by Megan Walker
Delia bites her lower lip, clearly trying not to grin so wide her face splits. “Yeah, well, that girl kind of liked that theater tech nerd, too. So yes, as long as he’s still in there under all that armor and all those muscles . . . I’ll go out with you.”
Chris grins, and the crowd cheers, and I want to be so happy for them—I am, I’m happy—but my head is ringing, and the pain is getting so intense, and Josh and Anna-Marie must have stopped making out because suddenly Anna-Marie is gripping my hand and saying “Gabby? What’s wrong?”
The king’s voice is booming out again, dismissing everyone from the tournament and bidding them to enjoy the rest of the faire, and I squeeze my eyes shut, as the pain crests . . . And then stops. Completely.
I let out a breath. “It’s okay,” I say to Anna-Marie. “Just some cramps, but I think . . .”
Suddenly, my vision starts swimming, contracting. The people leaving their seats, filing out of the arena, they’re all blurring as I’m getting lightheaded, and I’m hit with a desperate need to lie down and rest.
And that’s when the real fear kicks in. Because I think I know what’s happening, and this could be very, very bad.
“Anna,” I say, fighting to keep my eyes open. “I need to go to the hospital. Now.”
Twenty-five
Gabby
Should we call an ambulance?” Anna-Marie asks, and I’m not sure if she’s asking me or Josh or even her father the king, but I shake my head.
“There’s a hospital only about ten minutes away,” I say, my voice growing weaker along with the rest of me, even as panic pulses through me. “It’ll probably be faster if we drive.” The main advantage of having an ambulance arrive is the kind of help the EMTs can provide on the way.
But there’s not going to be much they can do for me, if my guess is right.
Delia nods, and I start to take a step forward, but my legs buckle. Anna-Marie catches me, and then Josh props me up on the other side, and they help me down the stairs of the platform.
“Are the cramps back?” Anna-Marie’s asking, her blue eyes wide and terrified. “Are you—” She looks down at my stomach and swallows.
I know what she’s afraid to say, that I’m having a miscarriage. I am, almost certainly, but it’s even worse than that. “I think it’s ectopic,” I say, just as we reach the bottom step. “And I think it ruptured.”
Her face pales. “Oh god,” she murmurs.
The world is spinning, and my brain feels like it’s wading through syrup, but I remember there was a plot line on Southern Heat sometime last year about an ectopic pregnancy—Maeve’s sister, I think, who almost died from it. Which is entirely possible, with all the internal bleeding that happens if the fallopian tube the egg implanted in ruptures, and . . . No, wait, she almost died from her post-surgery Jell-O being poisoned by the vengeful ex of her baby daddy, and I have a bizarre moment of wanting to giggle, thinking of Sarah injecting my hospital Jell-O with strychnine and—
“Stay awake, Gabby,” Anna-Marie says, and my eyes snap open, because I was indeed drifting off.
“Does she need to?” Josh asks, looking about as terrified as Anna-Marie, though slightly more confused. “Is it like with a concussion?”
“I don’t know!” Anna-Marie says, her voice loud in my ear, and I flinch back. I feel a tugging at my stomach, and through bleary eyes I can see Anna-Marie untying my corset as best as she can with one hand, loosening the strings.
I want to tell her to not bother, that it won’t help, but maybe being able to breathe would help—
“Here, let me take her,” Chris says, and suddenly I’m being scooped off my feet and carried across the arena by a handsome knight in shining armor, and I’m not going to say that teenage Gabby never had this fantasy.
But the person I really want to be holding me right now isn’t here.
“Will,” I say, craning my neck back at Anna-Marie. “Call—”
“I’m on it,” she says, already pressing buttons on her phone.
“Is she going to be okay?” I hear Delia ask, panicked, to Josh, and then I hear Anna-Marie talking to Will—oh, no, not talking to him, she’s leaving him a message. The wave of longing for him to be here, to even just be able to hear his voice on the phone, almost brings tears to my eyes.
