“I don’t know,” I said, wincing at myself in the mirror. “I just didn’t want her mom listening to my conversation.”
“Hmm” was all he said, and that unnerved me.
“I thought of what you said,” I began because I knew what he was thinking. “I am gonna tell Edi about us, but right now is not a good time.”
“There’s never gonna be a perfect time, baby.”
“I know,” I said, squeezing my eyes shut. “It’s just that there’s a time and place for everything, and right now isn’t it. This might actually be the worst time to bring it up. She’s very emotional.”
“This might actually be the best time, babe,” he said, sounding a bit cautious. “She’s surrounded by her family.”
“No,” I said softly, shaking my head, but didn’t want to argue with him. I couldn’t think of a worse place or time for her to find out. She was dealing with so much already. Granted, her niece was doing better. Still, there was bound to be a better time for us to have this conversation and I could possibly convince her we could, in fact, remain friends.
He was quiet but thankfully let it go. “How long will you be out there?”
“Not sure,” I said, and that was the truth. I really had no idea. “The ticket Edi’s mom got us was one way since she wasn’t sure how long we’d be out here. With the doctors warning the baby might not make it, she hadn’t wanted to chance buying the tickets to get us back.”
“What about school?” he asked. “Didn’t you say you had a final this week?”
I frowned, still studying my reflection in the mirror. “I might be able to take that online. Only I didn’t bring my laptop. I’ll have to go the library or something. But if she’s doing better, we may get back sooner than we thought.”
“If she wants to stay longer and you wanna leave, let me know. I’ll book you a flight and get you home whenever you feel like leaving.”
Get me home.
I smiled at the luckiest girl in the world staring back at me in the mirror. Would he ever stop saying things that would warm my heart?
Remembering suddenly that I’d been in there for a while now, I thanked him and assured him I’d let him know. I said goodbye quickly and hurried out to where Magda was sitting at a table with the coffees and bags of pastries including breakfast sandwiches for Edi and me. The delectable aromas that filled my nose made my mouth water. I hadn’t realized just how famished I was.
“Are you okay?” she asked, looking a little concerned as she stood.
“Yeah,” I said, nodding with a smile.
I took the box of coffees, and we walked out to the car. Once in the car, she handed me the bag of food, and we were off. I knew I was being impatient, but the food smelled heavenly, and in my defense, I was already feeling lightheaded. I’d felt it back when we first arrived at Starbucks. I wasn’t just Magda’s speech that had my head spinning and making me feel so woozy. I needed to get food in me.
I fumbled with the bag of food and box of coffees in my lap. When we came to a stop, Magda took the bag from me. “Here,” she said, holding the bag. “Put the box down on the floor, honey. You could hold it between your feet so it doesn’t move. This way you can get your seatbelt on too.”
Just as I lowered the box, I heard the loud screeching of tires followed by a thunderous impact. My head hit the glove compartment so hard I literally saw stars and my ears rung. The eeriest silence followed for a few seconds, and then Magda screamed, “Oh my God!”
It took me a while to even realize what had happened. With my head still ringing and pounding with pain now, everything that happened next was a blur. All I remembered was someone opening my door asking if we were okay then turning to see Magda’s shaky hands over her bloodied face. Next thing I knew we were sitting on the curb while paramedics took our vitals and cleaned up Magda’s bloody nose. We’d been rear ended by a U-Haul truck. The lady driving it was more hysterical than we were, and nothing had even happened to her.
She kept apologizing, saying it was her first time driving one and she’d been preoccupied for just a second trying to figure something out on the dash and when she looked up she saw the traffic stopped.
“It might be broken,” I heard one of the paramedics say to Magda about her nose, “but we won’t know for sure until you get it X-rayed.”
While Magda’s injury appeared worse because of the blood, they seemed more concerned with mine. They’d asked me all sorts of questions from my name to the day of the week, which I answered correctly. But when they asked, “Do you know where you are?” it took me a moment because I really wasn’t sure where we were.
“It could be a concussion,” the young paramedic examining me said as he checked my pupils and took my blood pressure. “She still seems dazed,” he said to the other paramedic.
“That’s because I haven’t eaten,” I explained, but that didn’t seem to satisfy either of them.
“That’s a pretty nasty bump,” he said with a frown. “Stand up.”
He held my arm with both hands as I stood, and I smiled when I was able to stand just fine. The moment he let go of me, I felt wobbly, and his hands were back on my arm.
“We’re gonna need an ambulance,” he said over his shoulder.
“No,” I said, panicking. “I’m fine, really. I just get really lightheaded when I haven’t eaten, and I was on a plane all night.”
I rambled on, explaining, even as Magda chimed in agreeing that if the paramedics thought I should be taken to the emergency room I should go.
“You don’t want to ignore a concussion, miss,” the paramedic said. “There could be bleeding or swelling in the brain that needs to be taken care of ASAP.”
Magda was already gasping all over the place, but I felt ridiculous being fussed over so much. It was just a fender bender. I knew all I needed was to get some food in me. “We’re going to the hospital anyway,” I reminded Magda. “If I’m still not feeling well, I’ll go down to the emergency room.”
