by L. C. Morgan
An unflattering noise shot out of my throat and I turned my head to the side, squinting over the tips of the far-off tree line. I felt like I was going to be sick for the both of us.
“Just go home, Jule,” I pleaded, my hollowed out heart too tired to deal.
It wasn’t fair that she had come all this way to put this burden on me. She was the one who did me wrong. She was the one who hurt me. I shouldn’t have been expected to make her feel better about what she had done, and she shouldn’t have been so selfish to assume that I would. I wasn’t a martyr. I didn’t care if she and Mark got married. I didn’t care if they filled his huge house with babies while I sat here losing mine. God bless and good riddance. All I asked was that she didn’t show up with her hand-me-down ring and shove it in my face. It wasn’t right.
Without thinking, I went to stand and escape into the house, only to remember a little too late why I hadn’t done that in the first place.
“Laney!”
“Shit.” Folding in on myself, I sat back down to cover the blood as another sharp pain shot across my stomach.
This isn’t happening.
Covertly as I could, I rocked back and forth in place.
This isn’t happening.
“Laney, what the hell? You need to go to the hospital.”
I shook my head. “No.”
Not with you.
Teetering from heel to heel, Julie sucked in a breath through her teeth, hesitantly stepping closer on severely shaky ground, and for good reason. She did not want to come anywhere near me right now.
“I really think you need to go to the hospital.”
“I’m fine,” I reassured her, blowing off her concern with a closed, sarcastic smile. I was nothing if not a master of detachment and avoidance.
“Laney, I’d feel a lot better if you would just let me take you to the hospital.”
Oh, would you?
“I said I’m fine.”
Hands on her hips, Julie huffed, sending a puff of hot breath into the cool, evening air. The sun had dipped below the thick cluster of pine trees, taking what little heat it provided with it, but I felt flushed and extremely annoyed that she wouldn’t just go away, that she thought it would be okay to come in the first place. Keeping my pride was always more important, even more so than seeking medical attention. If there was one thing she understood about me it was that my resolution ran deep. I refused to do anything if it meant making her feel better. Her audacity knew no bounds.
Moving my hair over one shoulder, I let the breeze try and calm me with its gentle caress. Tears prickled, the urge to cry so strong it burned the very back of my eyes. All I wanted was Joe. I needed him.
The frustration was as agonizing as the deep, constant ache that curled up and restlessly stirred inside of me. This was going to be the worst of the cramps yet, I could tell. I was so sure of it that I let out a tortured cry before the pain even hit.
“That’s it. I’m taking you to the hospital.”
Pinching my lips together, I nodded my head in agreement, letting her get close enough to pull me to my feet. I fought the urge to shake her cold hands off while she held me steady, walking me down the steps and then helping me fold into the front seat of the car. Latching the seatbelt, I tugged it tight against my lower abdomen and pulled my feet up onto the seat to cradle my legs. The pressure helped with the pain.
As well as one could in heels, Julie jogged around the front and climbed into the driver’s side. I pouted over the fact that she didn’t trip and fall on her face, my disappointed gaze dropping toward the floorboard. I sucked in a sharp breath when I saw the red stain that had spread out just under the soles of my feet.
“Shit, your seat!”
Shooting forward, I adjusted myself as she started up the engine and gunned it in reverse, dismissing my worry while she barked an order into the GPS. I jumped, automatically jerking away from her reassuring touch. It was just all too much.
“Sorry.” Pulling her hand back, she shifted into drive. “You’ve got to practically scream into this stupid thing.”
Settling back down, I laid my head on the headrest and let it lull to the side, blinking at a fat splash of rain that hit the glass. My heart raced with uncomfortable excitement, skipping beats while I focused on pushing out a held breath. The faster Julie drove, the harder the rain pellets hit, belting against the roof and windshield like sad, sympathetic teardrops. The pain had passed for the moment, but it left me feeling tired and weak.
“Do you—” Clearing her throat, Julie tried again. “Is there someone I could call?”
