There is a dead body in here, I think.
When I don’t respond, she repeats more forcefully, “Where have you been?”
“I was here,” I repeat woodenly, staring past her at the wall. “I’ve been here the whole time. I’m fine.”
She sits beside me on the sofa. “You’re not fine, obviously! What on earth happened?”
I think about it for a moment, and arrive at the only logical conclusion. “I died. And now I’m in hell.”
When I turn my head and look into her eyes, all the color drains from her face. “You’re scaring me.”
My stomach growls. I try to swallow but my throat is so dry I can’t. I’m dizzy again, so I close my eyes so the room will stop spinning. “I need to be alone now, Kat. Please tell everyone I’m fine. I just need to be alone.” I try to stand, but my knees give out and I end up sagging back to the sofa, breathless, the room spinning.
“That’s it,” Kat says firmly. “I’m calling your father.”
My eyes fly open. “No! Kat, no, please, don’t call anyone. I can’t see anyone. I can’t . . . I just can’t . . .”
Suddenly I’m struggling for breath. I feel as if all my organs are failing. I look at her, at her worried eyes and pale face, and realize with a painful intake of air that I don’t want her to leave.
I’m afraid of what will happen if I’m alone for much longer.
I gasp, gulping air, beginning to shake all over. I blurt, “He doesn’t love me, Kat. It’s over. It was all a lie. I found him with Heavenly . . . I walked in and he was . . . they were . . .”
Her face goes through a number of expressions before it settles on fury. Her lips thin to a pale, hard line. “Don’t think about it right now. We can talk about it later. Or not, whatever you want. Just lie back and rest.” She gently pushes me back onto the sofa, and covers me with my fluffy chocolate cashmere throw. Suddenly I can hardly keep my eyes open.
“I need to make a few calls, but I’m staying here with you. I’m not leaving, okay?”
You’ll never have to be alone again, not if you don’t want to be.
I remember A.J.’s promise, and all the broken things inside me grind together, making me bleed.
I don’t answer, but Kat doesn’t seem to require it. She sets about turning on lights, opening windows, letting fresh air into my dank, stuffy apartment. I hear her on the phone, ordering food, then she calls several other people. My parents, I assume. Probably Grace, the shop. I drift in and out of a hazy sleep/wake state, lulled by the soft cadence of her voice in the other room.
I fall asleep once again.
One small mercy: I don’t dream.
Over the next few days Grace and Kat take turns looking after me. They fill my refrigerator with food, do my laundry, make me meals, hold my hand in silent support when I begin, out of nowhere, to weep. I’ve refused to speak to either one of my parents, but the girls take care of that, too, reassuring them I’m okay, and that I just need a rest.
I might need more than a rest. I might need a prescription for strong painkillers and a long, pleasant stay at one of those places where a nice lady in a white uniform speaks very softly while pushing me around tranquil gardens in a wheelchair.
But slowly, over the next few weeks, my strength returns.
With it comes a terrible, burning rage. I find myself staring at random sharp objects—knives, scissors, the sharpened point of a pencil—and imagining myself plunging them into A.J.’s neck.
It’s a little frightening, but it’s better than the bottomless despair that swallowed me before. At least the rage gives me energy.
I go back to work. I relearn how to smile. Though it’s not genuine, most people either don’t notice or don’t care. Kat and Grace do notice and care, but I think they’re just glad I’m out of my pajamas and back into what passes as the real world.
Not that it is, of course. The real world is back in a crumbling ruin of a hotel in the hills, in a candlelit room with opera music and a three-legged dog and a man who taught me what happiness looked like.
Here, there, all an illusion. Everything is make-believe. Nothing really matters to me anymore either way.
Though part of me wants to burn them, I carefully pack my collection of beautiful origami birds into a box and bury them under a pile of old blankets in the back of my closet. Maybe someday I can look at them without wanting to scream, but for now they’re entombed, like my heart.
June passes, then July. I don’t look at newspapers, I don’t watch television, I don’t surf the web. I don’t want to accidentally catch a glimpse of him. And I can’t bear to listen to the radio. I don’t want to be reminded of all I’ve lost.
