I was the one who…
“You coming?”
I shook off my temporary insanity and hurried behind him, trying in vain to keep up with his long strides.
“Slow down, Daddy Long Legs,” I called, hurrying after him.
There was only so much I could do, though, seeing as I had such short legs.
“Sorry, Caterpillar.”
I snorted, remembering how we’d come up with those stupid nicknames all those years ago.
In fact, it’d been something similar to what had just happened, and he’d called me that because I was a slow, short-legged person. I’d called him daddy long legs because he was so fast.
The bad part? He didn’t even blink when he called me that. It was as if he’d called me that numerous times, as if the last time he’d said that had only been just yesterday, instead of a lifetime ago.
Fucking hell.
Then, he had to go and make matters worse by grabbing my hand, leading me through the office, and straight back to the ultrasound room, bypassing not just the waiting room, but the ultrasound room I’d used the last time I was there.
“Uhhh,” I started to say, but was interrupted when a happy-go-lucky voice filled the hallways, seeming to bounce off the walls. “Reed, my boy!”
I laughed when I saw a man, much older than Reed, walking down the hall toward us.
He may be old, but there was no way in hell the man was out of shape.
He had to run or something, because Jesus Christ he was tall and fit.
“Hey, Boyce. We’re here to get the Hail babies checked out and over.”
The man looked at me, and his eyes changed.
“I had no clue that it was that Hail.”
Reed laughed, and I felt like I was left out in the dark on who this man was to Reed. I’d never seen him in my life, and honestly, I knew everyone here.
This man, though?
Never seen him before.
“I’m glad you could follow me back here. I was worried about you.”
Reed’s words had me glancing back between the two men like an annoying bobble head doll.
“Oh, shoot,” Reed said. “Boyce, this is Krisney. Krisney, this is Boyce, he’s a…used to be a sonographer with the Army. He’s retired now, and he moved back here, what was it…a month ago?”
Reed turned to Boyce, and Boyce nodded his head. “It was time. It’s nice to meet you, Krisney.”
I smiled.
“Boyce is gonna do all the fun stuff today.”
My brows rose at that.
Reed winked at me, though, understanding my hesitation. “It’ll be okay.”
With that, he led us into a second room, and this time it was with a huge fucking couch off to one corner of the room. The exam table was smack dab in the middle of it, and the biggest TV I’d ever seen was taking up the wall across from the couch and the table.
Reed didn’t take the couch, though.
He took my hand and helped me up onto the table, and then stood beside me while shoving up my shirt.
I would’ve laughed if I hadn’t liked seeing him so excited.
“Do y’all want to know the sex of the baby?”
“Babies,” Reed corrected, then looked down at me. “Do we want to know?”
I’d originally planned on saying yes. But what came out was a resounding, “No!”
Reed looked like I’d ran over his pet cat. “Really?”
“Really,” I confirmed.
He sighed. “I guess that was what we’d planned on doing from the very beginning, anyway. I just never expected you to actually go through with it.”
When he said from the ‘very beginning’ he really meant the very, very beginning. We’d talked about children on our second date.
I’d told him that I didn’t want to know. That I wanted to be surprised. To find out the sex of our babies with him in the delivery room.
Oh, if I only I knew how wrong I’d be.
If I’d known, I would’ve found out right then and there.
***
“Any problems you want Dr. Hail to be aware of?”
I shook my head.
“Good.”
I paused, remembering something.
“These stretch marks, though,” I muttered, lifting my shirt slightly and showing Reed’s nurse.
The nurse grimaced right along with me.
“Those are going to be there forever.”
That came from the bitch that hated my guts.
I had a feeling that she and Reed had something going on before I came along and ‘ruined things’ by showing up pregnant.
Then again, at this point, they could have started something right back up.
I’d left Reed standing only a foot away from Pepé’s grave over three months ago, and I had stuck with my guns ever since.
After our last doctor appointment, I’d left him standing in the elevator, watching me leave with a sad expression on his face.
But I couldn’t help it.
I needed to protect me at this point, not Reed.
And that was what I’d planned on doing.
But Caria? Yeah, I fucking hated her. With a passion.
I was blaming it on the hormones, but I knew had I not been pregnant, I still would’ve hated her just as much.
I’d seen her around town before with him. Once last week while at Subway, and another time while at the gas station when I’d been filling up. They’d been getting coffee.
I never got the confirmation, but I tried valiantly not to think about what Reed might or might not have done with her.
It hurt too bad.
Literally, every time I even came close to thinking about it, I was reminded that though we now shared children together that would be born in a few months, we weren’t anything more than that.
We were still in the same exact spot as we’d been when this all started.
Apart.
“I’ve heard using the stretch mark lotion doesn’t really help,” Reed’s nurse, Opal, interrupted my inner musings. “You’re just spending the extra money on it when you could get the same results from using the Wal-Mart brand.”
I grimaced.