Just when I thought I had it under control, it felt as though all the air had been sucked out of my lungs again, the mere thought of her speaking to Joe making it damn near impossible to breathe. I didn’t want her anywhere near him, not in person nor by voice. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Joe, not at all. It was the fact that I’d once trusted Mark and Julie, too. People tended to break it—my trust.
“Don’t worry about it. I can call when we get there.”
“You sure? You can use my phone,” she offered, tilting her head toward the purse lying on the floorboard. “I’ve got unlimited calling, and the reception’s pretty good out here, which is surprising.” What was surprising was the way she yammered on and on, bringing up bits of our past I wasn’t in the mood to rehash. “I can’t even get a full bar all the way up on Looker’s Pointe. You remember?” She snorted a laugh. “The resting place of the red Solo cup.”
Rolling my eyes at the passing pine trees, I stifled an annoyed sigh. Of course I remembered it. Looker’s Pointe was the epitome of all things teenaged and stupid, a little known spot where all the kids went to party. Julie and I had our first and sworn last drink there many a time. I even lost my virginity there. The day they filled in the quarry was the second saddest day of my life—the first was the day I got my period. It was later covered with a row of useless cell phone towers and frequently vandalized with packs of the plastic drinking cups.
I smiled in spite of myself.
“You know, it’s funny, but the minute I landed and powered up my phone, I’ve had all six bars. Weird, isn’t it?”
I kept my gaze fixed out the window, acting as if I hadn’t heard her. I didn’t want to reminisce. I didn’t want to act as if nothing were wrong or tell her I knew exactly what she was talking about even though I did. It was the first thing I’d noticed, too. Almost as if my phone and I were meant to be there.
An uncomfortable silence filled the car as it wheeled its way down the darkened windy road. The rain had turned to sleet making the new asphalt slick under the two-wheel drive. It worried the trees, bending their limbs in a defeated slump of melancholy, forcing the whole forest into seemingly sympathizing with my situation.
“Watch this turn up here,” I warned. “It sneaks up on you.”
It was more than the turn that snuck up on you in this town. One drunken, late night real estate search and there you were at the opposite end of the country, stuck with some fixer-upper you could no longer afford, in love for the first time in your life and losing his child.
Peeking over at Julie’s ring, I was reminded of another place in time. When my eyes were closed and my heart still blind. It pained me to think that if Jane, my broke coworker, hadn’t come in begging for Friday night hours, that ring would probably still be on my finger, weighing me down even further with an additional diamond-encrusted band. The realization made me sick, and I worried myself to death over it. What if she hadn’t come in that night? What if I had been working the back tables and she had asked Charlotte to switch instead? What if I had said no?
I almost had.
It was the little things. They collected and stacked up, raising walls that sometimes crumbled. While frightening at first, that was really all my life’s destruction was, just another rocky path laid fatefully at my thankful feet. Moving was like taking a deep breath. I could smell the cleansing scent of new thick in the air.
/> My chest tightened at the thought of Joe, how he actually made me feel happy for the first time in a very long time, and all I was doing was letting him down. He gave me everything a man was supposed to, and I gave him shit in return. I couldn’t cook. I barely cleaned. I could hardly take care of myself, let alone him and a baby. I was less-than, felt lower than dirt because I wasn’t able to do the one thing for a man that a woman should have been able to do—carry his child.
The thought of having children had never entered my mind before, not completely, not in an I-really-think-I-want-them sort of way. Before I met Joe, it was a solid meh. I got the impression Mark wasn’t interested, therefore I wasn’t interested either, not until there came the very likely possibility I might be having one. Joe’s openness to getting me pregnant had stirred something maternal inside of me. It was the determination in his honest eyes, the medicinal musk of his sweat and cedar. Combined with his rugged, good looks and those strong, skilled hands and he could set anybody’s ovaries aflutter.
I didn’t have the first clue how to tell him.
“We’re here.” Julie’s voice brought me out of my thoughts.
