by Beth Rinyu
“That fucking asshole!” I desperately wanted to take my anger out on something at that moment.
“I know…..I hate him for doing this to her.”
“Carrie, promise me you’ll call as soon as you get there. I need to know that she’s okay.”
“I will. I promise.”
I hung up the phone, unable to focus on anything. I emailed my agent and my PR rep, letting them know to cancel whatever was on my schedule for the next week. As soon as I heard back from Carrie about what was going on, I intended to be on the next flight to New York to be there for Gia.
Nineteen
Gia
I rested my head back on the pillow as the orderly came in to take away my uneaten breakfast tray with the nurse right behind her to change my IV bag.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
How was I feeling? Did she really need to ask? Physically, I felt fine. Mentally, I was a wreck. “Okay,” I mumbled, turning my head and staring out at my rooftop view. I breathed a sigh of relief when she finished up and walked out the door, allowing me to be alone again with my own thoughts. I closed my eyes thinking back to the last five months of my life, then the last week and finally the last twenty-four hours. I had been told that I had lost so much blood that I needed a transfusion. Hard to believe that the only reason I was here right now was because I had someone else’s blood pumping through my veins and my baby removed from my body.
“Gia?” my eyes peeled open and the tears that were welling in my eyes began to spill down my cheek at the site of Carrie. Her eyes began to overflow as well as she looked me over before rushing over to my bed, throwing her arms around me. And for the first time since the day I had found out I was pregnant, I finally felt like I wasn’t alone anymore.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, as we both hugged each other tightly, crying in unison.
“I don’t know. I just – I just felt like such a fool for allowing this to happen. Then I felt like a hypocrite for actually wanting to be a mom after it did. I wanted this baby more than anything, Carrie. I wanted to know that I had somebody I was responsible for, someone that would love me and I would love back unconditionally.”
“There was nothing wrong with feeling that way, Gia. That’s your baby.”
“Was my baby.” My voice cracked. “The pregnancy was in my tube. They had to remove the baby and my tube….so that right there was probably my one and only shot at motherhood. Probably for the best anyway. I would have just ended up screwing it up,” I sobbed.
“No, you wouldn’t have, Gia. And someday you will have a baby and you’ll be an awesome mom, but the next time it’s gonna be with the right man.”
I shook my head and stared straight ahead. “Did you tell Mom?” I asked.
“No, not yet. Chelsea told me that you just wanted me to know for now, but Gia, I have to let her know.”
“Just wait, please. She and Ben are down in Florida visiting Aunt Dana. You know if you call her, she’ll be on the next flight home.”
“But Gia –”
“Carrie, please? They’ll be back tomorrow. I promise, I’ll call her then.”
She let out a deep sigh. “Fine, but I did tell Dad. I’m sorry, Gia. I didn’t know what the heck was going on and I thought that maybe if Dad called the hospital, they’d give him more information.”
I closed my eyes, trying my hardest to halt the tears. I knew my father was going to go off the deep end, especially where Jasper was concerned.
“Hey Gia, how are you feeling?” Jason asked as he cautiously entered the room.
“I – I just feel numb to everything.”
“Gia, you’re going to have to give yourself time to heal both physically and emotionally.” Carrie spoke calmly and gently as she dabbed my eyes with a tissue.
“I just feel so overwhelmed, but it’s like nothing even matters anymore. I have the ballet starting this weekend and I don’t even care. I have to call them to let them know but I just can’t even get the words out to tell them what’s going on because I know once I say it, it will become real and I don’t want it to be. If someone had told me that I’d be in this situation five months ago, I would have laughed in their face. Yet, here I am.” My voice cracked with emotion. “All of the rehearsals, all of the time and sweat that I put into that part in hopes of using it as a spring board for something bigger are gone. Now, my understudy will be given the prized role of the Sugar Plum Fairy and will probably go on to make it big and it doesn’t matter at all to me.”
“Gia, relax, just let me know who to call and I’ll take care of it for you.” Carrie said gently.
