Crushed

  I hit call…

  …but I hang up before it rings. If things with Amelia go south, do I even have anything to lose? I’m not so sure anymore.

  Chapter Four

  Selena

  The smell of a doctor’s surgery. I’ve always hated it, but today it’s worse than usual. Bleach and hospital grade disinfectant tickles my nostrils and my stomach shudders, threatening to turn. Please, don’t puke. Mix those strong smells in with cardboard, hand sanitizer, and old lady perfume and my stomach is a ticking time bomb.

  “So, Selena, how are you feeling?” Doctor Carter finally speaks after eight solid minutes of scrolling on his computer.

  I lift my head and he’s looking right at me with his blue eyes, the corners of his full lips quirked into a friendly smile. I exhale, sitting back on the chair beside his desk, grasping my water bottle.

  “Terrible.”

  He chuckles and the sweet tenor of it calms my nerves. “It should subside soon.”

  “You sound so certain.”

  “I am.”

  Doctor Carter scratches at his head and I notice his golden blond hair is turning silver on the sides. How old is he, anyway? My father’s age, for sure, but unlike my father, Doctor Carter is strikingly handsome in that safe, older man kind of way.

  I shiver as the air conditioning blows cool air down my back and I pull my white jacket higher on my shoulders.

  “How far along do you think you are?”

  I shrug. “Eight weeks, give or take.”

  “And when was your last period?”

  “I don’t know exactly.”

  Doctor Carter turns back to his desk, smoothing his large hand down the front of his black tie. “Your blood test results tell me you’re a little further along than eight weeks.” He stares at his computer. “I would like to do another series of blood tests just to check that things are as they should be.”

  My stomach turns. “What makes you say that?”

  “Your HCG level and your blood pressure are a little high to be eight weeks.”

  I frown. “What does that mean?”

  “It could mean nothing at all. I’m just investigating to be on the safe side.” He reaches out for a stack of paper and takes a single sheet. Exhaling, he slips the sheet into the printer. “Normally, I do like to have an ultrasound done a little earlier than eight weeks to confirm, but since you waited and we have the bloods, I can refer you for a dating scan now.”

  “I’m not sure I want an ultrasound.” I swallow. “I’m not sure I want to see…it.”

  Pausing, Doctor Carter’s thick dark blond eyebrows furrow. “Oh. Well, regardless, if you plan on terminating your pregnancy, an ultrasound will still need to be done.”

  I flinch. Is that how I came across? He watches me, waiting for an answer—or an explanation. He’d never admit it, but I can see the disgust and the resentment in his eyes. It’s in the way he now holds his posture—tall and square.

  “By terminating you mean…aborting it?”

  “Yes.”

  I gasp, pushing a loose strand of hair out of my face. “No. No. I don’t want to do that, it’s just…I haven’t told the father yet.”

  He relaxes minutely and presses a button on his printer. Whirring, it pulls in the paper. “If you’re scared of your partner, there are plenty of women’s refuges around the place if―”

  I plant my elbow on his wide table and rest my head in my hand. “No. Again, it’s not like that—”

  “As I said,” he cuts in, “regardless of your decision, an ultrasound is the next step.” The printer spits out the paper. I make out the word ‘radiology’ before he snatches it up and signs the bottom. “In the meantime, start taking pregnancy vitamins. They may help with the morning sickness, and make sure you drink lots of clean water.”

  He hands me the referral and I take it, lifting my head.

  “Is there anything else?” he asks, his blue stare flicking to my jean-clad leg.

  I’m bouncing it. Nervously. Can I be any more obvious? I don’t think I need to tell him. Olivia said she had it, and that it’s normal…she also said for me to have it checked out just in case. I guess I owe it to my unborn child to make sure he, or she, is okay.

  “There is one thing…” I clear my throat, hating the heat that swells in my cheeks. “There’s a brownish kind of bloody discharge…”

  He smooths out his eyebrows. “Blood?”

  I grimace. “Not blood. Not really. It’s different. I don’t know.”

  “What does it look like? How’s its consistency?”

