by Kira Graham
I want to, though. Badly. So badly that even as I pull on a pair of leggings, an oversized blue sweater that I stole from Uncle Jack, and some cozy socks, I have to battle the instinct to make a break for the front door.
God, what the hell is wrong with me? I can’t keep doing this, I think, panting when that familiar panic starts to settle in my gut. It’s been like this ever since my stomach popped and became big enough that I could no longer hide my condition. It’s as if the memory of the day that I went over to Chilli’s is so traumatic that all I can think, when the feelings bombard me, is run.
The same way that I ran that day, and have run ever since. Up until that point, I was okay with torturing Chilli and helping Rose send him her little “gifts,” but ever since the reality of the baby became clear, I can’t seem to hold on to the courage that I once possessed. Psychologically speaking, I know what’s happening to me, but facing it isn’t as easy as I once made it sound to my patients.
Half an hour later—and I say this with no small amount of awe, because Rosetta must have practiced patience, a virtue that I didn’t think she had, instead of peeling over here at a speed that would see her behind bars—I hear the doorbell ring.
Shoring myself up, because I know that this isn’t going to be good, I shuffle to the door and take a deep breath, my hand shaking so much that I have to pull it back and squeeze it into a fist before attempting to open it again.
She’s my cousin, I tell myself. Family. This will all be okay. She won’t just blab this to the Harts, even if she technically is one now that she’s married to Zeus. She’s on my side.
Just chill out, Alex. Everything’s going to be okay.
Okay. Okay, I can do this.
Placing my hand on the doorknob again, I breathe deeply and turn it, swinging the door open and shuffling behind it, a reaction that freaking kills me because it’s stupid—and moot. I can’t hide this! I shouldn’t be hiding this.
“Move!” Rose yells, shoving the door open more widely and almost knocking me down as I spot the rest of her entourage and try to slam the door shut. In stomps not only Rosetta, Cleo, Tee, and Sin, but Adonis and Zeus as well, their apologetic expressions so false that I feel my teeth pulling back in a snarl of outrage.
“Rosetta!”
“I lied. I do that. I’m a lawyer. And a human being. That’s what we do,” she sniffs, strutting in with her head held high, her perfect figure clad in a designer jacket-and-skirt combo, and her red hair shining as it seems to wave around her in slow motion, the way a model’s hair does in commercials.
You know the kind, where they look like they’re standing in front of a fan, and everything about them is so perfect—dammit!
“Rosetta!”
“Oh, Alex, we were so worried!” Cleo murmurs, side-hugging me awkwardly when I cling to the door and keep it in front of my belly, somehow trying, despite the knowledge that it’s useless, to keep myself hidden.
“Yeah, where the hell have you been?” Tee snarls, while Sin stops in the doorway and gives me a suspicious look, her eyes taking in my pale face and my hunched posture.
“You got something to tell us?” she asks me, both of us ignoring Rosetta’s loud huff when I refuse to move away from the open door.
Pits. Sweating.
I’m starting to sweat in earnest, and that feeling isn’t just returning; it’s slamming into me with such force that I feel bile creeping up my throat. Maybe they won’t notice, I tell myself, acutely aware of my half-basketball belly scraping against the door, and the thought that pregnancy has not been kind to me, because lately, when I get anxious, I get gassy.
Oh, no!
“No?” I whine, my panic swinging between the extremes of anger, murderous rage, and the recent anxiety that seems to have its claws dug in deeply.
“Nothing at all?” Rosetta asks slowly, using that conversational tone that I hate so much because it usually means that she’s coming in for the kill.
And that kill is me. I know this because, while she seems all relaxed, with her hip cocked to the side and a soft, thoughtful expression on her face, it’s the eyes that never lie. In those burning orbs, I see knowledge and no small amount of annoyance.
“Go away! If you’re here to torture me, then you don’t need to worry; I do enough of that shit all by myself,” I grumble, side-eyeing the empty chocolate mousse tub on the counter to my left.