I told her it wasn’t necessary to come in with me, but she did anyway. Forcing me into a wheelchair, she filled in all of my paperwork except for the emergency contact. Taking the clipboard, I filled in Mona’s information as Julie started to wheel me back.
“She a friend of yours?”
“Yes.”
A better one than you’ve ever been.
Just before we made it through the doors, a nurse took over, informing Julie it was family only. Instead of arguing, I left my old friend standing in the hallway, both of us knowing at one time I would have claimed her as my sister, but that time wasn’t today.
***
I jolted awake to shards of ice beating against the fiberglass window, their insistence joining in on the beeping symphony above, beside and all around me. I was still in the hospital, of that I was sure, judging by the noise and the wad of tape securing a needle to my arm. The sticky patches stuck to my chest made me itch, pulling on my skin with every little movement. I felt as uncomfortable as the rigid, plastic mattress below me.
I wanted to go home. I wanted my bed. I wanted to see Joe, be with him—in my bed. He didn’t even know, he couldn’t have. I hadn’t gotten the chance to call him, or maybe I just chose not to.
Hot tears prickled at the corner of my eyes, and I wiped at my cheeks, realizing I was already crying, and probably had been in my sleep. Every last part of my body ached. The kind of ache nothing could soothe. My heart especially. I didn’t see how it was still beating, but it was. I could feel it against my ribs, strong and steady, in sync with the noisy machine monitoring it. It hurt too much not to be.
My emotions were running high and bouncing all over the place. Only hours earlier I had been stressing over not having a job and depending too much on a man, a man I desperately wanted to be able to depend too much on.
A fresh wave of tears trailed down my cheek and into my hairline as I recalled the events of the day. It was all too much, so much so that I even cried over a pair of destroyed pants. But the kicker was what the doctor had told me—that it was nothing I did, and that this sort of thing just sometimes happened.
How comforting.
Clasping a hand over my mouth, I allowed the tears to run, holding back the sobs my lungs begged me to set free. I sucked them in silently when I heard someone adjusting in one of the chairs behind me. Their legs rubbed a warning as they stood and I ceased my cries, my heart pounding in time with the heavy soles scuffing against the faux-wood floors.
He was here.
Joe was here.
My face crumbled at the feel of his fingertips. Brushing the hair off of my sweaty neck, he smoothed them down the side of my face, loosening clinging hairs from my skin. I sucked in audibly with the dip of the mattress, my whole guise cracking once his warmth curled around me, his body molding to mine as he wrapped an arm tightly around my ribs. Pulling him closer, I encouraged him to tighten his grip—the only thing that was keeping me together, and ironically the very thing that forced me to finally fall apart.
Chapter Fifteen
Resting the base of my head against the chair, I watched as Mona flitted back and forth across the room.
It was impressive how quickly she moved, swiffering the floors with grace and ease all while in her delicate condition. Her energy made me feel pathetic. The expression she wore said it all. I was a slob, always had been, always would be, and couldn’t find it in me to care. It was obvious I was content with the filth I lived in, was pretty sure I didn’t even own any cleaning products. And who could blame me? I had been too busy painting and feeling sorry for myself to deal with such things.
“When’s the last time you swept?”
I hadn’t.
Ever.
A fact that should have been obvious since she was the one to supply the broom.
“This floor is disgusting.”
Wrinkling her nose, she pulled out a chair to reach further under the table. I defiantly kept my bare feet planted firmly on the ground, ignoring the purse of irritation on her lips. I didn’t really care. In fact, it felt kind of good when the bristles of her broom scratched the tops of my feet, sending a sprout of goose bumps shooting all the way to the top of the bun on my head. My eyes fluttered shut before popping back open with the echo of chair legs scraping across the floor. Flexing my toes, I could feel the tickle of vibrations under my feet. The sound startled me out of an insomniatic haze, jumpstarting my heart and tensing my aching muscles, leaving me as dizzy as a drunk on one of those round, spinning thingys all the kids in my neighborhood used to push each other around on. What the hell was it called again?