They made me sign off that I was refusing to let them take me. One of the older-looking paramedics approached us just as I signed. “Are you her mother?” he asked Magda.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “But she’s a very close friend of my daughter’s.”
He nodded. “Okay, well, all the signs are there. If the dizziness continues or she experiences any nausea, she needs to go directly to the emergency room.” He turned to me. “Nausea is a very bad sign. You’re not feeling nauseous are you?”
I shook my head, wondering if I could possibly be that weak-minded remembering how anytime I was asked if I needed to use the bathroom I didn’t until the moment they asked. I hadn’t felt remotely nauseous until he mentioned it, but I didn’t tell him.
“Well, if you do, even a little bit,” he added, “do not ignore it, young lady.”
I agreed and wondered what Aaron would say when I told him about this. The last paramedic’s stern instructions had my stomach knotting up, but I reminded myself I was fine. Not every one of the coffees had spilt over, and the food was still intact. A little mushed but still eatable.
“You let me know if you’re still feeling dizzy or nauseous at all as that fireman said,” Magda said as I bit into my sandwich. “We’ll run right down to that emergency room. Swelling or bleeding in the brain sounds very scary.” She gave me a look as stern as the last paramedic’s before adding, “I’m sure Gemma will agree when you tell her about this that maybe you should go to the emergency room regardless.”
I nodded, devouring my sandwich. We didn’t even make into to the hospital when I threw up my entire breakfast and then some right outside in the parking lot.
“That’s it,” Magda said, looking very frightened. “We’re going straight to the emergency room.”
A part of me still felt tempted to argue, but another part felt slightly alarmed. Bleeding or swelling brain. Good God! So I reluctantly agreed. She called Edi to let her know. They already knew about us being rear ended. Magd
a had called them earlier and then again later to let them know we’d been cleared and were on our way back.
We rushed straight into the admitting area of the emergency room. As soon as we, but mostly Magda, explained about the accident we’d just been in and all my symptoms, how I refused to be taken in, and now I’d thrown up, they hurried me in. It didn’t help that I felt even more lightheaded now and a little disoriented. The only thing that had slowed them down from getting me in any faster was a waiver I had to sign first. Since I was an adult and Magda wasn’t even blood-related, they weren’t going to let her in with me, but I wanted her there. So they made me sign a waiver saying I was okay with the attendants disclosing information and asking private questions in front of anyone I allowed in with me.
My head was really hurting now, so I asked for pain medicine, but they needed some info from me before they could administer any. When I was asked for the date of my last period, I couldn’t even remember. Thankfully, Magda had stepped out just then to take a call because I would’ve been forced to lie in the next line of questioning.
“But you usually remember?” the attendant asked, glancing up from her clipboard.
“Well,” I thought about that. “Yeah. I think.”
She jotted something down on her clipboard. “Any chance you could be pregnant?”
“Um, no.”
Her eyes studied me again. “You’re not sexually active?”
I glanced over to make sure Magda wasn’t on her way back. “I am, but—”
“Have you experienced any other nausea or thrown up in the last few days?”
I was about to say no when I remembered my hysterical episode yesterday with Aaron. Last night when I thought Edi was leaving because she was upset about Aaron and me, I’d also been a little nauseous, but I knew those were completely unrelated.
“Yesterday,” I said.
“How many times?”
“Just once,” I lied.
“Have you been sick or do you know why you threw up?”
Oh for crying out loud, I was not pregnant, and my head was really beginning to pound. But there was no way I was explaining how the memory of my sister and my all-out freak out yesterday was what caused that.
“No, I haven’t been sick,” I said, feeling a bit irritated. “I don’t know why I threw up. I just did.”
She jotted something down then smiled, seemingly unconcerned about my less-than-patient sounding response. “Let me just have you take a urine test real quick so we can rule out that you’re pregnant before we administer any painkillers. We can still give you some if you are,” she said reassuringly. “But this way we know which not to give you.”
To my relief, Magda still wasn’t back when I got back from peeing in a cup. Even a while later, she still hadn’t returned. It worried me. I hoped the baby’s condition hadn’t taken a turn and maybe that was why she’d been gone so long. A few minutes later, she was finally back with Edi and Esme.
As long as we’d been delayed with the accident, Esme had already gone home and returned. Her husband was with the baby now. They said they’d been out in the parking lot assessing the damage to Magda’s car and that’s what had taken her so long to get back. I’d been icing my head with the ice pack I’d been given. Esme asked me to lift it so they could see the bump and I did.
“Ow!” Edi said, staring at my head a bit horrified. “And you didn’t wanna come to the emergency room with that big ole knot on your head?”
“I didn’t think it was that big a deal,” I said, shrugging. “I still don’t. My head just really hurts.”
“Did they ever get you those painkillers you asked for?” Magda asked.
The attendant entered just then, holding her clipboard with two little paper cups on it. “Your test came back positive, so I can’t give you morphine, but you can take these.”
She handed me one of the little cups and explained it was 800 milligrams of ibuprofen then walked over to the water dispenser to fill the other cup.
It didn’t even register what she’d just said until I was staring down at the cup with the pills and Magda asked, “Positive for what?”
