by Piper Lennox
It’s not either of those factors, though, that make the next twenty minutes drift in and out of focus for me. They’re not the reasons my hands are numb, no matter how much I flex them.
“You okay?” Ford asks. The cautious way he passes me a cup of coffee proves he knows I’m not. I’m not okay at all.
“She lost it,” I whisper. It’s everywhere.
And now that I’ve said it out loud, the truth I knew from the moment I walked into that bathroom…I can’t sound calm.
“You don’t know that, E.” Ford reaches for me, but my flinch makes both of us freeze.
“Easton Lawrence?”
We turn. A nurse is in the doorway of the waiting room.
“Ms. Flynn is asking for you.”
I stand. Ford offers to take my purse and coffee; numbly, I hand them to him. I regret it as I follow the nurse back to Kennedy’s room. Having something to do with my hands would be heaven, right now.
“Wait.” I tap the nurse’s shoulder before she opens the door. “Did she....” I swallow the sting in my throat and decide on the most emotionless, medically-worded version of my question I can think of. “How much hCG was in her blood sample?”
Like a secret language, I see the words click. Her eyes soften.
“About seventy thousand units,” she says slowly. “And...dropping.”
Her answer is just as clinical and safe as my question. But it still hurts so damn much to hear.
“The doctor has already told her, and I think it’s sinking in. We’re preparing her for a D&C to remove the rest of the tissue, but she wanted to see you first.”
Selfishly, I let some tension leak out of my shoulders: I don’t have to tell Kennedy myself. It disgusts me, how much relief it brings. Coward.
She’s lying on her side when I come in.
“I’m so sorry, Kennedy.” I pull the chair to her bedside and hold her hand through the railing. “Maybe if...if I’d gotten there faster—”
“No.” She wipes her tears on the pillow. “I should have called you this morning, when the cramps started.”
We grow silent, our breaths deep and matched, then softening as we come to a wordless understanding—one that may or may not be true, but is exactly what we need to believe: there’s nothing either of us could have done differently.
“You want to hear something really fucked? I know my mom’s going to say something like, ‘At least you won’t have the reminder of Jett.’” She lets out a disgusted, pitiful laugh, then rolls onto her back, wincing. “She’ll be sad and all. It’s just that she has no filter. She tries to make things better, but it usually makes everything worse.
“Because that’s the thing,” she says, eyes tracing the grid of the ceiling tiles. “As soon as I found out about this baby...it was all I wanted. The only thing in my life I cared about. It wasn’t planned, but I wanted it more than anything I ever did plan. Nothing could change that.” Her pinky slides underneath the hospital bracelet on her other wrist, filling the gap there. “Not even the fact it was half his. The fact that, with his baby around...I’d never be able to forget him.”
I wish I could blame it on stress or exhaustion, the fact I suddenly find myself nodding, but I can’t. It’s just agreement, as heartbreakingly simple as that.
It’s been ten minutes of driving. Fifteen. Twenty.
At twenty-seven, I clear my throat.
“How are you doing?”
Easton doesn’t answer right away, so I glance at her. The streetlights, far apart and yellowed, aren’t enough to read her face.
“Okay, I guess.” She slips off one shoe and tucks her foot underneath her, leaning against her door to rest her forehead on the glass. “It’s not like I didn’t learn about all this when I was going through my midwifery programs. And it’s not like it never happened to any of the pregnancies I helped with at the birthing center.” She hesitates. “It’s just...never happened to any of my clients.”
“Do they know how it happened? What caused it, I mean?”
Easton reaches for her iPod in the side pocket of her purse, but curses when she discovers its battery’s dead. As she sits up, she undoes the clip she put in when we arrived at her client’s house, shaking out her hair. “The doctor thinks it’s a uterine problem, maybe something genetic. But they don’t know for sure.”
“For what it’s worth, I thought you handled everything really well.”
She snorts.
“Well, better than me.”
“It didn’t feel like I did.”
“Are you kidding? You were completely professional. You jumped right into action and got her help, you comforted her—I don’t know what’s in the midwife job description, but I do know you did it all and then some, today.”
Her thanks is flat and quiet.
The sign streaks past. You Are Now Entering Hillford.
“I keep thinking about her baby. We had this whole birth plan drafted, she had a nursery drawn up...and all I can think about is how there’s no baby to make it all happen. All the plans she told me about, they’re over. Just like that.” She wipes her eyes angrily and lets out a breath. “This is stupid. I’ve been trained for this.”
“Nobody can train you for something like this, Easy. That’s ridiculous. They can show you textbooks, give you tests with all the medical facts and shit, but they can’t show you how it feels to have that happen. To a client.”
My pause was blindingly fast. I’m actually impressed at how quickly I clarified what I was trying to say.
But I should know better. Easton catches it.
“I’m prepared for all of it,” she says sharply.
Of course she is.
It’s been on my mind all afternoon. If I’m honest with myself, it’s dipped in and out of my thoughts since the night Bentley was born.
And if I dare to be completely, painfully honest: I’ve thought about it every single day since I left.
