Tragic Love by M. S. Brannon

react this way. I knew it would kill him inside knowing what I’ve done, but to witness your only lifeline peel down the road and drive away from you is heartbreaking. There is no other word to describe it.
    The nurse who was sitting at the picnic table finally gets up to intervene, but she’s too late and so am I. I wave her off and then start to run. My feet can’t move quickly enough as I run through the cars parked in the lot and down toward the sidewalk. I have to run. I need to escape what I’ve done because Drake left and regardless of the decision I have to make the truth is he left me. If I keep the baby, will he come back? Or will I be left alone? I can’t be here another second. The tears are pouring from my eyes as my feet are pounding against the sidewalk.
    The humidity in the air is making it hard for my lungs to get in air, but that is exactly what I want. I don’t want air; I don’t want to breathe knowing I can never have the one thing that keeps me alive.
    I keep myself moving, not really seeing where I’m at. The trees blend together with the sky and the cars are passing blobs of color as I run with blurry eyes and a broken soul.
    I round the corner and come to a small park located on the outskirts of town. I’ve only been here a couple of times since moving to Sulfur Heights. Drake and I would come here to escape the chaos in the house. We’d sit on the swings, talking for hours about anything and everything. Connecting our souls with every word we spoke. Yet now, I’m here for a totally different reason. I’m here because I have nowhere else to go. All I’ve manage to do is ruin the one person left in this world who is capable of keeping my head above water.
    I bend forward, planting my hands on my knees, sucking in humid air to expand my lungs. I’m not sure how far it is from the clinic, but I know it has to be miles away. I ran until I was about to collapse from exhaustion. I tilt my head up and see the old, rusted swings and then make my way through the brown grass. The only sounds around me are the rapid beats of my heart and the crunch of dry grass under my feet. I step into the sand pit and plant myself in the swing where I then wrap my fingers around the warm, rusted metal chain and allow myself to push off with my feet, moving slowly back and forth as I contemplate my decision.
    The last words he spoke to me are ripping through my mind, cutting the only shreds of my heart that are still beating. I can’t . It’s a faint whisper in my head, but a heavy weight on my heart. Those two words are going to be my undoing and I know with every minute that passes by he will ask me to leave and it will be over. I can’t blame him. I’ve done what I said I never would do. I betrayed him.
    In all honesty, though, I’ve been betraying him for the last two years; ever since I was rescued from Robert. Every day he looks at me and thinks I’m getting better has been a lie by omission on my part because I don’t allow him to see the black void still living inside me. I’ve executed masking my inner true feelings toward life and seizing the day perfectly, knowing Drake will pull my drowning head above water with one single touch. I can feel in my gut that if I have this baby, it will slowly drag me under. I don’t know if even Drake can save me from the blackness that will follow.
    I sit there for hours, lightly swinging back and forth while, at the same time, noticing a dirty needle in the sand and trash strewn throughout the park. I raise my eyes form the ground and look around at my surroundings. A man with short, dark hair, tanned skin and a cleanly shaven face is watching me. He doesn’t look like the typical person you would encounter in this park. He’s not jittering, delusional or cracked out.
    When our eyes connect again I watch him rise off the old picnic table and come my way. He throws a black backpack onto his shoulder as he strides toward me. I instantly get nervous, not