Argument

The next day, Anna hummed a happy tune as she excitedly went to the clinic to pick up the pregnancy test result before going to visit her grandmother. She did not know that someone was waiting for her there.

"See?! I'm really pregnant," she cheered to herself after getting the result.

"Grandma would believe me now," she smiled and continued humming as she stared at the results once again.

She grimaced and almost screamed when someone yanked the results from her hands. She was wide-eyed when she realized that it was Lexus Damien, the man she had a steamy night with.

'What is he doing here?!'

She pretended not to recognize him but he brought her to a private room in the restaurant beside the clinic instead. He insisted that he was the father of her baby. He was. But she didn't want to admit it. Yet, she could not drive him off no matter what she said. She gawked at him when he asked her to marry him.

'Did he think I would be happy to hear that?' she grimaced as she recalled all her negative memories of marriage.

"I will never get married," she said with a deadly serious expression, and Lexus was taken aback. But he too had a serious expression when he said:

"Stop being selfish and think of the child's future."

"I am thinking about my child's future. And that's exactly I don't want to get married," Anna retorted.

"Just how selfish can you be? This is also my child. Not just yours. I won't let my child be fatherless," Lexus said.

He kept insisting to marry her and take responsibility for the child until Anna got so exasperated and annoyed that she uttered words she didn't mean.

"Leave me be. If you keep insisting to marry me, I'll abort this child," she threatened Lexus and he stared at her incredulously.

"What did you say?!" he asked as if he didn't hear her right.

Anna herself was surprised at what she said. She didn't mean it but she already uttered it so she continued. She lied to make him back down but ended up making him furious instead.

"How dare you! I won't let you harm my child!" he said at her face, clearly angered by what she said.

But Anna had also already lost her cool. Especially with all the hormonal changes going on with her body.

"This is my body! I decide what I do with it," she hissed at him. Her voice was filled with so much venom as she recalled all the pain her mother had gone through. The pain she suffered as she grew up knowing how her father played with as many women he wanted and her mother had to suffer in silence for her sake. She remembered the hell her friends suffered from their toxic marriages.

"Fine. I admit I'm pregnant with your child. But I don't want to marry you. And I'd rather abort it than marry you," she glared at Lexus and his eyes almost turned red.

"You dare abort my child?!" he seethed. But she didn't care. She would never get married. She would never hurt her baby but she had to get rid of this pesky man.

"I will," she said with a straight face, looking at him in the eye as if she truly meant it.

"I would never allow it. Don't try my patience. I'll have you stay in my estate and never let you out," he threatened and held her wrist tightly. "I'll bring you home tonight," he said and he clearly meant it.

'What the fuck is wrong with this guy?! Why can't he just let me be? A lot of men run away from their children. Can't he be just one of them?'

"No fucking way! Are you crazy? We're complete strangers," she screamed at him.

"I'll bring you home. I won't let you do as you please," he said with finality like he had the right to decide her life. It made her even more determined to not marry him.

'If he is already like this when we are not even married yet, how much more controlling would he be after I married him?' Anna thought.

Her wrist already hurt so much from his tight grip.

'Would he hit me? Would he beat me up too? No way! I'd rather die than suffer all that!'

"Fine. Do as you please then. Take me to your estate. Imprison me and I'll kill myself," she glared at him. She was too angry to think about the seriousness of the words she was uttering.

'Don't ever get married,' she heard her best friend's voice in her mind.

'Yes, I never will,' she thought as she recalled how tragic her best friend's life was. She recalled the bruises her best friend always had. So much emotion surged like a storm inside her as she recalled how pitiful her best friend had become after her husband almost beat her to death.

Her best friend had always said that she had to endure it all for the sake of the children. They needed a father figure so she didn't divorce her husband no matter how Anna urged her to do so. In the end, her best friend left the kids alone and motherless as she died of internal injuries from her husband's beatings. And Anna fought to the death to have the guy imprisoned.

"You were right Anna. I should have divorced him. No. I never should have married him in the first place. Marriage is a hellhole. Never get married, Anna. You'll only end up suffering. Never get married," were her friend's last words to her.

And those words echoed repeatedly in her mind as the scene of her best friend's death replayed in her mind as if it was happening right in front of her all over again.

"Yes. I promise I will never get married, Brenda. I never wanted a husband, and never will. I will not ruin my life," Anna said staring into space as if her friend was there. She didn't notice the tears spilling from her eyes. All the emotions it stirred up made her dizzy until everything suddenly blacked out.