by Brenda Ford
Not that I’m thinking about Mary right now. Or ever again. She is done for me.
And if I need to get help at any point in the middle of it, I can call Noah and Leo. They are my friends, Noah is constantly telling me that he wants to help, and if he really means that, then he will. He might not agree with me and Rue because he doesn’t believe in love at all, but he will still be there for me. I know it…
My heart is pounding in my chest, my stomach is churning, my head is everywhere. I thought that being out in the world searching for Rue would make me feel better, but after a couple of hours, it’s crushing me. Thank God my friends are here, or I would fall apart right now.
“You need to get home,” Noah tells me softly. “You aren’t doing any good being out here, searching. It’s hurting you, not helping. Plus, she might turn up at any moment.”
“No, no.” I shake my head hard. “I won’t. I’m not going anywhere. Rue needs me. I can’t be home. She won’t be there, she isn’t. She isn’t answering my texts or my calls, she is out here somewhere.”
“Me and Leo will keep looking. You know that you can trust us…”
“But you don’t know Rue. You don’t know where she is, what she likes doing…”
“But, James, you already told us that you have checked everywhere she would normally be, and she isn’t there. So, maybe it’s time for us to take an objective look.” Noah rubs my shoulders sympathetically, seeing how much this is causing me distress. “You need some rest. You need some time.”
“I can’t, Noah. You don’t understand. I can’t. I can’t be at home.”
“You have to,” Leo jumps in. He’s being a bit firmer than Noah, but I can tell that this is just because he cares. He wouldn’t be out here helping me if he didn’t. “Because we are spending so much time worrying about you that we can’t search. We need to take you back. Is there anyone who will stay with you?”
My immediate thought is my dad, but I don’t know if he will be able to come and sit with me for a moment. I’m sure it will cause even more drama in his life which neither of us need.
“I will be okay. I’ll be alright on my own.” Deep down, I’m thinking that I can get out again if I’m alone. “I will be alright. Plus, if Rue comes back, she might want to talk to me alone.”
As Leo starts the car and drives me back to my apartment, I do what I can to seem calm and collected on the outside, so the guys don’t panic about me any more than they already are, but I’m like a swan all panicky and flapping underneath the surface of the waves, my true worry hidden behind the calm grace shown to the world.
I have a bad feeling though, a really bad feeling that something is wrong. I don’t want to lose everything, but it seems like I might be. Like the future that I have been fighting for is slipping through my fingers.
I have everything, I can’t stand to lose it all. Not now.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Rue
The sting in my face doesn’t go anywhere as I run away from the house. I don’t know where I’m headed exactly, and I’m certainly not thinking straight enough to make any kind of rational decision, I just know that I need to get the hell away from my mother. As far as I can go. She hit me. She hit me! How have things got this far? Things haven’t ever been good, but this is falling apart on another level. I don’t think we can come back from this. It’s what I’ve been fearing the most, complete destruction for all of us.
My cell phone rings in my pocket and my immediate assumption is that it’s James. I’m actually surprised to see Lydia’s name on the screen but it’s kind of a relief. I need someone else to talk to.
“Lydia,” I gasp through the emotions, as soon as I hit the answer button. “Oh my God.”
“What the hell is going on?” she snaps back. “You sound worse than I have ever heard.”
“Another argument,” I groan while still running. It’s starting to feel a bit like I’m tackling a marathon here. “This one got really bad, Lydia. Mom even slapped me and… well now I don’t know what to do.”
“She hit you? Fucking hell, Rue, this is really bad. It’s been so hard on you as it is, but that is another level. Is this guy really worth all of that? I’ve been holding back on asking before because I didn’t want you to think that I was interfering, but recently you haven’t sounded very happy about the whole thing and I’m worried.”
“He isn’t the issue. He never has been,” I reassure her quickly. “It’s everything else.”
“But if the whole situation isn’t making you happy, then is it worth it? Because you haven’t sounded like yourself to me for a long time now. You sound even worse than you do when you are hormonal.”
Hormonal… something about that word strikes me and hits me in all the wrong places. I mentally count back over all the dates and I realize that I’m late. Really late. My usual clockwork biology hasn’t been working like it usually does. I haven’t noticed it with everything else going on, but now it’s all I can think about.
“Oh my God,” I murmur under my breath as panic sets in. “Shit, this is… this is bad.”
A block of ice settles in my stomach as I think about all the light hearted conversations that me and James have had about our future, about starting a family and living out our happy ever after, but I’m sure that was all hypothetical. Even when we didn’t use protection, I don’t think we really thought it would happen.
Or maybe we did, and we just weren’t considering the implications, the way that it might affect everyone around us. Either way that cavalier attitude has come around to bite me on the ass now.
“You should come back to England. I miss you,” Lydia pleads. “I can look after you.”
“Yeah, maybe.” That idea is starting to sound more appealing by the moment. “I don’t know.”
“You should. I don’t think you’re happy in America and it’s making me really sad.”