That’d been what I’d been using.
Shit.
“Well, what the heck do I use now?” I muttered almost to myself.
Opal patted my hand as she finished up with my blood pressure, and I stood up while also stretching my back.
Who knew having two kids growing inside of you would cause a relatively healthy woman to feel this much pain?
There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t have something that hurt. And the more days that passed, the more stuff that hurt.
Yesterday it was my feet. Today, it was my feet and pubic bone. Next week, it’d be my entire body, I just knew it.
“You should try this.” Reed’s whatever the hell she was, ex hopefully, lifted a clear bottle and wiggled it at me.
I looked at the bottle and frowned.
“Oh, it’s okay. Caria sells essential oil,” Opal said, reading the hesitancy on my face. “She’s the oil guru around here. Just last week she gave some to Reed to help him sleep. Lavender, was it?”
I wanted to throat punch this ‘Caria’ chick. I’d never heard her name before, or even heard her mentioned around town, but maybe there was a reason for that.
Maybe they were trying to protect me.
Maybe, Reed really did have feelings for this chick.
“What’s in it?”
“It’s Patchouli oil. Patchouli helps recovery of the skin, and prevents ugly scarring, like what you’ve got going on there,” Caria explained, holding the simple bottle out.
I took it, mostly because Opal was staring at me as if to say, ‘Well?’
“What do I do with it? Just rub it on?” I asked. “And is it safe during pregnancy?”
Caria nodded, her face impassive, and s
aid, “Yes. Completely, one hundred percent safe.”
Opal started to nod right along with Caria, and if it hadn’t been for Opal’s agreement, I might’ve thought that this oil she was giving me was poisoned.
But as I looked at the bottle, I realized that it was actually pretty damn official looking.
“You sell this oil?”
Caria nodded. “On my website.”
She then proceeded to pull out a card and handed it to me.
I took it, looking at the words on the little rectangle, and then nodded my head. “Thank you.”
“Kris…” Reed said, surprising the three of us.
Opal grinned. “I’ll see you in a moment, dearie. I need to go give a call to an insurance agency.”
With that Opal left, leaving only Caria—who was staring at Reed with such uninhibited devotion in her eyes—and me.
“Hey,” I said, clearing my voice. “How are you?”
Caria moved until she was standing next to Reed’s side.
“How are you?”
“She’s good. She said something about stretch marks, though. I gave her some oil to help with them.”
Reed didn’t even glance at her.
“Caria,” Reed said. “Would you mind leaving? I’d like to spend a few minutes alone with Krisney.”
I wanted to whoop in excitement that he’d told her to leave.
In fact, if I could rub her nose in it, I would.
“Do you want to go to lunch?”
Reed’s question startled me.
I wanted nothing more than to spend more time with him, but I couldn’t do it. I’d been doing so well.
He took in my hesitation, and likely my decision to say no. “I want to talk…I want to figure some things out.”
I wanted that, too.
This not talking about the obvious thing we were doing was starting to grate on my nerves.
“Okay,” I whispered.
He nodded, looking thankful.
“I know that the PA saw you, but do you have any questions?”
The PA for the office was having to work in three doctors’ patients today because all three of the doctors had been out of the office delivering babies.
I hadn’t expected Reed to be back.
Which had been what gave me a false sense of hope.
I’d let my guard down, thinking he wasn’t here.
Now I had to go to lunch with him.
Shit.
He winked at me and offered me his outstretched forearm.
“Let’s go.”
I took it, unsure whether this was a good idea or not.
He led me out of the room, down the hall, and to the door that separated the waiting room from the main office.
“Oh, hold on.” He held up a finger. “I bought you something.”
Then he was gone, leaving me standing there all alone.
I pushed the door open, thinking I’d wait in the hallway for him, when my name was called.
I turned and saw Opal heading toward me, stopping me before I could reach the door.
“Hey!”
I smiled when I saw her.
“Yes?”
“Caria said this tea would help with indigestion and is supposed to help with sleep. You were saying how it’s affecting you badly in the evenings. This’ll help with that. I take it myself sometimes.” Opal handed me the box.
I took it, again thinking that Caria had some ulterior motive in giving me things.
I took the box, knowing that I would likely not drink it.
But I hadn’t counted on Reed’s bombshell he’d dropped on me moments after walking into the Taco Shop, either.
Chapter 15
I really do try to see the best in people. But with morning people, sometimes it’s too damn hard.
-Krisney’s secret thoughts
Krisney
I woke up with the worst pain I’d ever experienced.
My stomach felt like somebody had kicked it, and I immediately knew that something was very wrong.
I sat up, disoriented, and stared at the wall.
All I could think about was the words Reed had uttered to me over lunch.
I want a chance.
I moaned when another wave of agony rolled through me.
Then I felt something wet between my legs, and it definitely wasn’t from my dreams of Reed.
No, there was just way too much for it ever to be considered that.