Of all that never existed in the first place.
Several times I get the hair-raising feeling I’m being watched, but when I turn to look, there’s never anyone there. I convince myself it’s wishful thinking. No one’s watching over me, not anymore.
Then August arrives, and the wheels of Fate turn once again.
Vegas. I’ve only been here once before, and now I remember why I’ve never been back. I can smell the desperation in the air.
“Now this is what I’m talking about, bitches!”
Kenji, wearing black suede platform boots, skintight purple velvet pants, a fuchsia silk scarf, and a long, black leather trench coat even though it’s over one hundred degrees outside, sails into our suite at the Wynn with his arms held out, a giant grin on his face.
I admit the room is spectacular. It’s actually not a suite, it’s a three-thousand-square-foot villa, with balconies, a private massage room, floor-to-ceiling views of the golf course, and a dining room that seats ten. Fresh flower bouquets are everywhere, scenting the air with the delicate perfume of orchids and roses. The biggest gift basket I’ve ever seen sits in the middle of the mahogany dining table with a personal note from Steve Wynn, welcoming us to his resort.
It’s weird having a famous friend.
Kat and Kenji are sharing one bedroom; Grace and I have the other. It’s Kat’s bachelorette weekend. I’m determined to smile constantly so they’ll all stop looking sideways at me, so obviously wondering how I’m holding up after being jettisoned like shit from an airplane toilet that it makes me want to scream.
“Okay, who needs a drink?”
Like Kenji, Grace is also rocking a definite Vegas style: sky-high stilettos, tons of black eye makeup, hair teased out to there, and a teal Valentino minidress so short I’m sure her coochie is about to make an unscheduled appearance. She stands at the large, curved bar over a three-deep row of bottles, wiggling her fingers in anticipation.
“You know what I need, girlfriend.” Kat drops her handbag on the sofa and kicks off her shoes. She heads toward the bedrooms.
Grace nods. “Margarita: rocks, salted rim, Patrón silver. Coming up. Kenji?”
“Do we have any Hendrick’s?”
Grace looks over the display of bottles, then holds one up. “Yes.”
“I’ll take a gimlet.” He doffs his leather duster, flips the collar up on his shirt, then throws himself dramatically onto the long butterscotch leather sofa, where he sighs in bliss.
“Chloe?”
When I think about having a drink, my stomach turns. It’s been doing that a lot lately. I’ve gone off half a dozen foods; everything from salad dressing to the tofu I usually love disgusts me. And I’ve been craving meat, for the first time in years.
A.J. not only broke my heart, he broke my appetite.
“I’ll just have a sparkling water, thanks.”
Grace stares at me as if I’ve just told her I’m plotting a government coup. “Sparkling water?” She looks at Kenji. “What language is this strange woman speaking? I don’t understand a word coming out of her mouth.” She turns her attention back to me. “Is this, or is this not, a bachelorette party?”
The argument isn’t worth it. I can always dump my drink down the sink when no one’s looking. “Fine, I’ll take a vodka rocks.”
/>
“That’s my girl!”
From somewhere deep in the bowels of the villa, Kat shouts, “You guys! Come check out the bedrooms! They’re huge!”
Before I make a move, a bout of nausea hits me so hard I’m slapping my hand over my mouth as I run to the bathroom. I hear Grace calling my name, but I can’t stop; the contents of my stomach are coming up, and they’re on the express train. I barely make it to the toilet before I’m bent over, retching into the bowl.
“Jesus, honey, what did you eat?” Grace has followed me into the bathroom. Like the good friend she is, she holds my hair away from my face as I cough and spit.
“Nothing. I haven’t had anything to eat all day.” Those strange, unemotional tears that always accompany vomiting stream down my cheeks. I slump to the floor and lean against the wall, panting, my stomach in knots. Grace hands me some tissue and I blow my nose. I drag the back of my hand across my face, wiping at the wetness on my cheeks. “Whoa. That just hit me out of nowhere.”