I can’t think, I can’t talk, I don’t want to make any decisions right now. She has put a bee in my bonnet, and there is only one thing that I can do to calm it down. Now that this thought is circling through me, I have to put an end to it one way or another. I need my answer now. My day has already been wrecked, so I might as well dive in. I need to get to a drug store, and I need to do it right now.
“Can I call you later, Lydia? I need to figure some stuff out and I’m…”
“Please just book a ticket back. I’m really worried. You are freaking me out.”
“If I do, I will let you know. Love you, Lydia. Sorry about this, I just need to…”
I hit the end button and change my direction to aim for the drug store with my heart hammering the entire time. I can’t believe that it has come to this. I should have assumed that it would, I suppose, this is what unprotected sex leads to, I just assumed that it would be a happier moment. When me and James were declaring our love for one another and making these plans, I assumed that we would be in the best place ever. Happy.
This is just another thing that my mother has taken from me. She really is the gift that keeps on giving.
Embarrassment doesn’t even hit as I enter the drug store. I might be shaking from head to toe, but I’m not concerned about being judged. I really am too manic and panicked for that. As I reach the right display, I feel overwhelmed by the mount of choice when it comes to pregnancy tests. Shouldn’t there only be one? Isn’t this moment crazy enough without giving options? A cheap one, one that tells how many weeks you are pregnant, one that shines up with a little baby if you’re pregnant… it’s all too much of an ordeal.
“This is the most simple one,” a friendly looking girl who works in the store tells me, clearly seeing my dilemma. “And just so you know, we also have a bathroom here, so if the answer isn’t clear, you can get another.”
“Does that happen?” I demand. “The answer can’t be seen one way or another?”
“Unfortunately, they aren’t perfect, but we have the least amount of trouble with the one that I showed you.
That’s why I always recommend it. It can be emotional enough without making it worse. The fancier the test is, the more it can be a royal pain in the ass.” She offers me a nice smile. “Shall I ring it up for you?”
Her kindness brings tears to my eyes, but I do my best not to let them fall. “Yes please, thank you.”
Once I’ve handed over the money and rejected her kind offer to hold my hand, which is appreciated, but too much for me, I head into the small bathroom. It’s a strange room which I can tell has harbored many emotional moments, and now mine is about to add to it. I try to take that as a nice thing, a reminder that I’m not alone in all of this, but I don’t know if that works. This isn’t a situation I want to be in.
As I stare at the test, I remind myself that James would support me, that it would be okay to have a baby with him because he would always look after me, no matter what. If we have a child, everything will be magnified. Things with my mom will be a million times worse and it will wreck any chance he has with his father at all. It just won’t happen. They will be fallen out forever.
I don’t think I can put James through that, or myself for that matter, and certainly not my child. No kid deserves to deal with her wrath and nasty comments. I can just imagine my baby growing up feeling as rejected as I did.
What about England? Could we do it there? My dad would certainly treat us right and help us… oh, but that would mean tearing James away from his, and I don’t think that would work either. He will slowly grow to resent me and my child because we took him away from everything, college included…
“Oh God, what are you doing?” I scold myself. “You are walking before you can run, finding solutions and problems without even knowing if this test is going to be positive yet. It might not be.”
Stress stops body cycles as well, doesn’t it? And I have certainly had my fair share of that recently. I might pee on this damn stick and find out that I’m worried about nothing. Nothing might change after all.
I breathe out a sigh, trying to feel relief, but I get nothing other than zig zagging terror, so I focus on taking action instead. I pee on the stick and I leave it on top of the toilet to wait for it to change. To show me the truth.
To be honest, I would love room to pace. I could have done this at the apartment really, which has a massive bathroom, or I could have even gone to Annie’s place where she could have helped me through this, but I chose to do it here, which means all that I can do is rock back and forth on my feet while I wait…
Oh God, how long is three minutes? It seems like such a short space of time but waiting for this little test to tell me whether my life is going to change or not is killer. Each second is like an hour. It’s like sheer fucking torture. I’m practically crawling out of my skin in the sheer distress. I don’t know how I can cope.
“Come on,” I mutter while biting down on my bottom lip in an attempt to stop me screaming. “Come on!”
Lots of women have been here before in the same position as me, in this drug store trying to find out what their future holds. Some older than me, some younger. Some in situations far worse than I find myself in right now. I can’t even begin to imagine what everyone has been through. Some have had the result they wanted, and some haven’t, but they must have all survived it somehow. I can do the same. Somehow.
“I can find a way,” I reassure myself as I take to tapping my foot on the floor. “It will be okay.”
But I don’t know how much I believe myself, and that becomes even less as the image begins to appear in front of my very eyes. My pulse throbs in my mouth as I lean forward to look, to take it all in…
“Oh my God.” My knees give way and I slump to the floor. “Oh my God, it… it…” I don’t know how to think these words, never mind say them aloud to myself, but I need to because this is real. “It’s positive.”