  “It’s dark.” I shrug. “Sometimes a lighter color. I’m not going through panty liners like crazy or anything, but my friend, Olivia, she told me to bring it up with you.”

  Doctor Carter ponders, staring thoughtfully at his computer screen once more. Unease eats at me and I grip my bottle tighter.

  “Do you think it’s something I should worry about?”

  Finally, he looks at me. “Here’s what we’ll do. You take it easy and get that ultrasound done as soon as possible—today, preferably. Once that’s done, we can go from there.

  I nod, taking solace in his relaxed tone. If something was wrong, he’d tell me, or I’d be able to see it on his face, at the very least. I hate that I have nothing with which to compare how I’m feeling. I’ve never been pregnant. I don’t know if feeling this heavy is normal. I don’t know if I’m supposed to feel this uneasy.

  I leave the doctor’s office even more worried than I was when I arrived. There’s no avoiding it now. The ball is rolling and I have to roll with it. I’m not ready to tell Jackson, but I can’t go to this ultrasound without him. What if it was something Amelia did? And what if he compares me to her? Compares this pregnancy to the one he was denied? I shiver. The thought is almost as terrifying as pushing a baby out of my vagina.

  I step into the parking lot and hit the button on my keys to unlock my car. I guess I don’t have a choice. I can’t keep dragging this out. I have to swallow my worry and tell Jackson.

  I just have to.

  ***

  Apparently, there are more brands of pregnancy vitamins than there are brands of condoms, which is interesting. All of them have cute little pregnant ladies with large baby bumps on the box and are an array of pretty colors. I’ve read the label of a few and they all seem to be filled with the same stuff, but which one is best?

  Bending down, I grab the dark green box on the lowest shelf. According to the tag, they’re the number one recommended women’s supplements brand. Plus, the capsules don’t look like they’d choke a horse. They’re a low constipation form of iron too so…yay.

  “Pregnancy vitamins….”

  I squeak and turn on my heel to face the reason why the voice seems to make my blood simmer. The color drains from my face at the sight of her. Amelia. The woman I’ve been so selfishly trying to beat in a race that doesn’t even exist.

  Her eyes are as dark as volcanic glass and the corners of her lips are quirked into a smirk…or maybe it’s a sneer. I can’t tell.

  “They’re a gimmick, you know.” She tips her head on an angle as I tuck the small box under my arm and clear my throat.

  “I wouldn’t know,” I tell her. “They’re not for me.”

  Amelia simpers, shifting her weight onto one leg. “You’re a shitty liar. Maybe that’s why Jackson likes you. You’re easy to read, like an open book. Unlike me.”

  Rolling my eyes, I try to step around her, but she blocks my path. My blood turns from a simmer to a boil.

  “Get out of my way,” I snap.

  What’s the protocol here? The old me would have shoved her, knocking her off balance in her red bottom shoes. The new me, however, has to consider someone other than herself for a change. Someone who cannot defend themselves yet.

  “What’s the matter, Selena?” she teases, trying to goad a reaction out of me. “Jackson and I may have had a rocky past, but that doesn’t mean you and I can’t be friends.??
?

  “You don’t want to be my friend,” I say, cutting my eyes at her. “And I sure as hell don’t want to be yours.”

  Amelia closes her lips in a satisfied little pout, hiding her perfect, white teeth, and steps aside. “Suit yourself.”

  I march forward, glancing down at my white sneakers. As I near the end of the aisle, I want to glance over my shoulder, but I’m too afraid she’ll see me. She’ll think I’m weak then and I can’t have that.

  I half expect her to follow me around the store, but she doesn’t. I don’t see her as I check out and enter the parking lot, and I don’t see her as I climb into my car and leave. I grip the steering wheel tightly in my hands, ignoring the way saliva floods my mouth and the urge to puke rises.

  “I just want to make it home,” I utter, shivering as chills overcome me.

  I swallow over and over, trying to quell the nausea, but it only makes it worse. Groaning, I pull over and jump out of the car, frightening a little girl on her bicycle. I dive right past her, hunch over a bush, and throw up the nothing I’ve eaten the last few days.

  When I’m sure I’m done, I spit and straighten my spine with a sigh.

  “Are you all right, lady?” I turn to face the little, redheaded girl who squints at me from her pink and white bike.

  Her skin is pale, her eyes a deep brown, and just under her top lip is a gap in her smile, from losing a tooth.

  “Don’t have children,” I tell her, and she frowns at me with her bushy eyebrows.

  “Um. Okay.”

  I get back into my white sedan and continue toward home. As soon as I get there, I have to wash out my mouth, try to eat something, and then work on a plan to break the news to Jackson…

  …as gently as I can.

  Chapter Five

  Jackson

  The number of my calls that she misses, or rejects, grows every damn day. It’s safe to say that whatever was between us is finished. I don’t know what I did, but whatever it was…there’s no coming back from it.

  I should let it go….

  But I can’t.

  I push my booted foot harder against the gas. Street signs zoom past me. I stop for no red light. No pedestrians. No speed cameras. I didn’t want it to get to this point. I didn’t want myself to get to this point of…desperation…and yet, here I am. Driving through the streets like a mad man just to get to her. What am I going to do when I get there? I don’t know. Force her to love me? Get down on my knees and beg at her feet?

  I have to do this. I don’t have any more distractions left to depend on. I need answers. I need something from her!

  My phone rings in its cradle, Amelia’s name on my screen. I sneer at it. This isn’t about her. This isn’t the time to talk to her.

  I drive and she calls. Over and over. It goes on and on until I pull into the parking lot outside Selena’s apartment. Her car isn’t here. She’s not home. I deflate. She’s not at work, either. Where could she be?

  For the umpteenth time, my phone rings and I snatch it from the cradle. “What?”

  “Easy,” she purrs.

  “Now is not a good time.”

  “Of course it’s not. How could it be? You’ll never guess who I’m looking at right now.”

  It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. “Where is she?”

  “Having lunch, apparently. And you’ll never guess who with.”

  Dread swirls in my stomach. At one point, Selena and I had a semi-open relationship. Does she assume that is still okay? Even though I’ve declared my love to her and only her? I slide my teeth together.

  “Who’s she with?”

  “Telling you will spoil the fun. Meet me on the corner of Wilson and Brown.”

  “I don’t have time for your stupid games.”

  “Suit yourself, but don’t say I didn’t try to warn you.”

  I close my eyes. I shouldn’t listen to her. I shouldn’t talk to her! But what choice do I have? Selena has left me with nothing! If Amelia can take me to Selena, if she can show me exactly what Selena has been doing then…it’s worth it. Surely?

  Fuck. I shouldn’t.

  I chew the inside of my lip. I’m making a huge mistake putting my trust in Amelia.

  “I’ll be there in ten.” I hang up the phone.

  What will I see? I almost don’t want to know.

  ***

  I pull into a side of the road parking space and grab my phone. I barely unlock the screen before my passenger door opens and in climbs the red-haired demon I’ve been trying to avoid this whole time. Setting her black handbag on her lap, she smiles sweetly at me. The smell of her expensive perfume envelopes me and I clench my phone, lowering it to my lap.

  “Where’s Selena?”

  Without a word, Amelia reaches down beside her and slowly moves her seat back. I frown, confused, until I see her. My gut tightens at the sight of her, at the sight of her long, golden hair braided down the side of her head in that messy, disheveled way I like so much. Selena’s hair is curly, and the short, frizzy parts never stay in one of her hairdos for long.

  I watch silently as she unzips her white hoody and shrugs out of it. Her once tan, golden skin is now pale, but her breasts…ashamedly, my stare falls to them. The pink tank she’s wearing exposes the engorged curves of them. They almost look fake.

  “So she’s having lunch at a café,” I grumble, cutting my eyes at Amelia. “I thought you said she was with someone.”

  She simpers. “Wait and see.”

  I watch Selena for a little longer as she tears bread apart between her fingertips and nibbles at it. Then I see Seth, returning from the bathroom. I frown as he sits down next to her and they start talking. I wait for Olivia to arrive.

