Consequences Be Damned
Part 8
As much as Lou loved her siblings, she was exhausted by the time she returned to the hotel. Teresa's questions and Jeremiah's reaction to the news of her and Kid breaking up, took their toll on her.
Entering her hotel, Lou passed by the front desk. The hotel clerk was not as his post; Lou decided that she was too tired to wait for his return to request he send up a bath later. All she wanted was to topple into her bed anyway. She trudged down the hall, opened the door to her first floor room with her key, and went in without bothering to light a lamp. She felt her way in the darkened room toward the bed, while loosening a few buttons on her dress.
But when she sat down on the bed to take off her shoes, she was shocked to find herself literally on top of a male intruder who had been lying in wait on the bed. Shrieking, she leapt off the bed even as the man sat up and reached for her. Acting quickly, Lou grabbed the chair that was next to the bed and smashed the intruder back against the bed with all the force she had. The fear that this man intended to do what Wicks had done, lent her added strength and rage, and she continued hitting him to keep him subdued, all the while screaming for help, hoping desperately that the clerk had returned to his desk and would hear her.
"What the hell?" the lump yelled and tried sitting up. "Lou, stop! It's me!"
Lou stopped hitting as she recognized the voice. "Kid?" She put the chair back against the wall, not noticing that one of the legs was broken and the chair wobbled on the three remaining legs.
"Yeah Lou, it's me."
Lou's anger at him resurfaced and she began pounding him again, only half-heartedly and this time on his chest with her hands. "What are you doing here? I told you not to come after me! I needed to be away from you! And why the hell are you in my bed? No matter what you may think of me now, I've never been and never will be anyone's whore, including yours!"
He tried defending himself with his arms as he listened to her yell at him, but he had no such luck. "Lou, please stop. This ain't fair. You know I ain't gonna fight ya back. You're really startin' to hurt me, and you know I ain't gonna hit you."
"Yeah?" Lou gave in to his pleas and stood there waiting for him to get up and move. "Well a few days ago, I wasn't so sure about that." She looked at his shape silhouetted by the light from the moon coming through the window.
"I guess I deserve that. I just wanna talk, please?" Lou nodded and went to turn the lantern on. His breath caught as he saw what she was wearing. "You're wearin' the dress I bought you."
"It was the only thing I had to wear, and I didn't feel like goin' shopping. I wanted to spend more time with Teresa and Jeremiah. What are you doin' in my bed?"
As Kid started to answer, they were interrupted by a knock on the door. "Mrs. McCloud, is everything alright in there?"
Lou crossed to the door and opened it to find a worried desk clerk standing on the other side. "Everything is fine, thank you."
"I was worried when I heard you yellin'. I hope you didn't mind that I let your husband in, he said he came to surprise you."
Lou jerked her head and furiously looked at Kid. "Husband?"
"Yes ma'am," the clerk answered. "I seen the two of you here together many times, so I figured it would be alright. Congratulations on your marriage. If you need anything else, just let me know."
Lou nodded and slammed the door shut. She crossed back towards the bed ready to pick up the chair again. "Husband? You've gotta lot nerve! How dare you!"
"It was the only way I could get him to let me in."
"After the other day, you think you can just waltz in here, say you're my husband, and lie on my bed expecting everything to be alright? And you still haven't answered why you're in my bed!"
"I sat on the bed waitin' for you and I guess I fell asleep." He reached behind him, searching for something. Finding what he was looking for, he stood and handed them to her. "These are for you."
"Flowers? You think you can just come here expectin' everything to be okay after what happened?" She threw the flowers across the room and sat on the bed.
Kid went to sit down in the chair and fell off as it leaned under his weight. Lou tried hard not to laugh but couldn't help it. He got up and sat next to her on the bed and sighed as she stopped laughing and slid further away from him. "Lou, I came here because I don't like the way things were between us when you left. And I never thought of you as a whore."
"Whether you thought it or not you looked at me as if I was one and like you were thinking, 'that's what whores do, so she must be one.'"
Kid remained silent knowing she was right. He'd even told Jimmy something similar.
Lou got angry as he sat there not speaking. No matter what he said, she knew he had looked at her in that way, even if for a brief moment. "See, you can't even look at me now. You'll never be able to look at me the way you use to. "
"Lou, I have to know. Would you ever do something like that, in any situation other than the one you were in?"
"Are you askin' if I had been carryin' your child would I have made the same choice?" Kid nodded and she shook her head. "No matter what, you should know I would never..." Her heart broke as she realized that he would even think that. "You showed me what love was, that was somethin' I never thought I'd know. Kid more than anything, even when you were courtin' Samantha, I loved you and I would give anything to be able to carry your child. I know it was my choice to end the pregnancy, but if I hadn't let Wicks..."