“Thank you,” I whispered, pulling her into a hug.
“Gia.” I lifted my head from Carrie’s shoulder to find my father standing next to me. The pain on his face was something I hoped to never see again. Carrie stood up, allowing him to take her place. His tear-filled eyes tugged at my heart. I had never seen my father cry and I hated knowing that I was the cause of it.
“I’m okay, Dad. Really, I am.” I reassured him.
“Umm…Jason and I are going to get some coffee. Do you want some Dad?” Carrie asked. My father nodded and Carrie and Jason made their exit, allowing us our privacy.
He moved my hair away from my face and caressed his hand down my check. “Gia, please tell me that he was at least here for you when all this happened.”
I looked away, wanting to spare him the agonizing details. “It doesn’t matter, Dad. It’s over and done with. I have my family here with me now and that’s what’s important to me.”
“That son of a bitch.” I could hear the rage building in his voice.
“You and Mom were both right. I should have never gotten involved with a man who wasn’t divorced and it turns out he was pretty ruthless and not a gentleman after all. I just don’t even want to think about him anymore. I – I feel like I lost a little bit of me…” I shook my head and choked back the tears. “The whole time I was with him, it was like I was someone else. Someone that he wanted me to be….and now this, I feel like I lost even more.”
“You have your whole life ahead of you and you are going to do great things with it, Gia. You’re gonna find yourself the right guy and have everything you ever wanted without losing yourself in the process. I promise you.”
“I hope so,” I whispered, trying to put his mind at ease, but the truth was, I really didn’t care about my future. I didn’t care about anything. It was as if nothing mattered anymore. Jasper and this pregnancy had changed me so much that I wasn’t sure if the old me would ever be found again.
***
After spending another night at the hospital, I was finally released. Carrie was adamant that I come and stay with her and Jason, but I just wanted to be alone. I was hoping to try and convince her that I would be fine, but when she still wasn’t relenting by the time we walked through my apartment door, I knew that I didn’t have much of a choice. She and Jason didn’t leave my side yesterday and they’d both rearranged their work schedules so they could be back here today to be with me when I was released. I always knew I had a great family and after these past two days, Carrie and Jason had reaffirmed that. “You go sit down while I get your things together,” Carrie said, walking around my apartment with my overnight bag while Jason was outside taking a work phone call. I went to help her and she shooed me away. “Gia, will you sit, you just had surgery. You should be taking it easy.” It actually felt better when I walked around but she wasn’t hearing any of it. I looked down on my coffee table at my What To Expect When You’re Expecting book and felt a knot form in my stomach. I flipped through the pages until coming upon Chapter 7 – The Second Month Approximately 5 to 8 weeks. Eight weeks was where I was told I was at…..so close to making it to my third month. Not that it would have mattered anyway. I couldn’t even bring myself to read how the baby would be developing this month or how I would be feeling. I already knew how I was feeling and didn’t need a book to tell me that. I sta
red at the pages blankly, allowing them to become soaked with the tears that were falling onto them.
“Gia?” Carrie whispered softly, coming up behind me and standing quietly while I had my mini meltdown. She buzzed Jason in and slowly took a seat next to me, removing the book from my hands. “Don’t. Don’t do this to yourself.” I gazed blankly into space. My incisions in my stomach began to ache but if felt good compared to the emotional hurt I was in. I welcomed the physical pain, it was a reminder that my baby was real. Carrie gently rubbed my arm as my eyes set upon the framed photograph of Jasper and I, sitting on the shelf. All of the pain was now turning into pure anger. I hoisted myself from the couch, ignoring the piercing pain in my stomach and walked over to the picture, taking it off the shelf and staring at it intently. How could he have done this to me? How could I have allowed him to do this to me and most of all, how could I have ever fallen in love with someone like him? I hated him. I just wanted him to feel even one ounce of the hurt that I was feeling right now. Instead, he’d gone back to his wife and was playing house like nothing had ever happened or as if I had never existed, leaving me all alone to pick up the pieces and deal with the emotional and physical scars. “I hate you! I hate you!” I shouted to the picture. I slammed the frame into the coffee table shattering the glass into a million pieces, but that still wasn’t enough, I wanted the photograph behind it gone. I wanted to tear that man in that picture into tiny little pieces, the same way he had torn my heart apart. I picked through the jagged edges of the glass trying to get the photograph, ignoring the deep cut on my hand that it had created….I just needed to get to that photo and make it go away.
