looking at him with her dark eyes and running her hands over her round, firm breasts.

"No." Jack managed. He was not going to let this happen and sped the car up even more in an effort to get her out of it sooner. There was no way she was going to seduce him, and he had not felt more proud of himself in the past year than he did in this very moment.

"Are you serious?" Bianca laughed. "You don't want this? You used to beg for this! And you know what, I was good to you! Clearly your little wifey was not giving you what you needed and you had to find it with me."

"That is not true, Bianca. I love my wife." Jack replied, hurting that someone would think ill of Quinn as a wife. A flash of guilt swept over him once more as he realized it was because of him and his actions. This only made him angrier and he decided to let her have it.

"I never loved you. I never wanted you. How you even got into my life, I'm really not sure. Nor am I happy about it. I wish you were never there, I wish you never kissed me. My life was actually great before you came along, and now I am having to piece it all back together. Why can you not let me be happy? Why can I not get rid of you?" He yelled, never looking at her, his eyes focused on the traffic that had slowed around them.

"So you're saying I got pregnant in order to keep you and you still don't want me?" Bianca asked in bewilderment, more rhetorical than anything. The tone of her voice was calm and laced with disappointment. Shock filled Jack as she continued to speak. "I only delivered to law offices around town because I knew I would eventually meet someone rich. You were the third guy I had kissed that month and I thought you would be my ticket out and up into the world. I have no one and all I know is to use my body to get what I want. I needed money and you looked handsome and rich. I felt you starting to pull away from me so I stopped my pill. When you didn't call me for a week I knew you were trying to move on, so I took a test and got an ultrasound. I waited until the right moment, I followed you to that restaurant. And seeing you with her, was like a punch in the gut. But then when you moved me in with you, I thought this might actually be my chance to have money and make something out of myself. I thought, hey, maybe I will actually be a rich man's wife after all."

Her word vomit was enough to throw Jack over the edge, and the tone of her voice was void of emotion and it only fueled his anger. "How could she use me? And how could she not see what she was working to ruin?" he thought, and with a deep breath he felt his heart slow and simply stated –

"You will never be my wife."

She looked up at him and he was surprised to see a tear rolling down her face. He was confused at the turn in her emotions. "What is happening?" he wondered, his heart pounding at the stress of the moment.

"I know." She said simply and reached for the car door. Opening it, she unbuckled and leaned into the wind.

"Bianca! What are you doing? No!" Jack yelled, reaching his right arm over to grab her as he watched the woman carrying his child let go of the door and try to fall onto the road. His fingers barely caught her coat as he grabbed on with all his might, not letting her jump. There was no way he was going to lose his child. He glanced up at the road he had been neglecting and let out a blood-curdling yell.

Jack did not see that traffic had stopped and his sedan, passenger door open and all, went colliding into the back of a large truck. There were screams of horror all around them as people came running to the crumpled car. A gentleman ran to Bianca's body that lie on the ground in the next lane in front of his truck and yelled to his wife to call an ambulance.

"She's pregnant!" he yelled. "And she is bleeding, bad. Hurry!" His wife dialed as quickly as possible and soon the entire Manhattan Bridge was at a stand-still, full of lights and sirens.