"Let him? My God Lou, you were thirteen years old. There's nothin' you could have done to stop him."
Lou's tears began to flow. "No? I coulda fought harder, screamed louder, done something to get away. Then when I found out I was pregnant I could've made a different decision."
"But you didn't." Kid shook his head as he got off the bed to kneel in front of her. He covered her hands tightly with his, refusing to let her pull them away. "I don't know how you did it, because I've seen how upset you get when you've killed someone when you had too. It tears you up inside and you feel guilty for days."
"You think I still don't feel that way? I killed my child. You'll never know what that feels like. You don't know what it's like for me to go to sleep at night, hopin' I don't see him or her in my dreams as they would be today. Kid, Wicks not only stole my innocence, he stole my chance to be a mother." Kid heard the pain in her voice and wanted to hold her but knew she wouldn't accept it.
"You're right. I'll never be able to even begin to imagine what you went through... what you still must be going through. I've always known you were strong, but to have to go through that when you were that young... It just made me realize how much it's a part of what made you who I fell in love with."
Lou thought about his words. As they sank in, she wondered if there was still a chance between them. Was she willing to put her heart on the line again? Could she learn to trust him again? Or was she just fooling herself? "How'd ya know where to find me?"
"Same way you always seem to find me. We're able to find the other because we know each other so well."
Lou shook her head. "Or you thought you did, and I thought I knew you. I'm not so sure anymore. I don't know if I can handle losin' your love again, but I know I won't be able to stay if I've lost your friendship. "
"Then you're still plannin' on leavin' because of me?"
Lou shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know."
"Well you don't need to worry, Teaspoon's gonna fire me when I get back."
"Why?"
Kid wasn't sure if the alarm he heard in her voice was actually there or if he was hearing what he wanted to. "He told me if I came after you, he'd have no choice but to fire me. Said to give you the space and time you needed."
"Then why'd you come?"
Kid cupped her face and tried to get her to look in his eyes, but she kept averting her gaze. "'Cause either way I'd loose you. If you want me to leave right now, I will. Is that what you want?"
She shook her head, "I don't know." Kid released her face and got up. Lou, scared he was leaving, grabbed his hand, "Kid, I know you have every right to be upset with me."
Kid turned around and went back to sit on the bed. He rubbed his face with his hands. "I'm not exactly upset with you," he mumbled. "Not anymore."
"What?" Lou looked at him in shock.
"I said I ain't exactly angry at you. I guess I'm more upset because of the situation."
"I'm not followin' you, Kid. What do you mean? You seemed pretty angry at me a few days ago."
"I couldn't help it Lou. You tellin' me everything all at once; it was a lot for me to take in. The rape... the abortion... the fact you thought you might've been pregnant with my child... and then finding out I could never have a child with you."
"I know I shoulda told you sooner, but I didn't know how or when. At first, that weekend we spent in Redfern, well I wasn't sure what was gonna happen with us. Then when we got back together, I wanted to know for sure, and when I found out I wasn't, I didn't want to tell you because I didn't want you to think I was tryin' to force you into anything. As for the part about not telling you I couldn't have children..." She shook her head as she tried to fight back tears. "There was never a good time to tell you."
"I guess most of that stuff, there never is a good time. I guess I got upset because it goes against how I was brought up. Hell I didn't even know about things like that 'til I started workin' for the Express. I just can't imagine you doin' something like that... I still can't. I don't like what you did, but you did what you thought you had to do, right?"
"I was fourteen and livin' on my own. I couldn't even support me, or Teresa and Jeremiah, how could I support a baby? You have to believe me Kid, it wasn't an easy decision for me to make and from the time I found out until I went through with it I musta changed my mind a million times. If you can believe it, I even went to a church hopin' for an answer. Can you imagine? Me... in a church! And the doctor... if I had known he was a quack..."
"Are you so sure he was? I mean it could've happened with any doctor."
Lou shook her head. "A few months later, there was an article in the paper about him. A jury found him guilty and he was hung because he butchered at least three dozen women under his care. Those were just the ones they knew about around St. Louis. I thought I was one of the lucky ones until I learned I'd never have kids."
Kid watched as Lou started to fiddle with her hands. Kid scooted closer and when she didn't move, he turned to the side and started to rub her arms lovingly. He wished she would lean back against him, let him hold her, but he knew he was pushing his luck as it was. Right now, even though he didn't deserve it, he would take what he could get.
"Kid, what happened to make you come find me? I thought you never wanted to see me again. I thought you would always look at me as if I were a whore."