“Maybe what’s hardest for you,” I say quietly, “is how—how familiar it is. To us.”
When she doesn’t respond, I push myself to ask what I’ve wanted to for years. Every night I was on the road with no destination in sight or mind. Every time I left the radio on, a low buzz that tumbled into songs she used to love, the notes carving through my head.
“Do you ever...think about our baby?”
Easton looks at me so fast, I almost swerve into the ditch. The force of her stare is just that strong.
“It wasn’t ‘our baby,’” she says. For all the anger held tight in her body, all that fury I can see in her hands as they clench by her sides until she sits on them, she doesn’t sound mad. Just numb. “It was a fetus.”
“A fetus? That’s what you call it—that’s all it is to you?” I try to stop the rise in my voice, but can’t. “You’re a midwife, you see this amazing, beautiful thing all the time—and that’s what you tell yourself it was?”
“It’s what I have to tell myself I lost.”
Easton’s comeback feels like a slap across my entire body. I tighten my grip on the wheel and wish our driveways weren’t another fifteen minutes away. Hillford’s never seemed so big as it does right now.
“Because if I go around thinking about ‘our baby,’” she adds, and now I hear the anger, braided into the sadness until I can’t tell which is which, “I wouldn’t be able to stand it, Ford.”
Twenty-Three
“But you guys aren’t seeing anyone else, yeah?”
I leaned against Tanner’s locker and shrugged. “We never said it wasn’t exclusive, like, out loud...but yeah. I mean, I’m not seeing anyone else.” I paused, teeth raking over my lip as I studied him. “Is he?”
“Not that I know of.” Tanner shoved the last of his books into his backpack and swung it over his shoulder. He nodded hello to Skye Michaels as she passed on her way to the Biology labs, then looked back at me. “Look, Easy—I don’t think Ford is like that. The type to two-time a girl.”
“You don’t ‘think�
� he’s like that, or you know he isn’t?” God, I sounded pathetic. Grilling Ford’s best friends in the hallways was about as obsessed as a girl could get.
On the other hand, what choice did I have? Ford was a closed book when it came to us, whatever we were.
No, forget closed book; he was a blank notepad. Encased in cement. Wrapped with chains and a padlock. The only clue I had that we were, in fact, a couple was that we’d slept together almost every night we could be alone, in the months since my birthday.
“Ford’s just a private guy.” Tanner joined me in the ambling stampede towards our English class. “He’s like Hudson, that way. They don’t share shit. You only know what’s going on with them when you witness it for yourself.”
Reluctantly, I nodded. I already knew this. I’d known it almost as long as I’d known Ford himself.
“Speaking of Hudson, though,” he added suddenly, “he might know if Ford’s said anything about you two being a couple.”
“Why? Do he and Ford talk about that stuff?”
“No,” he laughed. “Hudson just hears, like, everything. He’s so quiet, nobody ever realizes he’s there.”
Again, I nodded; I knew this, too.
Unfortunately, I also knew that Hudson was so quiet, getting him to share what he heard would be virtually impossible.
“Don’t ask him at school,” Tanner warned, as we edged past some freshmen. “He’s basically mute, if he’s in this building.”
“Then where—” I stopped. The diner.
That afternoon, I got Marnie to drop me off at Spoonbread.
“Hey.” He barely glanced at me as I stacked my books on the counter he was cleaning and took a seat. “Studying? I can start some coffee.”
“I’m good. Thanks, though.” I felt pathetic again. While I trusted Tanner not to judge me for all my stupid questions, I couldn’t say the same for Hudson. Reading his face was so difficult, he made Ford seem like an open book, after all—blown up to billboard-size.
“Um...I was actually hoping we could...talk?”
Hudson stopped wiping the counter. His stare flicked to mine.
Then he started again, same spot as before. “Sure.”
I let out the breath I was holding. “Well, Ford and I have been—I guess we’re seeing each other. Dating. Whatever.” I waved my hand like it wasn’t a big deal, either way. “He hasn’t been clear about...whether we’re official or not. You know: a couple?”
I waited. Hudson just threw the rag over his shoulder and waited twice as long.
“Okay,” I went on, taking another breath, “um...I guess that’s my question.”
“You’re asking me if you and Ford are a couple?”
Sweet Jesus. This was absolute hell. As much trouble as I had getting Ford to open up, I couldn’t imagine the frustration in store for whatever girl would be unlucky enough to fall for Hudson Barringer.
“I’m asking,” I corrected, straightening my shoulders, “if you’ve heard him say anything to that effect.”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
“I have. He always dances around it, tells me to ‘quit labeling everything.’”
“Then that’s your answer.” Hudson shrugged so casually, I wanted to reach across the counter and shake him. “You’re sleeping together, not sleeping with anyone else—he’s not that kind of guy—and don’t have any labels. That’s what you are.”
I furrowed my brow and stared at the gleaming laminate. If we were exclusive, weren’t we basically a couple? What would be the harm in calling each other “boyfriend” and “girlfriend,” if no one else was in the picture?
“Okay,” I said, almost another question.
Hudson nodded. He didn’t notice or care that his responses hadn’t helped one bit.
