Don't Give Me Tainted Love novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Blood Type
Eric is hit by a van, a blood test proves he cannot be Dalton's, and at his wife's office he hears her say she can't stand his touch. So he steps out.
My son's bike went under a delivery van outside his school at ten past three, in front of forty parents.
I was standing at the gate when it happened.
I was the one who held his head on the asphalt until the ambulance came.
He was seven years old, and his left leg was broken in two places.
At the hospital they took him straight back for surgery.
I called my wife from the hallway.
She didn't pick up, so I called her office.
Her vice president answered, bright and quick.
"She's in a meeting. I'll pull her out right now. Is he alive?"
"He's alive."
My wife called me back before I had put the phone down.
"I'm coming," she said. "Stay with him. I love you."
"Hurry."
"Ten minutes."
I believed her.
I had believed her for eight years.
A nurse found me twenty minutes later at the desk and asked me to give a quick blood sample so they could confirm the family record.
I rolled up my sleeve.
Then I waited by the vending machines with a cup of coffee I did not drink.
The doctor came out of the double doors holding a tablet.
She was tired, and she was talking to a nurse, and she did not see me standing there.
"The boy is type O," she said. "The father is type AB. That's the second time we've run it, and it's the same."
The nurse looked at me.
The doctor turned and saw me too.
Two other families in the waiting room went quiet and pretended to look at their phones.
"Mr. Ames," the doctor said. "I'm sorry. I would have told you in private."
"What does it mean?"
"Your wife's chart says type A. A and AB can make a child who is A, B or AB. Never O."
"Run it again."
"We have, sir."
She said it gently.
"Eric will be fine. The blood bank has plenty of his type. But he can't be your biological son."
I stood in the corridor and my hand shook so hard the coffee ran over my fingers.
Eric had my laugh.
He sat in my lap every night while I read to him, and he fell asleep with his fist in my shirt.
I asked the doctor which room he was in, and she told me he was still in surgery for another two hours.
Then I did the one thing I knew how to do.
I went to find my wife.
Holtz Foods was eight minutes from the hospital.
Melanie had told me she was on her way.
Her silver car was still parked in its space by the front door.
The receptionist was away from her desk.
I rode the elevator to the fourth floor and walked down the hall toward Melanie's office.
Her door stood a hand's width open.
I heard her friend first.
"Eight years, Melanie. How do you lie next to him every night?"
"I don't sleep," my wife said. "I lie there and I wait for the morning."
I stopped walking.
"I married him for Eric," she said. "That's the only reason. Eric needed a father who would love him, and Dalton is a man who loves anything you put in front of him."
"And Dalton has no idea?"
"He thinks he married the happiest woman in Milwaukee."
Her friend laughed, a short, unhappy sound.
"You must be sick of it."
"Every time he touches me, I want to scrub my skin raw."
She said it flatly, without a pause.
I did not move.
I looked at the gap in the door and at the back of her friend's blond head.
I could have pushed it open.
I could have asked her about the blood and the doctor and the eight years.
I thought of the boy upstairs with his leg in pieces.
I thought, if I walk in there now, she'll cry and say she's sorry, and she'll still be the woman who said that.
So I stepped out.
I turned around without a sound and walked back down the hall.
Her friend came out of the office two minutes later with a folder under her arm.
She passed me at the elevator and didn't look up.
I got in my truck and sat there with both hands on the wheel.
I had stepped aside once before, nine years ago.
My girlfriend of three years, Roxanne, had fallen for my adoptive younger brother, Bradley, and I had let her go without a word.
I had told myself it was the grown-up thing to do.
I had married Melanie a year later and thought the universe had paid me back.
My phone buzzed on the dash.
It was a text from Bradley.
He had not texted me in months.
"Heard about Eric. So sorry, man. Tell Melanie I'm waiting where she knows, if she needs anything at all."
It was kind, and it was the kind of thing a brother says.
I read it three times, because I did not know what place Melanie knew.
In seven years, Melanie had never let Bradley hold Eric once, not at the christening, not at a single Christmas.
I had always taken that as loyalty to me.
I started the truck and drove back to the hospital.
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend