by Anna Lewis
“Oh, hi there, Jenna,” Deana greeted me far too nicely for her standards, putting on a little show for Adam. “I need to have a chat with you later, okay?”
“Yep, sure.” My words were curt and quick, my emotions coming out in sheer bitterness, however desperate I was to keep them inside.
I dared to glance up, just because I knew it’d be weird if I didn’t, and I instantly spotted Adam’s eyes boring deep into me. He wasn’t giving me a pleasant look, it was more one of distain now which sent humiliation hurtling through my system. I felt judged, like he thought less of me for sleeping with him. I should’ve known this would happen, he was always more of a player than the settling down type. Just because he spent a few weeks with me when we were teenagers, didn’t dull any of that at all. He used me, and I let it happen. I was the idiot here.
“Right, well, I’ll see you later,” I mumbled, stalking off down the hallway. If Adam wasn’t going to even acknowledge me, then I couldn’t stand there and be further embarrassed.
Asshole!
The memory of him coming towards me, wanting me burned into my mind. I should’ve known that it was all just fake, just a way to screw me. Chances were ever since the day he first laid eyes on me again he wanted to get to do the one thing I hadn’t allowed him to do when we were younger. I was probably just a prize that needed to be won.
Goddamn it, how was eighteen-year-old me smarter than I was now? How did I know then not to sleep with him, but now I couldn’t resist? Weren’t people supposed to get wiser with age?
Anger burned right through me as I walked, my body grew hotter with each and every step. Love had made me act like a crazy idiot, and now that emotion was transforming into hate. I hated Adam Martin. I hated that twat with a damn passion. All I wanted to do now was wring his damn neck. How dare he make me feel like shit about myself! How dare he come back into my life, take my emotions and screw me over! It wasn’t right, this hotel was mine, not his. Maybe he paid money for it, but I gave it the past ten years of my life.
Well no more. I would keep my head down until Adam pissed off, and if there was no sign of that happening I would have to go. It would be scary to put myself out there, to try and do something new, but maybe that was why all of this had happened. Maybe the fates had intervened to give me a reason to move on, to leave my old life behind.
Fucking hell, this was a nightmare. I didn’t need any of this. I was all right before, not happy, but fine.
I grabbed the damn cleaning cart and shoved it with a huff, forcing myself to do the last thing I wanted, a whole day’s work for the man I now hated. But I couldn’t move on just yet, not when I had a huge bill for Luke. None of this was his fault. He shouldn’t have to suffer, because Adam was a knob.
But soon I would go. There was nothing to stay for anymore.
* * *
26th July 2006
I woke. My eyes flickered, but as they opened an intense sickness flooded me, and I had to the block the light out before I vomited. There was a real intensity to the way I felt, one that I couldn’t explain...
I woke, screaming and yelling in absolute agony. The hot pain etched over every inch of my skin, burning and itching, boiling and raging, it was the worst thing I’d ever experienced...
I woke, a grogginess fogging up my brain, but it was no longer so intense that I couldn’t see. I fully opened my eyes for what felt like the first time in years, and glanced around the room. It was white, too white, it certainly wasn’t any room that I recognized. I racked my brain trying to figure out what I’d so clearly missed, but it hurt too much to think.
In fact, everything hurt. What the hell was going on with me?
“Oh my goodness, you’re awake.” I turned my head as quickly as I could manage, just to find myself looking at a very pretty nurse. She had red hair tumbling down her back, and bright blue eyes that somehow made me feel more relaxed. “How are you feeling, Jenna?”
“How do you know my name?” I croaked, my throat gnawing with a sharp ache, as if I hadn’t spoken for years. “And where am I?”
She sat beside me and took my hands in hers, cocking her head to one side while she regarded me curiously. “Do you not remember anything?”
There were flashes... Tiana, a red cup, stars... but none of it really made much sense. “No, I don’t think so. Nothing meaningful anyway.”
“You were in a car accident; your car was hit by a drunk driver.”
“But I don’t have a car...” Why was this registering somehow? Why did I feel like this was actually possible? “Oh my God, Adam!” I tried to jump up in the bed, but tubes and pain fixed me in one place.
“The driver of the car you were in is okay. He’s been looked at and sent home, what he experienced was mostly surface damage.”
Relief flooded me... but was quickly replaced by unadulterated fear. If Adam had been sent home because he was fine, then what was wrong with me? I certainly felt like hell, but that didn’t have to mean anything permanent, did it?
But the look on the nurse’s face made me believe otherwise.
Oh my God, did it?
“What... what about me?” I swallowed, trying to dislodge the massive ball of fear, but it wasn’t going anywhere however hard I tried.
“Your pelvic bone was shattered in the collision, as was your knee cap...”
As she continued to explain all the things that were now wrong with my body, and everything the surgeons had done to improve that, all I could think about was one thing... my running dreams were shot. There was no way I could go to college now, not with all this damage, which put me... well, I didn’t know where.
Running was all that I had. Yes, I’d been focusing on my academia as well, but I didn’t actually know what I wanted to do with any of that. I didn’t have any real dreams that involved me using my brain. Running was all I had. I felt free on the racing track, it was the only place in the world I truly felt like myself.
And now that was all gone. Now I had nothing left. Where the hell could I go from here? What was out there in the world for me? It was like staring into a deep, black tunnel with no light to guide me forward.
A deep misery set over my heart, one that I didn’t think I’d be able to shake off ever again. Running was everything to me. Yes I’d been distracted recently by my lovely boyfriend, but I’d still been working towards it. Now Adam would go off to college without me, and I wouldn’t know what to do. This was no longer a case of jealousy and silliness, this was serious.
This was the whole of my life falling apart.
“You look in a lot of pain,” the nurse eventually commented, judging by the expression on face. “I think I’ll up your morphine.”
As the pain killers warmed up my body, I felt that doziness overcoming me, which meant sleep was about to claim me. One thing was for sure, my life would never be the same again when I woke up...
* * *
13th October 2016
“Urgh,” I muttered as I wiped the vomit from around my lips. “Gross.” I’d spent so much of the last few weeks focusing on sliding out of sight and keeping out of view, that I hadn’t realized I was actually getting sick. Maybe it was viral, or a bug of some kind. Maybe I was just really run down, either way I needed to take a day or two off work. I couldn’t go in like this, I could barely stand up without throwing up.
I grabbed my cell phone and dialed Deana’s number, clutching onto my forehead as I waited for her to answer.
“Hello, what do you want?” Curt as ever, just what I needed. I didn’t actually want Deana to change, she was the only constant in my life at the moment.
“Deana, I feel sick,” I groaned loudly into the phone. “I can’t come in today. I’m so sorry, I hate to let you down but I’ve been throwing up all night long.”
“Oh God, okay,” she replied just as miserably. “There’s nothing you can do about that. I can’t have you in here spreading your virus everywhere. Unless you’re pregnant of course...” she cackled loudly
, probably knowing that there was no way I could be pregnant. After all you had to have sex to be pregnant, and I wasn’t exactly attracting any male attention...
Fuck, except for the fact that I had caught someone’s eye recently for a brief second.
No, that was stupid. One crazy moment wasn’t going to lead to anything that permanent, I was delirious with this... bug. I was just sick, nothing more, there was no point in freaking out.
“Right, well you let me know as soon as you can come back to work, okay?”
“Thank you. Bye.”
As Deana hung up the phone, having been thankfully very reasonable about the whole thing, I tried to put her stupid joke out of my mind. I didn’t need to be worried about that, I just needed to be focused on my recovery. Just because it was the first time I’d had sex in God knows how long, didn’t mean I had to start panicking. We’d been careful... hadn’t we? We did use a condom, right?
Oh God, it was so heat of the moment I wasn’t totally sure. I could barely remember anything past the feel of his delicious fingers against my skin.
I glanced at the calendar and started to run some calculations in my mind, trying to work out the other way of being certain, but I couldn’t totally recall the dates of my cycle. I’d never been regular, and I hadn’t ever needed to keep tabs before, so it wasn’t conclusive.
No, this was stupid. It was a bug, of course it was. I shook my head, all images of babies falling away. Or at least, that was what I wanted to happen. I wanted to just push that away and to move on with my life.
I paced my apartment for a while, trying to clear my brain of those terrifying thoughts but they weren’t going anywhere. What I really needed to do was head to a drugstore, to pick up a test along with some pills to deal with my headache. I didn’t think I was having a baby, but I wanted to get rid of the possibility entirely, just to be on the safe side.
Plus, maybe the fresh air would do me some good...
***
“Come on, come on,” I moaned angrily, while suffering through the longest minute of my whole damn life. How did people do this? It was my first pregnancy test ever, I already knew that it was going to be negative, but I was totally freaked out. I had a brand new sympathy for all the teens back in high school who got a little careless and had to take tests in the school bathrooms... maybe they weren’t quite the bimbos I first assumed that they were. Maybe their fear was genuine, rather than just dramatic.
I kept glancing at my watch willing the time to move faster. The seconds were ticking, agonizingly slowly, killing me.
Tick, tick, tick...
And then I looked up, and I saw the image that would change my life forever. A little blue cross. Positive.
“Holy shit,” I murmured loudly as the realization hit me like a ton of bricks. This was real, I was having a baby... with Adam Martin, a man I now hated with a fiery passion. I tried to see that scene unfolding in front of me, me and Adam together, holding a bundle of joy in my arms, but the whole thing just felt off.
Right now, I couldn’t see it as anything other than a nightmare.
I felt my body collapse to the ground as the pounding in my head increased. Things between me and Adam had always been a bit of a game, especially now that I was a pawn in whatever his weird plan was, but there were real life consequences. There had been a life created, and that was something we were going to have to discuss.
But how the hell was I supposed to have such an important discussion with someone that I wasn’t even speaking to? That I couldn’t even look at? This really was a nightmare.
* * *
28th July 2006
“Mom, why hasn’t Adam been to see me yet?” I asked her morosely for what felt like the hundredth time. “It feels like everyone else has; you, Dad, Sara, some other girls from school I barely know, but my boyfriend hasn’t been in. He did survive the crash, didn’t he?” I had to admit, I was growing increasingly suspicious with each passing second. Being pinned to this nightmare of a hospital bed gave me plenty of time to get lost in my over active imagination.
“I don’t know why Adam hasn’t been in, dear.” She couldn’t meet my eyes which made it even worse. It was bad enough being confined in this hellish room without any sign of escape, never mind getting absolutely no answers whatsoever. “He’s out of hospital though, so he’s definitely alive.”
“Mom, why won’t you tell me what’s going on? I’m going crazy in here, I’m jacked up on meds, trapped in this room, and no one will tell me anything.” Tears were brimming in the corners of my eyes, I was getting dangerously close to them spilling out everywhere.
“I... I...” There was something that she could say, and that made me feel sick. There was already a lot being kept inside right now, the last thing I needed was something else added to that list.
We hadn’t even discussed the fact that I wasn’t going to college now, it was just this unspoken thing that was hanging in the air, weighing down on the both of us. I couldn’t discuss it yet, I wasn’t in the right place, and Mom wasn’t good at hard chats. She was probably freaked about my future for me, and she didn’t know how to broach it. She knew it was all that I wanted, and I knew it was all she wanted for me. It was just a crying shame that it was out of both of our hands.
“If you won’t tell me anything, will you at least let me call Adam? I just want to hear his voice,” I pleaded desperately.
