Taylor and Natalie were on their way to the location of their honeymoon. It would be a cold honeymoon, Natalie was sure. She sighed and glanced at her new husband. Well, what else could she have done?
She hadn’t realised when she first started dating him two years ago what he was like. He’d date girls (not uncommonly a few at a time), and dump them when he got bored. Usually after he’d been in the sack with them a few times. Boy, she must have seemed like a challenge to him! Natalie reflected bitterly on partly overheard conversations where… well, she didn’t care to remember.
The first time he had cheated on her – that she knew about – was a few months into their relationship. She naively believed his proclamations of regret and accepted his ‘deepest apologies’. But he had done it again, and again, and she stupidly started to ignore it all.
Then came that night… she had been drinking, not much, but just enough to lose control of her wit long enough to sleep with him. But when she refused him a few times numerous days later he got bored and dumped her.
It was this dumping that woke her up. She knew this. She spent a few days being completely miserable and then one morning she stared at herself and realised, finally realised, what Taylor was all about. Well, she wouldn’t be used, abused and sneered about behind her back again. And with this determination she made plans.
But those plans were shattered when she realised she was pregnant. The news found her locked away in her room, sitting in silence. At last she had done something she hadn’t done in a long time. She rang the Hansons, a number she knew well, but not to talk to Taylor. She asked for Isaac or Zac, whoever was home. Over those two years they had been good friends. They’d actually tried to warn her off. They tried to warn most of Taylor’s poor girlfriends off.
Natalie questioned Isaac extensively about Taylor’s girlfriends. How he had treated them, what had happened to them since. When Zac arrived home, Natalie talked to him too, making the brothers insanely curious. At last she broke down and confessed her pregnancy. Their reactions were pretty much what Natalie expected.
She spent the next few days thinking. Just thinking. Her family was concerned, trying to figure her out, but to no avail. At last, the end of her pondering came, and a nervous but determined Natalie arrived at the Hanson household.
“Natalie! Long time, no see,” Diana greeted.
Natalie smiled, and then in a few swift sentences she informed her of her pregnancy. Diana’s lips grew tight and white. Taylor arrived home not long later, only to be berated by his mother while Natalie played the pathetic, helpless, pregnant ex-girlfriend. Taylor managed to get Natalie alone.
“Why’d you do that?” He growled at her. “You should have come to me first. We could have come to an arrangement.”
“You’re just mad because your mom’s preparing to make wedding plans.”
Taylor slapped her. She turned her head back to him with a calmness Taylor wasn’t expecting.
“Tell me Taylor, if I had gone to you first, what would you have done? Paid for an abortion? Bashed me into one? Or maybe you would have denied it completely and accuse me of cheating on you! Which is a laugh because we both know who the cheater is in this relationship.”
“We don’t have a relationship.”
“Yes we do. Whether you like it or not. I’m tired, Taylor. I’m tired of how you treat me, and how you treat other girls. Well, this is one girl who isn’t going to let you get away with that kind of behaviour any longer. It’s time you took some responsibility for your actions,” she wagged a finger at him. “You either marry me and be a father to this child, or believe me, I will go to the press.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“How you going to stop me?”
“I’ll stop you.”
“Hmm. Well, while you’re scheming, perhaps you’d like play along.”
He slapped her again.
“The moment you turn into an abusive husband Taylor is the same I press charges. And don’t think I wouldn’t. I will turn your reputation into mud if you’re not careful.”
Taylor glowered at her.
“You can’t trap me like this, bitch.”
“You call it a trap now,” Natalie replied sadly.
Natalie wiped a tear from her eye. Damn it, yes that is what she had done. She had trapped him. She had always thought so little of women who did that, and now she was one of them. She took a breath and stole a glance at Taylor, who was staring out the window with a stony expression. She knew she could get through to him. She would… somehow. Perhaps it wasn’t her place to show Taylor the error of his ways, but… but she had to try. Oh he had every right to hate her. She hated herself. But at the end of the day despite how he had treated her, she loved him. A fools love maybe, but it was still love.