“Gia….stop!” Carrie shouted as she bent down next to me, trying to get the frame from my hand, but it was useless, I was on a mission and no amount of blood or pain was going to stop me. Another prick to my skin as the sharp edges of glass ripped through my flesh, trickling warm blood all over the expensive suit that Jasper was wearing in the picture. God, how I wished he could somehow feel that blood on his skin right now and know the hurt that he was causing me.
“Gia!” Jason shouted as he walked through the door, rushing over to me. He was finally able to grip the frame from my grasp as I sat on my living room floor with my hand soaked in blood, having a complete and utter breakdown. Carrie rubbed my back as I tried to catch my breath while Jason wrapped my hand in a towel to try and subdue the bleeding.
“How could he have done this to me?” I let out a sob, trying to catch my breath. “He – he told me that he loved me….and here I am, all alone.” I cried even harder.
“You’re not alone, Gia. You’re not. You have your family. Jason and I, Mom and Ben, and Dad and Amber will be here for you for whatever you need, please don’t say you’re alone.” Carrie’s voice cracked with emotion.
I was numb, not even caring about the blood soaking through the towel. “Carrie, keep this wrapped around her hand. Gia, do you have a first aid kit?” Jason asked. I shook my head, still unable to render words. “Let me go see if one of her neighbors has one,” Jason said as he got up and walked out the door.
I closed my eyes and rested my head on Carrie’s shoulder while she gripped tightly to the towel wrapped around my hand. I was emotionally spent and didn’t even have the strength to open my eyes when Jason came back in and leaned down beside me to tend to my hand.
“Hey, beautiful girl, why are you so sad?” I knew that voice and it wasn’t Jason’s. When I opened my eyes, all I could do was cry even harder at the sight of Cam’s deep brown eyes filled with emotion as he kneeled down beside me. He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me into his chest. I don’t ever remember crying as hard as I was at that moment, with his muscular arms holding me tight, as I inhaled the familiar scent of his cologne. I nuzzled myself further and further into his chest, finally giving into my exhaustion and crying myself to sleep.
Twenty
Cam
After I carried Gia into bed, Carrie had filled me in on everything. If I knew where to find that fuckin’ coward, Jasper, I’d be doing something to get myself into serious trouble right now. I couldn’t believe that he’d just walked away from Gia, leaving her to deal with the aftermath alone. I had never seen her look so weak and vulnerable as she had just a few hours ago when I’d walked through that door. Carrie looked both physically and mentally exhausted with worry for her sister. She’d just hung up the phone with her mother and seemed even more frazzled.
“Well, her flight’s delayed because of bad storms down there and I am officially the worst daughter in the world for not telling her as soon as it happened.” She let out a deep sigh.
“Carrie, don’t beat yourself up over it, you were just doing what Gia asked,” Jason tried his best to reassure her, but I could tell she was still feeling guilty.
“Carrie, stop stressing yourself out, you’ve been doing everything that you possibly could for Gia,” I said, trying to help her alleviate some of the guilt.
“I know, it’s just….I’m really worried about her. I have never seen my sister this upset. She really wanted that baby.” She shook her head. “I just want her to deal with this properly and give herself time to get over it and I know Gia, and a week from now she’ll be as tough as nails on the outside and ready to crack on the inside. I just feel like, as her sister, I should have known. Why didn’t I tell her that he was no good for her? Why couldn’t I see that?”