  She doesn’t.

  I swallow. It’s nothing, right? They’re just having lunch. Although, I did invite Seth and Darryl around for hotdogs and beer while we watch the football game and he said he had Chloe all day today. I don’t see Chloe anywhere…why would he lie? Why would he blow me off to see Selena?

  I clear my throat. “She’s having lunch with Seth. Big deal.”

  “Wow. You really have lost your balls.” Amelia twists toward me. “The Jackson I used to know would tear through that café like fucking Wolverine for his woman.”

  The Jackson she knew attacked innocent people for no reason. The Jackson she knew was a piece of shit. “I’m not that guy anymore.”

  “How disappointing.”

  The silence that fills the car is heavy, threatening to suffocate me. I trust Seth. I do…

  But he lied to me…

  “I wasn’t going to say anything, but I saw Selena at the mall this morning, buying pregnancy vitamins.” Amelia takes her cellphone from her bag and scrolls down the screen before turning it toward me.

  Sure enough, there’s Selena, standing in front of the vitamin section.

  “They could be for Olivia. Seth has been hounding her for another baby.”

  Amelia scoffs. “I imagine Olivia can buy her own vitamins. Don’t be so stupid! Put two and two together, Jackson. Selena is pregnant, she’s been avoiding you, and now she’s sneaking around having secret lunches with your best friend—who she had a fling in Vegas with, might I add.”

  One kiss hardly counts as a fling. I was standing right fucking there. Still…she has a point.

  My lip twitches. “Are you insinuating that she’s pregnant with Seth’s baby?”

  “I don’t want to cause any trouble.” She tips her head on an angle. “But something has to be going on.”

  “Selena wouldn’t do that to me—or Olivia,” I point out, trying my hardest to stop the rage from brewing in my chest. “I’ll ask her.”

  “And you think she’d tell you the truth?”

  I slam my palms against my wheel and Amelia jumps. “She’s not like you!”

  A heavy silence falls once again and my skull creaks as my brain throbs against it. I’m fucking imploding.

  “The Jackson I knew would neve
r sit around waiting for answers. In all of his glory, he would throw his fists until he got the answers he wanted.” Amelia’s eyes soften and, I’ll admit, it tugs at my heart strings. It reminds me so much of the vulnerable side of Amelia. The quiet side. The side I always preferred. “I don’t want to see you get hurt. These people don’t care about you. Not like I did. Not like I still do.”

  She puts her small hand on my thigh and I glance down at it. Her hand feels heavy, as if it weighs a hundred pounds and, if I focus on it, I can feel her natural bitterness soak through my denim and seep into my pores.

  “I still think about our baby.”

  I flinch, cringing at the way my muscles seem to painfully turn to stone under my skin. Our baby? She never gave it a chance to be our baby.

  “I still wonder if it would have been a boy or a girl…if it would have said mommy or daddy first.”

  Swallowing my anger, swallowing any kind of emotion she so effortlessly conjured in me, I push her hand off my leg.

  “Thanks for the tip on Selena,” I say, dead calm as I glance out my window. “Now get the fuck out of my car.”

  Laughing under her breath, Amelia grabs her handbag tightly in one hand and opens the door. Without a glance over her shoulder, she slips from the car.

  “You’ve got my number,” she says, and I hear the smile in her tone. “Call me when you need me.”

  Slam. I grimace. She said when.

  Not if.

  When.

  It’ll be a cold day in hell before I go running back to that bitch.

  I watch Seth and Selena for well over an hour. They can’t stop talking. Seth flickers between angry and compassionate while Selena spends most of the time crying. By the looks of it, she’s carrying a lot of guilt…a lot of grief. He touches her hand or her shoulder on occasion, and I don’t like it. Not one little bit. I spend most of my time trying to convince myself not to jump to conclusions, but she’s avoiding me and now he’s lying to me. There must be a reason for this lunch. Seth and Selena can’t stand each other much. He thinks she’s insane and she thinks he’s conceited, and yet, here they are, consoling each other over lunch. By themselves.