Chris is a strong guy, but by the time he’s gotten me all the way across the arena, his clanking steps are slowing and his breathing’s getting labored, and I’m too tired and lightheaded to care that I’m apparently too heavy for the winning tournament knight to carry off into the sunset with movie-level grace.
“Can’t you go any faster?” Anna-Marie says to Chris.
“He just fought in a tournament and he’s wearing, like, fifty pounds of armor,” Delia snaps back at her. “Cut him some slack.”
“Oh my god, why is he the one carrying her then?” Josh asks, like he’s berating himself as much as anyone else. “Give her to me.”
And then I’m being handed off to Josh, and it feels like the world tilts, and for a second I think I’m falling, but no, he’s got me securely, and the world only seems wonky because I’m so dizzy and tired, probably because I’m internally bleeding and maybe going into shock and hey, maybe I’m not too heavy, after all, because Josh seems to be moving a lot faster than that big dumb jock knight . . .
Wait, that knight is a nice guy, and I really hope he and Delia have a good date, and I’m about to tell him that when another voice intrudes.
“What’s happened to her? Did she faint? Is she dehydrated?”
It’s Mama Mags, running along beside us in her full gown as we dodge through a group of women dressed like various Disney Princesses. I can hear the clanking of Chris’s armor, so he must still be following us, too. And there’s Brett the Pickle Guy, shouting out “You, there, Snow White! I don’t have any apples, but I’ve got a nice juicy—hey, what’s wrong with the nurse?”
“Just stay where you are and keep your pants on,” Chris growls at him.
“Keep his—what’s happening?” Mama Mags demands.
“We need to get her to the hospital,” Anna-Marie says, also doing her best to jog in a very full skirt. “Really bad pregnancy complications.”
“Shouldn’t you call an ambulance?” Mama Mags sounds really concerned. That’s nice. I think maybe she came around to liking me, after all, probably because I didn’t sleep with a knight on the job and maybe because she’s just a really big fan of pamphlets. Which reminds me . . .
“I’m sorry you got crabs from my gross cot,” I say to Josh, peering up at him through my half-closed eyes.
“It’s okay, Gabby,” he says with the ghost of smile, though he still looks really scared, and I think for a minute that maybe he’s still afraid Anna-Marie will leave him, but then I remember that, no, I might be dying and Will’s not even here, and I don’t know where he is. The panic flares back again, though it’s dull around the edges with fatigue.
I really, really wish Will was here. Everything would be okay then, I know it would.
“We’re going to drive her,” Anna-Marie says. She wheels back to look at Josh. “Where did you park?”
Are we in the parking lot already? There are a lot of cars around.
“Way in the back,” Josh says. “By the time I got here, the lot was super full.”
“Shit. It’s okay, Gabby, hang in there,” Anna-Marie says.
“Here, take my car,” Mama Mags says, and I hear the jangle of keys. “It’s right here.” She directs us to a black Lexus, which, wow, her job at the faire must pay way more than mine. Josh hesitates a second, but Anna-Marie grabs the keys with a “Thanks!” and she’s opening the door to the backseat. The world tilts crazily again, and I feel like I might throw up, and there’s a squeezing pain in my chest and, weirdly, my shoulder—is that a thing? I’m trying to recall symptoms from nursing tex
tbooks but I’m so, so tired and all I can remember now is the song I learned in advanced biology to memorize the Periodic Table, set to the “Can-Can,” which I’m pretty sure is not helpful at all.
And before I know it, they’ve got me buckled in the backseat, and Anna-Marie’s next to me with her arm around my shoulders, and I’m hoping that if I start bleeding outwardly—I’ve probably already started bleeding, is that why I feel so clammy?—that I don’t do so all over Mama Mags’s nice leather seats. Josh backs out of the parking spot, and I look out the window and can see Mama Mags, her hands clasped tight together and her brow furrowed, and Delia waving even as she looks really worried, and Chris frowning, with his arm around her shoulders.