“You should see your face, it’s totally green.” Grace turns on the sink faucet, runs water over a hand towel, and passes it to me so I can wipe my face. She jokes, “It’s not morning sickness, is it?”
The world comes to a standstill.
Clocks stop ticking, birds stop singing, the earth stops spinning under my feet. A noise like a thousand wolves howling swells inside my head.
I count, then recount, then count again. Slowly, I raise my gaze to hers. My eyes, which I’ve just wiped dry, fill again with water. I whisper, “Grace.”
Her lips part. She stares at me in wordless horror. She shakes her head in disbelief. “No.”
“I don’t know. I think . . . I think I missed my period. I can’t . . . I wasn’t paying attention. I’ve been so . . . I’ve been so . . .”
My mind blinks offline. It can’t stand the possibility of what it’s putting together, so it just shuts down completely, leaving me staring stupidly at Grace with my mouth hanging open.
She kneels on the floor in front of me. Her face is white. She grips my wrist so firmly it hurts. “Think. When was your last period?”
I swallow. In a thin, wavering voice, I say, “May. The beginning of May.”
Her eyes go very wide. “And this is the beginning of August.”
I start to shake. “No. It can’t be. I’m . . . it’s just because I’ve been depressed, and not eating right, and working too hard, and . . . and . . .” When I run out of implausible excuses, I look at her pleadingly, begging her with my eyes for another explanation.
She blows out a slow breath and slumps to the floor beside me. “There’s only one sure way to find out. You need to take a pregnancy test.”
Please, God. Please. Don’t let this be happening to me. Not now. Not after everything I’ve been through. Not this, too.
“We can’t tell Kat. It’s her big weekend. I can’t ruin it for her.”
Grace and I look at each other, and I can tell by the look on her face she understands exactly what I’m referring to. There’s an awful story in Kat’s past about a pregnancy that didn’t end well. There’s no way I can bring up my fears without being one hundred percent certain either way.
Grace reaches over and squeezes my knee. “You’re right,” she says softly, “we’ll wait until Monday to deal with this.” Her eyes are so sad I feel like bursting into tears. “But, honey, you can’t wait any longer than that. If it’s really been since May, there are decisions you have to make . . .”
She keeps talking, but I stop listening, because I’m filled with a sudden, inexplicable relief.
I’ve gotten a reprieve from reality. For another two days, I don’t have to face the possibility that I’m pregnant with A.J.’s child.
Yippee.
The weekend passes in a blur. I couldn’t say what we did or where we went or who we saw, it’s all a jumbled mess of memories. Flashing lights, rainbow colors, raucous laughter, and the smell of cigarettes, everything underscored by the worry gnawing my stomach. My insomnia doesn’t help matters. No matter what I try, I just can’t get to sleep. My mind runs on a hamster wheel the minute I lie down, and eventually I get up and leave Grace softly snoring in the other king-size bed in our room, and wander through the dark villa alone.
As I watch the sun come up over the desert, I say a little prayer of thanks that my suggestion to have Nico spend his bachelor weekend next door to Kat’s never panned out. I have a secret suspicion Kat put the kibosh on that after what happened between me and A.J., but the idea was never mentioned again.
No one ever speaks his name around me. We’ve all adopted an unspoken “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which suits me just fine.
One thing I do know for certain: A.J. is still Nico’s best man, and Kat is none too happy about it. I overheard a one-sided phone conversation in which Kat hissed, “I don’t care what he’s going through, Nico, Chloe walked in on him with a hooker!”
I turned around and walked away before I could hear more, before my mind could spend too much time dwelling on what he might be going through. I can’t let myself care what his problems are. It will be bad enough seeing him at the wedding.
When I think of that it makes me ill.
We fly back from Vegas the same way we arrived: on Nico’s private jet. Until we disembark—or is it deplane? I can never remember the difference—I’m confident Grace and I have done a good job of covering up any possible whiff that anything might be amiss. But as we’re waiting for the limo driver to finish putting our luggage in the trunk, Kat pulls me aside and demands, “Okay, this has gone on long enough. What’s up?”