My apartment is small, a lot smaller than the previous one, and the guy who lives next door produces smells that seem to seep through the walls. No wonder I’m always puking, but worst of all is the fact that I haven’t cleaned the place in days, thanks to my utter lack of will. Empty cartons, take-out containers, and the box of tampons that I bought— nostalgically—litter the kitchen counter. As does something that makes me go tense and pray like hell.
Dammit, what the hell is wrong with me?
Rosetta, ever observant, catches sight of the thing and practically lunges for it before I can move, her yell of triumph followed by gasps and the sound of male curses.
I really want to run, and, in fact, I try to make a break around the doorjamb, but Sin steps in the way, blocking off my escape just as Tee tackles me, whips me around, and then goggles at the little belly that even oversized men’s clothing cannot hide.
Was it just this past week that I took sixteen pregnancy tests and then gaped at the results, completely overlooking the very obvious physical evidence of my condition? I ask myself, ignoring the plainly evident and shameful answer when Rosetta starts to dance on the spot in her pink heels, her evil cackles ringing through the air.
“I told you, Z!” she crows, another hysterical cackle leaving her.
Side note, for descriptive purposes, in case anyone needs a point of reference with regard to Rosetta: she looks like a slimmer version of Emma Stone, and has the voice of what I would call alternate-universe Emma, because when she gets happy, which is almost always at other people’s expense, it goes to octaves that would make dogs’ ears bleed.
Another side note, just because I’m dark and derisive and find humor in almost anything, even at my own expense—I’m nuts; just go with it: she’s not shocked or gaping or even concerned about the freaking onesie that she’s brandishing in triumph. No, with Rosetta, it is almost always about wins and losses, meaning that she just won. Meaning that she knew. And now, I am not just sweating as people start to converge on me, all yelling at the same time and asking questions that I am in no way ready to answer.
“What the hell, Al?”
“Is that thing real?”
“Of course it’s real! What do you think she did, swallow a watermelon?”
“Oh, my God. Honey is gonna shit a log.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“What the fuck is that smell? Did a rat die in here?”
It’s a cacophony of sound that swirls around me, and the more loudly they shout, all wanting to be heard, the harder it is for me to breathe. I feel like all the air has been sucked out of the room, as if the pressure—no, as if gravity itself—is squashing down on me and squeezing all the fight from my body.
I want to be the cool chick who can say that I screamed at them all to shut the F up, that I waved a fist at Rosetta and threatened to kick Tee’s ass when she reached over to touch my stomach. And in my head, I actually do all of those things and somehow get them all out of here without a bit of trouble. In my head.
In reality, what happens is something that I won’t ever live down.
I faint.
And make Sweet family history.
Chapter Two
Alex
“She’s fine! Of course she’s fine. She’s a Sweet. We’re made of sterner stuff.”
“Well, it looked like she fainted to me.”
“Bullshit. She’s probably dying or something. It’d take death to make one of us faint.”
“She fainted.”
“You shut your dirty whore mouth, Zeus Hart! Before I rip your tongue ou
t.”
“Do not threaten my husband, Nefertiti!”
“Or what?”
“Do you remember the time that you mysteriously contracted diphtheria and almost shit your liver into a kidney dish?”
“Rosetta—”
“Because that could happen again.”
“You infected me with diphtheria? Rosetta, how could you?”
“Do not call my ass fat, and you won’t have to risk losing yours. Now, apologize to Z; you hurt his feelings.”
“Sorry. Asshole,” Tee says in a muttered tone that sounds tortured.
“Excellent! Now, Z, honey bear, let me make this clear so that I don’t have to threaten one of my sibs with a nearly fatal disease—”
“How the fuck did you get your hands on diphtheria to infect me with?”
“You do not wanna know. Now, Z, like I was saying, honey, we Sweets do not faint. It’s just not hardwired into our DNA.”
“Jack fainted last week when Honey came back to the house with that new hairdo.”
“Hairdo? More like hair-don’t! Am I right?”