“Because you just wanted her to be happy and she was for a while.” Jason responded.
“Was she? Come on Jason, you saw how she acted the few times we were around the two of them, it was like she was a completely different person.”
I thought back to all the times Gia would talk about Jasper and how it was always what he wanted, it was never about her. That wasn’t the Gia I knew either. “I know she’s gonna give me a hard time when she wakes up about going back to our house, but I’m not letting her stay here by herself.”
“I’ll stay with her,” I blurted out.
Carrie’s eyes widened. “Don’t you have to get back to L.A.?”
“No, I can do whatever I need to do from here and the rest can wait.” I replied.
“Cam – that’s super sweet of you, but she’s really a basket case right now. I think maybe –”
“Carrie, you may have your degree in social work, but I speak fluent Gia. Trust me, I want to do this.”
She glanced over at Jason, still seeming unsure of the whole situation. “Well, okay, we’ll see what she wants to do when she wakes up.”
Gia exited her bedroom on cue. Her beautiful blue eyes were unrecognizable, almost swollen shut from crying. “Are you hungry?” Carrie asked. Gia shook her head and threw herself down on the couch. “Gia, you really need to eat,” Carrie pleaded.
“I’m not hungry,” she responded.
“Hey, Gia….how about if we order pizza from that place up the street that you like in a bit, maybe by then you’ll be hungry? I asked.
“Yeah, sure,” she whispered.
I raised my eyebrow in triumph at Carrie and she cracked a smile back.
The rest of the evening was spent catching up with Carrie and Jason. Gia would chime in every now and then but mainly focused on the TV. She managed to eat a half a slice of pizza and by seven o’clock I could tell she was getting sleepy again. “Gia, Cam said he would stay here with you if you really don’t want to come back with Jason and me,” Carrie said.
Gia lifted her head from the pillow and she seemed to perk up ever so slightly. “Cam, you don’t have to stay here and babysit me. I’ll be fine. I’m not suicidal, Carrie,” she snapped.
“I know you’re not, but I just don’t want you being alone, at least for the next couple of nights. You’re still recovering from surgery and…” she stopped herself just in time.
“And losing my baby. You can say it, Carrie. It happened. It’s real.” Carrie nodded and looked away. “I’m perfectly fine. I can –”
“Gia, it’s not up for
debate. Those are your two choices. Jason and me or Cam?”
“You are so impossible,” she scoffed, flashing some semblance of a smile that made me smile in return.
“I really want to stay here, but Cam –”
“I will be your humble servant for as long as you need me to be,” I teased.
She let out an exhausted breath. “Well, it’s very reassuring to know that my family thinks I’m a total headcase.”
“No….we don’t. We love you, that’s all,” Carrie replied.
“Cam, seriously, you have way more important things to do than play babysitter to me.”
“Nothing is more important than you, Gia.”
Carrie’s eyes widened and her gaze fell upon me and then Gia.
Gia let out a defeated sigh before agreeing to have me stay. “I’ll help you in the shower before I leave.”
“Carrie, I think I can take a shower just fine by myself.”
“Gia, the doctor specifically said to watch you for the next few days because you may be having bouts of dizziness due to all the blood loss.”
“And if I do pass out in the shower, what are you going to do? Carrie, you are five months pregnant, you can’t be lifting your helpless sister out of the shower if she faints.”
“No, but we have two strong men here, at least I can make sure you’re presentable before they come in to lift you up. Go ahead and get in, you’ll feel much better once you do. I’m going to put some clean linens on your bed.”
“Geez, mom…okay,” Gia responded. It was good to hear her getting that little bit of sarcasm that was so her back.
“No, actually, Mom will be here tomorrow.” Carrie laughed as she and Gia walked off to the bedroom.
“Those two are lucky to have each other,” I said turning my attention back to Jason.
“Yeah, they are. They’ve definitely got that twin connection thing going on.” Jason shook his head and laughed. “So, how come you never let Gia know just how crazy you are about her?”