Sitting up in my seat, I rested my head in my hands then dragged them down the sides of my face. With a painful clench of my teeth, I fought the sudden urge to either burst out laughing or crumble into tears. My eyes burned and my jaw ached. My chest beat and my throat opened. My broken insides were trying desperately to push their way out, but I swallowed them back down, having no better place to keep them but in.
I didn’t want Mona to see me cry. I didn’t want her to think it was her or the baby. I didn’t want her to feel bad or think it was because as soon as she walked through the door she grabbed my hand and placed it on her stomach so I could feel it kick. That wasn’t it. I didn’t mind that, not at all.
It was when she apologized after.
Leaning back against the chair, I lifted my gaze to find her dropping hers down to the task at hand. I knew I should have been thankful she was there to help out, but I wasn’t. I didn’t want her help. I was perfectly capable of cleaning my own house. I just didn’t want to, was all. I never wanted to.
And I knew I was coming across as pathetic. Of course I did. I was depressed, not dumb. I knew it was sad that I couldn’t just buck up and take care of myself, that the only thing sadder was that I was actually stepping back to watch someone else try and care for me. It made me feel like shit that she felt the need to, maybe a little worthless that I just sat there and let it happen. But I couldn’t find my voice to stop her, couldn’t work up the strength to yank the stick out of her hands and break it in two over my knee. I was tired.
So tired.
“This is what you get with wood, ya know. It just collects dust. Uck.”
Wiping off the bottoms of her bare feet, she let out another sound of disgust that jostled me from impending slumber. My ears were buzzing and my vision was blurring because I couldn’t keep my eyes from crossing and rolling into the back of my head. I needed to sleep. My brain and my body both wanted to sleep, so why wouldn’t they? Why couldn’t they?
“Phil could lay some laminate, ya know. He did ours and I love it.”
Wait.
What?
“Have you ever considered covering the wood?”
Uh, no?
Staring at her profile, I thought maybe I
almost made a facial expression.
Why would I consider something as ridiculous as laying laminate when I was content with the dirty wood floor as it was?
Propping the broom against the table, she removed the tie from around her wrist and twisted it into her hair. It had grown significantly, well past her chin. That belly of hers had gotten so much bigger since the last time I’d seen her, which wasn’t all that long ago, I guessed.
It was strange really, how she was just there, waiting on the porch the day Joe had brought me home from the hospital. It was like she knew, almost as if he had told her. She was sitting on the exact spot I had stained with my own blood, only there was no stain, not since that single slab of wood had been replaced.
I wondered if Joe snuck off while I was sleeping or maybe called one of the guys to come take care of it while I was in the hospital. I hadn’t asked, and wasn’t sure if I was going to in all honesty. I didn’t know if I wanted to know, was pretty much fine with just pretending it never happened in the first place. All everyone else had to do was let me forget.
“Laminate’s so much easier to take care of.”
Huh?
Oh, yeah.
Were we still talking about that?
“Not as hard to clean.”
Remaining flat and indifferent, I refused to dignify her reasoning with a response because one, it was the stupidest thing I had ever heard; and two, I was pretty sure laminate was just as hard to clean as wood. At the very least, the dark beams and dirt blended. You couldn’t see it as well. Besides, what the hell did she care?
Nobody asked her. Nobody twisted her arm. Nobody forced her to come over to clean and comment on my floor. Nobody.
Blood boiled under the surface of my skin. I could feel my insides cooking hotter and hotter at her insistence on helping where she wasn’t wanted or needed. Couldn’t she ever just be quiet?
As pissed as I was at her, as pissed as I was at the world, my tired head still lay lax against the seat. I remained silent, imploding on myself while resisting the urge to stand and demand she get the hell out of my house. I was on the verge of screaming out at the top of my lungs how much I hated laminate, for Christ’s sake. Could she not hear what she was saying? Did she not realize I was stressed enough? How dare she get me all worked up over a difference in opinion on flooring?