Cackles, a lot of flesh slapping that sounds like high fives, and then a throat clearing while people start to whisper, making it really hard for me to keep pretending that I’m either dead or still out of it. At this point, I want to be dead. Sweets do not faint, and we never, ever do anything pathetic like start bawling. Which looks like it could be another strike against me, because I can feel my damn eyes burning, and that traitorous acid reflux feeling I get when my emotions get too high.
I hear laughter, and then someone—I think Adonis—says something about Jack fainting again, and more cackles follow.
“That isn’t fainting. Dad does this possum thing when he doesn’t want to answer something, like when Mom comes home with pink hair like she did last week, and looks so ridiculous that even Dad can’t find anything good to say.”
“She dyed it back, though.”
“Thank God. I had this nightmare about her wearing cargo pants and singing ‘Walk Me Home.’”
“Sweet Jesus, did you see Pink’s body in that red dress? Raaawr! Mama wants me a bite of that fine athletic ass. Her body is banging!”
“Tee, stop it. If your mama hears you getting all lewd about a chick again, she will have a heart attack.”
“Shut up, Sin! I can dig on the Pink all I want. First and only woman that I will ever consider eating trout for.”
“Eww! Pink doesn’t have a trout; hers is probably more like a delicate little betta fish.”
“No way, Rose! I bet it’s all freaking awesome, like—like a shark, or…”
“Are they seriously arguing about vaginas?” I hear Z ask, his muttered whisper eliciting a chuckle from someone that I am assuming is Adonis.
“Have you ever been in the room with them when the conversation doesn’t turn into a dissertation—or an all-out brawl—about vaginas?” he mutters back, while the Four Stooges keep yelling at each other.
It’s not easy to track the argument, but I think that Cleo’s convinced that Madonna has balls under her lady lips, and Sin keeps repeating that she’d steal Jessica Alba’s coochie and have it surgically attached to her crotch, if she hadn’t received a letter from the star’s reps asking her to “please refrain from all communications.”
It’s official, I think groggily, keeping still because my stomach isn’t feeling all that great: we are all nuts. But a good kind of nuts. Like when you watch Two and a Half Men and can’t help liking Charlie, even if he is gross. Or Ashton Kutcher, who, now that I’ve watched more than three episodes with him, may be more than an okay replacement for The Sheen. Not that anyone can pull off drunken syphilis like The Sheen, but still, he’s okay in a crazy way.
Like us. We’re all messed up and slightly more than a little nuts, but as I listen to my sibs argue about vaginas in order to relieve their tension, all I can think is that if my stomach weren’t churning, I would be so happy to see them all right now.
“Do you think…?” Adonis whispers, sounding so close that I kind of assume that the two men are standing right beside me.
“Hell if I know, but if it is, I am straight up kicking his ass.”
“Amen.”
“And that’s why Jason Statham isn’t hot anymore!” Rosetta yells, distracting me from the men just in the nick of time.
Firstly, Statham is and will always be hot, even if I don’t like his movies. Except Spy, but that was more about his character and Melissa McCarthy than anything else. Now that’s a vagina I’d eat—
“Alex! Hey. Would you please wake up and tell these whores that you’re not preggers?” Tee yells, shaking me so violently that it’s hard to keep up the pretense.
Wait. How did we get from vaginas to Jason Statham and then to this? And how the heck can she not see that I am preggers? I look like I swallowed a fucking kindergartener!
“Stop shaking her! She’s in a delicate condition.”
“Shut up, Cleo. Ain’t nothing delicate about Alex.”
“Sin, she freaking fainted.”
“Sweets do not faint!” Rosetta yells, slapping me so hard that I roll off the couch and jump up all in one move, my hand swinging out reflexively.
Can’t help it. That’s how I wake up. True story.
“Ouch!”
“You slapped me!” I yell, cradling my burning cheek, while Rosetta, the mother of demons, doesn’t get so much as a blush on her cheeks.
No, the only time that that happens is when she’s so mad that she could chew nails. She actually did chew them once, and not one of her teeth chipped. See? Demon.