“The pregnancy test she took is positive,” the attendant said, handing me the cup of water. “Good news is that nausea, which is normally a very bad sign, if in fact you do have a concussion, in this case may likely have nothing to do with it.”
The rest of what she explained about my vitals and other symptoms were drowned out by the buzz in my ears. Edi’s eyes were locked on mine. I knew I hadn’t cheated on her. I knew I never betrayed her while we were still a couple, but the hurt in her eyes said it all. Everything I’d denied so vehemently the other night about her fears that what she’d always known would happen one day was happening. She was forced to witness the love of her life fall for someone else, and she just couldn’t deal with it.
I vaguely recalled what Magda and Esme said as they excused themselves to leave. Something about giving us a moment and them checking on the baby. Edi stayed but, even after they’d walked out, didn’t immediately say a word. The room felt heavy with suffocating silence Then she finally spoke.
“You’re having a baby,” she whispered as her voice broke.
Those four little words spoken with so much emotion jolted me out of the daze I’d been in and into the harsh reality. Two vows I’d made in life had just been shattered. I’d spent almost my entire life vowing I’d never bring a child with the blood of those two monsters into this world, and the last several years I’d spent vowing I’d never give Edi reason to leave me—that I’d never lose her. Now I sat there knowing for a fact there was child growing in me, and I could see it in Edi’s wounded expression: my two worst nightmares were becoming realities.
I nearly fell while scrambling off the bed to get to the waste basket because I knew was going to be violently sick.
Chapter 22
Aaron
I hadn’t heard from Henri since that morning’s phone call. I kept replaying our conversation, trying to remember anything I might’ve missed as a sign of her being upset with me. I’d yet to hear back from Mia too. I’d responded to her text, asking what she meant by “share.” Was it possible she had shared it somewhere where it’d gotten back to Henri?
That wasn’t like Mia at all, but then a text sent at that ungodly hour could mean only one thing. She’d been drunk, and she wasn’t herself when she was drinking. I’d also tried calling and texting Henri more than once after several hours of not hearing from her. It was already past eleven that night and still nothing. I was the last one at the office and about to call it a night when my phone rang. I rushed to my desk where my phone sat and picked it up, glancing at the screen. Mia.
“Hey,” I answered.
“Hey yourself.” She sounded groggy. “Sorry if you were expecting to hear from me sooner. My phone was dead when I finally crawled out of bed today. I put it on the charger but ended up crawling back into bed after being sick and taking some aspirin. I’ve been in bed all day and just now turned it on.”
“Did you share that photo anywhere?” I asked, not bothering to acknowledge anything else she’d just said.
“I don’t think so.”
“What do you mean—?”
“Look,” she said, raising her voice a bit. “I’m calling you because my head is still too foggy for me to concentrate on texting. I barely remember sending that text in the first place, and considering how wasted I was when I did, I doubt I was able to share it anywhere else, but I don’t see it on any of my other social media sites or that I sent it to anyone else. So I don’t think so. You know I wouldn’t do something like that, but then normally I’d never drink as much as I did last night either.” She paused and sighed. “Just about everyone I know was there yesterday. So they all pretty much know now, not just that you and I are a done deal but why.” She groaned. “Believe it or not, my explanations got even more obnoxious once you left. Posting that picture anywhere would only make me look stupid
. Trust me. If I do find out it’s been posted anywhere, I’ll be sure to get it down ASAP.”
I smirked, remembering her Aunt Madge’s expression yesterday. But I refused to apologize for any embarrassment she might be feeling over this. That was all her doing.
She was in the middle of apologizing for her childish behavior yesterday when my other line beeped. The moment I saw it was Henri, I cut Mia off and clicked over.
“Hey, baby, I was getting worried.”
She didn’t immediately say something, and I almost began to say something again until she spoke. Only it wasn’t her.
“Henri asked me to call you,” she said.
I couldn’t be sure, but if I had to guess, it was Edi. I squeezed my eyes shut, grimacing, and sat on the edge of my desk. After the initial alarm of knowing I might have just fucked up, something else hit me. “Is this Edi?”
“Yes,” she said simply.
“Why didn’t she call me?” I asked, straightening up a bit.
“She’s not feeling well,” she said, spiking my already alarmed insides. “She was in a minor car accident this morning where she bumped her head. She wasn’t even taken in to the emergency room.”
Edi explained about how the accident had occurred on the way back to the hospital from Starbucks that morning. They’d been rear ended, and Henri had insisted she was fine despite the paramedics suggesting she be taken in because they feared she had a concussion. When Edi’s mom and Henri arrived at the hospital, Henri had thrown up in the parking lot, so they went straight to the emergency.
“They weren’t going to admit her at first,” she explained, but she started throwing up again. A lot. So they decided to admit her. They wanna keep her overnight to keep her hydrated and watch her closely. She’s got a pretty nasty hematoma in the frontal part of her head, and the doctors want to make sure there is no hemorrhaging.”
“Which hospital?”
I’d been on my feet from the moment I heard concussion and throwing up. I was already locking everything up as I listened to Edi go on.