Mom sighed deeply and sat on the end of the bed. She then clutched onto my hands and stared deeply into my eyes. I already knew that she wasn’t going to say anything that I wanted to hear before she even opened her mouth, it was screaming out of her body language.
“Adam isn’t here anymore,” she admitted, with defeat rolling off her tongue. “He took off, the day he got out of hospital.”
“Huh?” My brain couldn’t process that, it just didn’t make any sense. “What do you mean? Where has he gone? Is he in Texas already? College doesn’t start for ages.”
“I don’t know, his mother was pretty evasive when I asked her. I don’t know if she’s aware to be honest. All everyone knows is that he’s gone.”
I fell back onto the bed, trying to work out what that meant for me now. If Adam had gone without even coming to see me, without telling me, I had to assume that meant he didn’t want to know me anymore. Maybe the crash had made him organize his priorities and he realized that I wasn’t what he wanted. The fact that he hadn’t even bothered to let me know made it obvious that I never meant anything to him.
I was never good enough for him anyway, I knew it. Now it was possible that he did as well. At that revelation the tears sucked back into my eyes. I was far too numb to cry. All my emotions just fell off my body, leaving me an empty husk, a shell with nothing inside.
Now I had nothing; no college, no career, no boyfriend... everything that I thought was going to happen was gone. The guy who hit our car, the drunk driver—whoever that was—he’d taken everything away from me. Where would I even go from here? What was I going to do? All I had was some good grades which I didn’t really want to do anything with, a part time job cleaning at a hotel, and a mom who wasn’t prepared to tell me anything.
My life was nothing, it was pointless. Maybe I would’ve been better off dying, at least then I wouldn’t have had to tackle this whole empty future with nothing to fill it.
“Now let’s not worry about Adam right now,” Mom tried to smoothly transition onto the next subject before I could totally fall apart. “I’m going to get the doctor back in here so we can see where we are with everything.”
“I’m a fucking mess, Mom,” I snapped, using a curse word in front of her for the very first time. Much to her credit, she didn’t even flinch. “My legs are shattered, some other stuff is messed up, I’ll never be the same again. I’ve lost everything.”
“I know it seems bad now, sweetie, but you’ll find a place in the world for you, I promise you that. You’ll find a new path for you. Now I don’t want to say that everyt
hing happens for a reason, because I know right now it really doesn’t feel that way, but one day the pain of all of this will go. One day, this will all be a distant memory.”
I nodded, trying to agree with her, but I really didn’t see it. As far as I was concerned my life was over, I was done. Finished at the grand old age of eighteen years old. How fucking sad was that?
“Thanks for being here, Mom,” I shot back impulsively, glad to at least have her with me. “I appreciate it.”
As she held me close I hoped that she was right, I hoped that one day I could see things in the same way that she did.
* * *
18th October 2016
Well, my mom was officially wrong. Even ten years later the pain from that day hadn’t gone anywhere. I still felt it acutely, in my gut, all over my heart... I wished that she was still alive so I could go and rub it in her face, to tell her just how wrong she was. Although maybe that shouldn’t have been what I was focusing on. I probably should’ve been thinking about the human life growing in my belly, not the sad fact that I hadn’t been able to move on from a car crash.
I was going to have a baby. That fact was still insane. I’d adjusted, maybe a little bit, I’d accepted that this was really going to happen, but the practical side of things still overwhelmed me massively. Like money, and space, and Adam...
Oh God, Adam. There was no way I could tell him. I had to, he would figure it out on his own of course when my stomach started to swell and grow, but for now my lips were still sealed.
It was difficult to explain this situation in a calm and constructive way to someone who wouldn’t even look at me, so what the hell was I supposed to do?
I shoved the cleaning cart along the hallway with a huff, feeling drained and tired, and more than a little sick. This whole working whilst pregnant thing wasn’t going to be easy if this got much worse. In fact, I got so lost in worrying about that for a moment, that I didn’t notice my worst nightmare coming true until it was too late...