I try to wave back, to let them know I’ll be okay, but maybe I won’t be okay, and I definitely need Will here.
“Will,” I say again, and Anna-Marie squeezes my shoulders.
“His phone keeps going to voicemail,” she says. “But I’m going to keep calling and texting, okay?” Her free hand presses buttons on the phone furiously. “Josh, the GPS says to take a right and go about three miles, and then a left, and the hospital is right there. Thank god it’s not far.”
“How’re you doing, Gabby?” Josh calls back, and the answer that almost makes it out of my mouth is “There’s Hydrogen and Helium, then Lithium, Beryllium . . .” But I force myself to refocus, even as I’m slumped up against Anna-Marie.
“Scared,” I mumble, mostly into the side of Anna-Marie’s purple-velvet-clad boob. I think I might be about to cry but am trying not to. “I want Will.”
“I know, honey,” Anna-Marie says. “We’ll get a hold of him. I just texted Felix, too, okay? He’s on his way. But we’ll make sure we get Will, as soon as we can. You’re going to be okay, Gabs. I’m right here.”
That makes the panic wane a bit. She’s not Will, but she is Anna-Marie, and she’s my best friend and I am so so happy she’s here, at least, even if some things have been a little awkward lately, things about stripping? No, babies. The baby she wants and the baby I was going to have, but not anymore, I don’t think.
My eyelids feel like they have weights at the ends of them, but I keep trying to blink them open. “I’m glad you’re here,” I say, because I know she will always be here when I need her to be, even though sometimes I take my body issues out on her, and it isn’t fair.
“Me too,” she says, pressing a kiss to the top of my head.
She’s going to be a really good mom someday, I think, and I try to say it, but I’m too tired to say much of anything, and the world is going dark at the edges, and then I hear Josh say, “So do we know who that lady was whose car we just took?” and I want to giggle at that, but everything goes briefly dark.
And then I open my eyes and Josh is carrying me again, and there’s some shouting—Anna-Marie maybe?—and I’m in a hospital, and then I’m being put on a gurney and there are nurses on either side of me who I don’t recognize, and everyone’s talking and I still don’t know where Will is and I’m so scared and still so tired.
“We’re going to prep you for surgery,” a nurse with kind dark eyes says. “Your friend said you thought you had an ectopic rupture, yeah? We’re going to take care of you.”
I nod, or think I do, though my eyes are looking around the room. No Will, no Anna-Marie, no Josh, no Felix. Just me and some nurses I don’t know, and a doctor bustling in, and then there’s a mask being put on my face, they’re going to put me under for surgery, and it’s so much scarier on this end than it is when I’m the one doing the prepping—
“Gabby, right?” the nurse says, looking up from where she’s prepping me. I nod again. “Are you aware that you have pubic lice?”
And after all that’s happened, that’s when I finally burst into tears.
Fortunately, the gas knocks me out seconds later, and I drop into the uneasy dark.
Twenty-six
Will
I leave my business lunch with my friend and his boss feeling more purpose in my life than I’ve felt in years. I knew Paulo back when I worked on Passion Medical, and I knew he’d since moved on and started doing some writing outside of soaps.
Turns out he just got hired as the head writer for a new History Channel series set in Ancient Rome.
And he and his boss both agree that they’d love to have me on board.
I get out to my car and sit there for a minute. I have a job offer. For a job to write. And not sleazy ridiculous soap opera crap, and not my own meandering, non-paying novels, but a promising series on a respectable network, with co-workers and deadlines and an actual paycheck at the end of the week.
If I’d realized that was going to feel so good, I would have done it a long time ago.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since the strip tease debacle with Gabby, and while I don’t have everything a hundred percent figured out, I’ve figured out this much. I want a regular job, with a nine-to-five that will keep me structured and productive. I’ve been wanting that for a long time; I just didn’t know how to say it. I want to be able to take care of my girlfriend and our family. Only I also don’t want her to be just my girlfriend anymore.