I don’t bother with evasions. She’ll find out soon enough either way; I’m headed straight to the drugstore after she drops me off at my apartment. “Okay. Two things. One: I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure, and I definitely didn’t want to upset you. Because I think this might upset you.”
She frowns, and I hurry on. “And two: before I tell you, you have to promise me you’ll keep it a secret. You can’t tell anyone. Not even Nico.”
Her brows shoot up. “Honey, there’s nothing I don’t tell him. You know that.”
I nod. “But that’s my condition. He can’t know. Because if he knows, there’s the possibility that he might tell A.J., and I’m just not ready . . .”
I trail off because Kat’s mouth has dropped open. Her eyes go wide in the same way Grace’s did. “Oh, God, Chloe, no.”
She’s figured it out already. I should have known. “Are you upset?”
She figures that out, too. Faster than I can blink, I’m pulled into a hug. “No, you idiot, I’m not upset for me, I’m only worried about you!” She pulls back and clutches my arms. “How could this have happened? Didn’t you use protection? I thought you were on the pill!”
Suddenly it feels as if gravity is working overtime, and I’m about to be sucked down into the ground and swallowed up forever. Which might not be such a bad thing.
“I haven’t been on the pill in months, not since Eric. And A.J. and I did use condoms, just this one time . . . we got a little carried away.” The laugh I make sounds disturbing, even to me. “And it only takes once, doesn’t it?”
Kat moans. “Oh, sweetie. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know, Kat. Honestly, I don’t know anything anymore. Just, please—don’t tell Nico. Not yet. I’m not even sure yet. Fingers crossed, this is all just from stress.” I try on a grim smile. “Or maybe I’ll get lucky and it’ll be cancer.”
Kat hugs me with all her might. “I’m here for you, whatever happens. You know that, right?”
I look over her shoulder at Kenji and Grace staring with worried eyes at the two of us, and I’m grateful that I’ve got people on my side, because I have a terrible feeling I’m going to need them.
If my trip to the drugstore ends with a little blue line on a stick that I’ve peed on, I’m going to need them all.
Three hours later, I stare down at the white
plastic stick in my hand, laughing. I laugh and laugh and laugh, until eventually I start to cry.
Sobbing, I look up at my bathroom ceiling. “God, I’d just like you to know that I officially hate your guts. And don’t expect to hear from me ever again.”
I throw the stick in the trashcan and go into the living room to call my mother.
She’s always wanted to be a grandma.
My mother reacts to my news with her typical aplomb; after a long pause, she simply says, “Oh, sweetheart.”
Then, because it’s the universe’s new favorite thing to screw with me, my father picks up the other phone extension in their bedroom and demands, “What’s ‘oh sweetheart’? What’s wrong?”
“Hi Dad. How are you?” I stall, because he’s not going to react nearly as well as my mother. In fact, I’m betting that some time in the next five minutes he’ll be threatening a lawsuit and throwing things at walls.
“Chloe,” replies my father firmly, “I heard your mother’s tone. Tell me what’s wrong with you.”
Ha. Where to start?
“Technically there’s nothing wrong with me, Dad, it’s just . . . I um . . .” I take a moment to try to gather my courage. When my courage remains cowering under the sofa, I close my eyes and go it alone. “I’m pregnant, Dad. I haven’t seen a doctor yet, but I just took a home pregnancy test and it’s positive.”
Furious silence crackles over the phone. My mother says gently, “Thomas.”
“It’s all right, Mom. I’m mad at me, too.”
“It’s his?”
My father refuses to even speak A.J.’s name. I didn’t tell them about Heavenly, or really any of the details of what happened that day. I only told them we’d broken up, but they’ve witnessed firsthand the state I’ve been in over the past few months, and dislike him intensely just for that.
Well, my mother dislikes him intensely. My father might actually be plotting A.J.’s death.
I listen to my father’s irregular breathing on the other end of the line, and bow my head in shame. “Yes, it’s his. Listen, I know this is . . . it isn’t ideal—”
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