Then he produced a glass from underneath the counter, carried it to the soda fountain, and poured me a Coke with extra vanilla syrup, no ice. My usual order.
“On the house,” he said, smiling. No pity, no judgment; just a hint of sympathy.
I smiled back and thanked him. Maybe whatever girl fell for him wouldn’t be so unlucky, after all.
I people-watched for a while. Ford and his friends hung out here a lot, even when they weren’t bugging Hudson’s mom for free food, and now I understood why: it was relaxing to just watch. To stop being a local and instead watch the locals, seeing this corner of Hillford the way tourists must have: quaint, easygoing, and friendly.
Of course, I should have realized if Ford, Bram, and Tanner weren’t here, they would be soon.
“Easton?” Ford squinted at me across the diner and nodded hello when we made eye contact. I hastily opened one of my textbooks to pretend I was, in fact, here to study, and kept my attention glued to it until he slid onto the stool beside mine.
His foot skidded up my ankle. When he rested his folded arms on the counter, leaning his head close to my textbook, I smelled his cologne and detergent. I hated how it made me think of nighttime—the only time he really claimed me. In daylight, if you didn’t know better, you’d think we were just classmates.
It wasn’t at all how he acted when we were alone. Last week, when a storm knocked out our power, he climbed into my bedroom, soaked to the bone with rain. “Hey, beautiful,” he’d panted, then covered my body with his until the rain and chill had seeped through my pajamas. His fingers were freezing on my hipbones, across my neck, inside me. When I asked why he went out in the storm just to see me, he told me I was worth it; he knew I’d warm him up in no time.
Now, though, other than his boot smearing dirt on my shin and his elbow bumping mine, I couldn’t help but notice how different things felt. There was hesitation in the way he talked to me, like he had to check his tone from “more than friends” to “hello, female classmate.” Labels or not, didn’t I deserve more than what the rest of the world got?
“Bram’s having a party tonight,” he said. “You going?”
I picked up my pencil and pretended to take notes. “Are you asking me to go with you, or just checking to see if I’m going at all?”
“Either, I guess. If you want to ride with me, I mean, we can—”
“Not ‘ride with you,’ Ford. Go with you.” I looked at him. “Like a couple.”
He deflated against the counter. “Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“The label thing.” He lowered his voice. “I told you—I like you. You like me. We don’t need some title to tell everyone else that we like each other.”
“Maybe I want a title. Maybe the only reason I can think of for us not to have titles would be if you’re seeing other girls.”
The tears surprised both of us. I hadn’t realized I was that upset.
Actually, that was the weird part: until that exact second, I hadn’t been. It was happening a lot, lately—my emotions switching on and off like a faucet. Especially where Ford was concerned.
He dragged his hand down his face as I slammed my textbook shut. “God, what is with you? You’ve been like this all week.”
“I have not,” I snapped, knowing damn well I had.
Before I could zip my bag shut, Ford reached over and caught my hands in his.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Of course I want to go to the party with you.”
“You’re just saying that because I cried.”
“Maybe.” He laughed, flashing that smile, igniting that spark. “Kidding, kidding.” His thumb brushed my knuckles. “We can go to the party together, if that’s what you want.”
“What do you want?”
“I wasn’t thinking about how we went to the party. All I cared about was being together once we got there.”
Slowly, I relaxed, feeling childish again. Maybe I was overthinking things. So I didn’t call Ford my boyfriend. So he didn’t introduce me to people as his girlfriend. That didn’t mean we weren’t those things. Did it?
Tears gathered in the back of my throat again, but I swallowed them down with more soda. I was d
one being the clingy girlfriend. Or the clingy…whatever I was. It wasn’t a good look.
I had Ford McLean. I was the girl who knew every night he couldn’t sleep, who heard the real story behind every bruise and wound he’d gotten, before he was strong enough to fight back.
He called me beautiful. He broke me apart and put me back together, almost every night, with a touch so many girls wanted for themselves—but that I had. Exclusively.
That’s what I was: the girl who knew Ford McLean best. And I knew that title was even harder to acquire than “girlfriend.”
Then why don’t I have both?
I turned my sigh inward and told myself not to ruin this. My emotions could swing all they wanted, whatever the reason; from now on, I was going to let logic take the wheel.
“Ford!” Bram called from their booth, then did a half-lunge, half-shrug as if to say, What the fuck?
“We’re working on our end-of-year project for Carlson’s class,” Ford explained to me, sliding off the stool. He squeezed my hand. “Pick you up at seven?”
My mood switched back, just like that, and I smiled. “Okay.”
He kissed me goodbye. It was quick, but it counted.
I pulled out my student planner as I left to see what homework I needed to finish before the party, if I wanted the luxury of sleeping off a hangover tomorrow. Nothing but my English paper, which was more than halfway finished. I’d be done before dinner.
Someone bumped my elbow as we passed in the doorway. My planner went flying down to the tile. For some reason, I wanted to cry all over again. God, get it together, I ordered myself, and bent down to pick it up.
My eyes caught something on the page it had flipped to—a little pencil circle around the date, weeks ago.