I put my hand over my pocket, where the ring box sits. We don’t have a lot of money, so I couldn’t afford anything crazy expensive, but I wanted to get her something nice, a ring she can wear for a while, anyway, until we can afford something better. Doubling our incomes will go a long way toward that, but I don’t want to wait.
While I’m making decisions, I want to make sure I get all of them right, and more important than the job, even, I realize I want Gabby to marry me. I want to be with her forever, and I want to make that completely official. Not because she’s badgering me to grow up, like Sarah did, but because it’s what I want. I know that won’t stop Gabby from having insecurities, but I think it’ll give both of us some much-needed stability, especially with the baby coming.
But before Gabby gets home from work and I surprise her with dinner, I have one more thing to do.
I pull out my phone and power it on. I didn’t want anything distracting me from shopping this morning, and I didn’t want to be interrupted during my unofficial interview.
As soon as my phone boots up, I dial Sean.
He picks up almost immediately. “Will?” he says. “This is a surprise.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m calling to say I’m sorry.”
There’s silence on the other end. My phone beeps—an alert coming through that I have text messages, but I ignore it. It’s probably a response from Josh to the apology I texted him this morning, but I can deal with that later. I’ve been putting off my brother long enough.
“Yeah?” Sean says finally.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’ve been a crappy brother for the last few years. Even before I set you up with Gabby. And I’m not still upset about that. I just . . . I guess I was holding on to old resentments, and I shouldn’t have been. It doesn’t matter what happened with Audra or with Sarah. I’m really happy for you guys, and I’d like to try to get together more, if you still want to. If Audra doesn’t hate me too much.”
“She’s pissed at you,” Sean says. “But no, I don’t think she’ll hate you forever.”
“You were right,” I say, “about my writing.”
“No, look,” Sean says. “I’m sorry about that. I shouldn’t have implied that writing books isn’t a real job. And I shouldn’t have been such a jerk about it. I really did just want to help, you know?”
“I know. And I took your advice and got a job at Home Depot.”
Sean chokes. “Home Depot? Dude, I promise I pay better than that.”
“I’m quitting,” I say. “I kind of panicked and applied there, but I reached out to some of my old coworkers from Passion Medical, and I just got offered a job writing for the History Channel.”
“Wow. That sounds . .
. kind of perfect for you, actually.”
“Yeah,” I say. “It really is. And I wanted to say congratulations to you and Audra. I’m sorry I was such a jerk about it before. You guys are okay?”
“Yeah, we’re fine,” Sean says. “I had to apologize a lot, but I owed her that. It’s good that she knows the truth now. I’m sorry I put you and Gabby in a position to have to protect my lie.”
“That’s okay. We obviously didn’t do a good job of it.”
Sean laughs.
“Actually,” I say, putting my hand in my pocket and holding the ring box, “I’m going to ask Gabby to marry me. I just bought a ring.”
“Really?” Sean asks. “Well, congratulations.”
“She hasn’t said yes yet.”
“Yeah, but she will. She loves you.”
I close my eyes. I know she does, but I’m still not entirely convinced that she’ll be okay with my decision to stop working on my novel. Not that I’ll never dabble with it again, but I’m really not happy working by myself, with no one to bounce things off of and no one to be accountable to.
And honestly, I think in part, I’ve just grown up and become someone who wants a steady paycheck more than total creative freedom. It’s not what Gabby wanted for me.
But it’s who I am, and I have to hope she’s going to be able to accept that.
“Thanks,” I tell Sean. “Wish me luck.”
I’m going to need it.
I hang up with Sean and look at the text messages—there’s a whole string of them.
My whole body seems to sink as I scroll through them.
And then I start the car and drive toward the hospital as fast as I legally can.
Twenty-seven
Gabby
When I come out of the anesthesia, someone is holding my hand.
“Will?” I say, though my voice sounds froggy and my throat is dry.
“No, we haven’t been able to reach him,” Felix says. He squeezes my hand. “We’ll keep trying, though.”