My head falls into my hands as I try to imagine what that will look like, how my life is going to be now, and I just can’t see it. Every time I try to picture either me or James with a little bundle of joy in our arms, I can’t make it happen. All I can see is my mother slapping me over and over again.
“I can’t do this,” I hiss to myself, sickness and bile swirling. “I can’t be here right now. This is too much.”
I don’t know if I just mean the drug store or if I mean here entirely, but the sensation that I need to escape is almost overwhelming. I can’t handle any of this anymore. It’s too much. I don’t even think that I’m breathing right now. My head is spinning like I’m dizzy. This is what we talked about, it’s what me and James said that we wanted, but now that it’s happening, I can’t handle it. It makes me want to run.
It isn’t right. None of this is right. It’s all far too wrong for words. But what can I do to change it now? This is permanent, this is forever, I have to keep traveling down this wrong path.
Unless… is there an unless? Because I could sure as hell use one right now.
Chapter Twenty-Five
James
I tug my head from the pillow, my skin sticking to it as I try to force myself awake once more. I hate falling asleep, it doesn’t feel like the right thing to do when Rue is still out there somewhere, missing, but there is an exhaustion bursting through me that is unlike anything else and I can’t stop it coming for me.
“Rue?” I croak desperately, my raw throat aching. “Noah? Leo? Is anyone here?”
My plan to sneak out last night didn’t exactly work out, because the guys wouldn’t leave me alone. I guess they picked up on the fact that I lied about my father coming to hang out with me, and they didn’t want to leave me alone. It annoyed me at the time, but now I can see that it was probably a good idea, because I wasn’t in the right frame of mind. I don’t know what I would have ended up doing.
But now I’m alone. No one is with me, and I don’t know how to feel about that. Actually, yes, I do. I feel like utter shit. The guys, I understand them going, they have their own stuff to do, but Rue… she should be back by now. She should have woken up with her arms around me, ready to explain where she went.
“Rue,” I yell again, the distress now starting to really get me down. “Rue, where the fuck are you?”
I wander around the apartment as if I think that I might find her hiding somewhere, my heart sinking lower and lower by the moment. Is it time to call the cops now? Has it been long enough? I know that Noah said it had be forty eight hours, but this is a strange situation, isn’t it? This is stressful and there has been a family fight. I feel like Rue would count as someone vulnerable, so I should be able to call the police sooner…
“Fucking hell, what if she is just with a friend?” I ask myself. “How stupid will I end up looking?”
Not that it would really bother me to look stupid, it’s more Rue’s reaction that would freak me out. She might kick my ass, since she has really made it obvious that she doesn’t want to talk to me. It might be the thing to tear us apart. I’m so terrified of losing us, that is the thing that stops me from calling the cops in the end.
I call Rue instead, even though I know I will end up with the voice mail. This time, it doesn’t even ring which I guess could be because she hasn’t charged her phone, or perhaps she has turned it off.
“Rue, it’s me,” I say wearily into the phone, rubbing my eyes as I do. “Again. Look, I don’t know what’s going on with you here, but I really need to just know that you are okay. I’m scared now. It’s been all night and I haven’t heard anything from you, I just need to know that I don’t have to worry about your safety.”
With a deep sigh, I hang up and I call Noah before I can put my phone down. I just need someone to talk to, who will actually respond to me. Without another human voice to keep me going, I will feel disconnected from the world entirely, and with everything that’s going on I need that more than ever.
“James, are you okay?” he barks, answering straight away. “I have been so worried.”
“She isn’t here yet,” I tell him morosely.
“But I’m holding it together. I think.”
“After you fell asleep, me and Leo looked for hours but we couldn’t see any sign.” He huffs, sad on my behalf. “I know that you’re supposed to wait two days, but it might be a good idea to talk to the cops now.”
“I was thinking the same thing. I’m glad to hear you say that actually, because I’m freaking out.”
“I’m at the school at the moment, but I can come over when I’m done to help you. We can do it together.”
I can still hear Noah talking, but my eyes have noticed something else, something so shocking that it takes my breath away. This apartment has gone back to being empty. Emptier than it has been in a very long time. I can’t believe that I haven’t noticed it yet. How tired am I? How blind have I been? Rue’s stuff… it isn’t here anymore. Someone has come here in the middle of the night and taken all of her things. Probably her.
“Oh my God,” I gasp out. “Oh my God, Noah, she’s been here. She has. She has taken all of her stuff. She has… she must have come here…” I grow breathless as I run from room to room to only get the same fucking answer. Even her toothbrush has vanished. “She hasn’t let me know about her safety, she has let me stew over her… and she has been in the house to take her stuff. She must have… have…”
I can’t say the words ‘left me’ but we both know what I mean. I thought that we loved one another, I assumed that we were in this together, fighting for each other, but she has snuck in here and taken everything to run away. It doesn’t seem like the sort of thing that my Rue would do, which makes me think that I don’t know her at all. Maybe I never did, and the version of her was just the one that I wanted to see.