"I told you Lou, I never meant to look at you that way. But it took Jimmy saying some things that started to make sense to me that made me realize I was an idiot." Kid could see the anger in Lou's eyes as he mentioned Jimmy's name. "I didn't mean to tell him, honest. I thought you had and it just slipped."
"At least he didn't look at me the way you did. What did he say?"
"He told me that if you hadn't done it, then we might not even be sittin' here havin' this conversation. That you'd have never come in to my life."
"Kid, I can't just forget the moment I thought you were gonna hit me. I'd only been scared like that by two other men in my life. First my father right before he use to beat me, and then by Wicks, right before..."
He cupped her tear-stained face in his hands and looked in to her eyes. "You have to know Lou, I would never hit you. Even in my worst anger. I never meant to make you feel that way. I realized the moment I saw that look on your face I'd become like my father. I saw that look too many times on my ma's face and swore I would never make a woman feel that way... ever. I hated myself more than I hated you because I made the woman I love have that look on her face."
"I know that in my heart, Kid, but I don't know if I can ever forget that feeling. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, you'll never know how sorry I am."
Kid wanted to tell her she could spend the rest of their lives making it up to her, but he could tell she wasn't ready. He wasn't sure if they'd ever get back to the place they were before, but he hoped so. Even now he couldn't imagine his life without her.
"I'm sorry too, Lou. I know I ain't got the right to ask, but I want us to try and work though this."
"But what about the fact I can't give you the family you seem to want so badly?"
"That was another thing Jimmy said. There are all types of family. Look at all of us. We're family in every way except for blood. I love your brother and sister as if they were mine, and if that's the only family I'm blessed with, than that's fine. I'm sorry we never talked about things like this before. I took it for granted that you wanted what I wanted, I'll never do that again."
Lou ruffled his hair and smiled. "It's gonna take time for me, Kid. The anger was just too fierce. I finally told you all my secrets, the ones I'd tried so hard to forget, and I felt as if the life I never deserved was lost forever. And yet I know there's secrets you're keepin' from me and I can't help but wonder why."
Kid knew exactly what she was talking about. As much as he loved the woman in front of him, he'd never been able to tell her. "I promise you, that secret is nothing compared to the one you told me. And that's the only thing left. One day when I'm ready I'll tell you, I hope you can understand."
"I just don't want to have to go through this a second time. I've lost you once already, I don't know if I can handle losin' you again."
Kid nodded. He would never forgive himself for making Lou feel the way she was feeling. He didn't deserve her love, he knew that now. "I guess I better get goin'. I won't make Rock Creek before sun fall, but at least I'll get some distance behind me before I need to make camp." He stood and started for the door.
"Kid?"
He turned to look back at Lou. "Yeah, Lou?"
"You can stay here."
"Lou, I don't think that's a good idea."
"Why?"
"Because if you're wearin' that dress, I can only guess what you have to sleep in." Lou heard Kid chuckle and could see he was blushing. "I don't think I can handle seein' you in that knowin' I may never get the chance to hold you when you're wearin' it again."
"It's better than the alternative."
Kid nodded. If the thought of seeing her in the nightgown was hard, imaging her in less drove him crazy. "I guess I could sleep on the floor."
Lou nodded and Kid left the room to give her some privacy to change and get into bed. When he heard her call out he could come in, he found her tightly curled in a ball on the edge of the bed.
"No sense in you sleepin' on the floor when the bed is big enough for the both of us."
"Are you sure?" she nodded. Kid stripped down to his long johns and crawled in to bed to lie on the far side of the bed. "I won't do anything, you have my word."
"Would you..." Lou's voice caught in her throat. "Could you just hold me? Let me believe just for one night everything is as it was before?"
Kid groaned but did as she asked, wrapping her tightly in his arms. With her this close, it would be hard for him to control himself. But for Lou, he would have to.
"Thank you," she said as she snuggled against him.
He asked the next question carefully. He didn't want to anger her anymore than she was, but he had to know. "Does this mean you're willin' to forget everything and try to work through it like we always do?"
Lou nodded her head. "I probably don't deserve it, but if you are forgivin' me, then I can forgive you. But us forgettin'... that's gonna be a whole lot harder." Lou turned to face Kid and saw him nod.
"I know."
"Maybe we should focus more on just movin' past it? I know it's going to take some time, but I want to try. Goodnight, Kid."
"Goodnight Lou." He kissed her forehead and as he watched her fall asleep, he prayed that they could work through this. Even knowing what she had done when she was so young, and that it went against everything he ever believed in, he still loved this woman more than anything. And he would give up his dreams of having a child of his own, as long as she was with him.