I reached for my phone, and dialed Reed.
***
Reed
“Did you use anything, or take anything?” Dr. Torres asked. “Did you take anything new that you’ve never had before?”
The pain was etched all over Krisney’s face.
“The only thing new that I’ve done over the last twenty-four hours is the essential oil that was given to me by a nurse at your office, Caria. She gave me some Patchouli oil for my stretch marks.”
Dr. Torres wrote it down, then went to his phone to look up the side effects of that oil.
I ran my rough hand down the soft skin of Krisney’s arm, but she didn’t look at me.
“What about that tea?” I paused, remembering something she’d taken. “Did you drink that?”
Krisney’s face fell, and her eyes finally met mine. “Yes.”
“Do you remember what it was?”
“She said chamomile. It was in the box still. That’s at home, though.” She shook her head as another pain rocked her, and I looked to the monitor to see that another contraction had hit.
I looked in frustration at the other medicine that wasn’t doing a damn thing to stop her labor from progressing, and instantly felt a wave of disappointment roll through me.
If we couldn’t get her contractions to stop, we wouldn’t have a choice but to deliver the babies today.
Eight weeks early.
A lifetime when it came to a preemie baby.
“Nothing else?” Dr. Torres asked, sounding worried himself.
When the drugs wouldn’t work the way that they were supposed to, we’d tried alternate means. When those hadn’t worked, we’d started questioning why.
Which led us to this point.
“Nothing but the oil that Caria gave me.” Krisney moaned.
“What kind of oil was it again?” I asked her as I pulled out my phone.
She closed her eyes, and a tear slipped free.
“Patchouli?” She shrugged, gesturing to the bag I’d grabbed for her on my way out her door with her in my arms only two hours before. “I think. I’m not sure the exact name. It’s in my purse, though.”
I walked forward and took the bottle out of her purse. It was the same bottle type as the one that Caria had given me lavender oil in last week. Why she’d given me the lavender oil, I didn’t know. But she had. Being a generally nice person, I took it. It was still sitting on the desk in my office at work.
I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do with it, but I’d taken it because I tried not to look like the complete dick that I was in my place of work.
Palming the bottle in my hand, I handed it over to the nurse who was closest to me.
“Take this down to the lab, and see what the hell is in it.” I paused. “And tell them this is a rush. To do it in the next ten minutes, or I’m coming down there myself to do it.”
The nurse nodded her head and rushed out of the room.
Dr. Torres and I weren’t the only ones worried.
I didn’t think it would be anything bad. Not really. I was just being thorough.
We couldn’t get the contractions to stop, and there had to be a reason why.
That was just the most obvious reason at this point.
And, when the call came nine minutes later as to what was in the bottle, I grew confused.
“It’s Pennyroyal,” the lab tech said the moment I answered. “Do you know what that is?”
“I
’ll look it up,” I said, then hung up before the lab tech could tell me what it was.
Pennyroyal.
Pennyroyal.
Why did that sound so familiar?
I pulled out my phone and did a quick search, and my heart fell.
“Pennyroyal. Side effects for pregnant and breastfeeding: If you are pregnant or breastfeeding, it is LIKELY UNSAFE to take pennyroyal by mouth or apply it to your skin. There is some evidence that pennyroyal oil can cause abortions by causing the uterus to contract. But the dose needed for this effect could kill the mother or cause her life-long kidney and liver damage. Pennyroyal leaf tea seems to be able to start menstruation, which could also threaten a pregnancy,” I read aloud.
The doctor with me, Torres, swore so loudly that a nurse came in from outside.
“She was given that, wasn’t she?”
I looked over to see tears in Krisney’s eyes.
“I didn’t know. I swear, I didn’t know.” She started to weep, and I wanted nothing more than to bring her in my arms and tell her that it would be okay. But I knew it wouldn’t be okay.
Whatever she’d ingested, both orally and transdermally, had been enough to induce labor.
Seeing as she was thirty-two weeks, the babies, if born today, would have a long road ahead of them. And, since they were twins, they were already smaller than normal thirty-two weekers.
“It also says that the side effects of the pennyroyal could cause liver, kidney, and sometimes nervous system damage,” I told Torres.
“That would account for the odd kidney function test,” Torres said. “We attributed it to the pregnancy, but it’s more than likely due to the oil. I think it’s best to get the babies out, so that whatever affects it had on Krisney, the babies don’t have to have, too.”
I agreed.
When my eyes met Krisney’s, I saw resignation there.
Sorrow, regret and disgust followed soon after.
“It’ll be okay,” I told her. “We’ll get through this.”
Krisney looked away.
“Just get them out. Make sure they’re safe.”
***
The babies were born by Caesarian section two hours later.
Two hours after that, Krisney was in the first stages of both liver and kidney failure.
Chapter 16
Life sucks then you die.
-T-shirt
Reed
The Hail You Say Page 13