“Because you’re being a freaking boob, lying there and pretending to be unconscious.”
“I was unconscious,” I mutter, shaking off a bout of nausea because there is no way that I am puking with these four around.
I’d rather cover myself in sardines and run through an alley filled with homeless people.
“Were not. When you’re pretending, your right eye ticks. Almost like Nefertiti’s, but without quite so much psychopathy to fuel it.”
“Hey, screw you.”
“No thanks, Titi. Z does that job just fine,” Rosetta drawls, prompting Zeus to preen and throw her a kiss.
Fucking married people are sick.
“Asshole,” I grumble, rubbing at my cheek and taking in the room.
Tee looks fit to be tied, which is her usual face, so nothing’s changed there. Cleo is biting her lip and struggling to look anywhere but directly at me, while Sin is leaning against the far wall, her arms crossed over her chest and her body relaxed. As always. Rosetta, though—she’s the wild card, and the one that I aim to stay clear of as she narrows her eyes and flicks a look at my stomach.
“Start talking, and be advised that I will not accept anything less than the full truth.”
And I fully believe that, I think, fighting the urge to let my eyes roll back again, even as my lungs stop working and trap a big bubble of air inside me, feeling like a huge, burning ball of gas that makes black dots dance before my eyes. I can’t be this much of a coward! I just can’t be. I’m the girl who put a dog poop sandwich in the principal’s lunch bag after he forbade the formation of a female-based protest club at school. And I spent three months in detention for fighting for the right to join the football team. Firstly, I think that Sin, Tee, and I would have kicked ass on that field, because I freaking rock, and I know how to take a tackle. And secondly, how was I supposed to know that he was suffering from sinus congestion and wouldn’t smell the sandwich before he bit into it?
Sheesh.
“Rosetta, this isn’t a good time for me,” I wheeze, fighting the dizziness because I know that it’s psychosomatic, and that it’s simply my mind’s way of escaping this situation.
I don’t know why I’m reacting this way to things, and since I can’t explain my sudden…let’s call it a disorder, very much linked to the mention of Chilli Hart, I can’t exactly find a way to stop it and fix myse
lf. What if this is me from now on? What if I’ve lost all the awesome that I was born with, and this is it for me? Will I spend the rest of my life having full-blown panic attacks from just thinking about being forever linked to…
Oh, no!
********************************************************************
Two minutes and ten seconds later…
“Is she waking up?”
“Maybe we should call an ambulance. This doesn’t seem right.”
“Alex, wake the hell up! You’re scaring me. Adonis! Fix her.”
“Cleo, honey pie, I told you—I don’t know why she keeps passing out.”
“Someone go get a bottle of water from the fridge.”
“Nefertiti, I freaking told you that we are not pouring freezing water down her pants. I wouldn’t do that to Mindy Marcy, and I hate that bitch.”
“Well, what should we be doing, Rosetta? Because at this point, she’s going to be in and out all day. First fainting Sweet I ever met, if you don’t count Uncle Jack when he plays possum to avoid Honey’s bullshit,” Tee snorts, almost making me laugh. “Has anyone noticed that she keeps fainting when Rosetta questions her? Maybe you are evil.”
“Shut the hell up! All I asked was what the heck is going on.”
“Well, maybe she doesn’t want to tell us.”
“Ya think? The woman moved out of her apartment, stopped taking calls, and hasn’t been to her office. There’s obviously a lot that she doesn’t want to talk about.”
“You’re stating the obvious, Sin, and I, for one, resent that. Now, shut up and slap her face.”
“Rosetta, I am not hitting her! The last time someone tried to do that, he got seventy-two stitches. On his face.”
Sing it, sister! And let that be a lesson for all men—and women—out there. I get a whiff of someone trying to hurt me, and my ninja instincts just kick in. It’s a thing.
“You don’t think that the whole stalker thing is involved here, do you?” Cleo asks quietly, shutting up the muttering rabble so fast that I almost resent her.