CHAPTER THIRTY
KATE
The toilet is my new best friend. Fifteen minutes after my last round of hurling, my cheek is still glued to the cool porcelain seat. I’ve never in my life been more grateful for a housekeeper than today.
Clean toilets are the best toilets.
I don’t even know what day it is. What time of day it is. Wonderland has officially chewed me up and spit me out. For what I can only assume has been the last four days, I’ve completely lost a sense of reality.
I’m caught up in the current of karmic bullshit and spiraling into oblivion. Also, maybe I’ve watched too many soap operas lately and the drama is now infused in my soul. That happens when you’ve done nothing but eat club crackers and puke everything else up.
“Kate?” Lily calls from the front of my apartment. “Where are you?”
I left the top latch undone so she could find me. So I could stay on my porcelain pillow and not move. Moving is terrible. I’m not even certain what is making me so sick at this point. It could honestly be a dozen different things. Or all of them at once.
“Oh, honey.” Lily says, trying to keep the pity out of her voice and failing. She sits next to me and feels my forehead. “You look miserable.”
“You don’t know the half of it.” I groan. “It’s so much worse than it looks.”
“Maybe it’s not? Okay, shit right now is really bad, but it could always be worse, right? Give me a minute, I’ll think of something.”
“Don’t bother. I’ve spent all day brainstorming. It’s still shit.”
“I brought wine. It might settle your stomach?” Lily sets the bottle next to me on the floor. My favorite Pinot Grigio. “I can get one of those super long crazy straws so you can drink it from right here.”
I shake my head slowly, in case I upset anything left in my stomach. “Can’t.”
“I can stash it in the fridge until you’re back on your feet. There’s nothing wine can’t cure.”
“Oh.” I draw the word out with a shaky breath. “I’ve found something.”
“Did you already have too much?”
I unfurl my fist braced against the floor and hold the pregnancy tests out for Lily to see. Her face cycles rapidly from confusion to horror. She takes them from me and studies each one for an eternity. Turns them upside, flips them over, looks again. Repeats the process for each.
“Oh, shit.”
“Ta-da.” I groan again.
“What can I get you?” Lily dumps them in the sink and grabs a washcloth from the sink. “Club soda? Crackers?”
“Nothing works. I don’t know.”
She places the cold cloth against my forehead and I want to cry from relief. Not only is it cool, but to have someone take care of me in the throes of the worst few days of my life is enough to make me cry. I’m not alone. It feels like it a lot, but at this very second there is someone here to take off some of the load.
I cry because I don’t know what else to do. I didn’t think I had any more tears, but there they are, spilling down my cheeks. Lily dabs them gently with a crumpled piece of toilet paper and kisses my forehead.
“Let’s get you out of the bathroom. Are you up for walking?”
“Maybe?”
Lily helps me up and slowly, patiently, walks me to the living room and sets me up on the couch. She runs to the kitchen and returns with iced club soda and a massive empty pot for puking. Guess I won’t be making spaghetti again for a while.
“Talk to me. How long have you known? Just today?” She tucks me into the couch with a soft blanket and places the damp cloth back on my head.
“I think I’ve known for a while. I haven’t been feeling well and always chalked it up to stress.” I spit out a hollow laugh. “Nope. There’s just a human growing inside my body. One I’m supposed to take care of.”
I cry again. It bubbles out of me in sharp bursts because the dam has been shattered and nothing is left to protect me from the thoughts spiraling in my brain.
Life is so cruel.
“Do you…” Lily’s face contorts. “Do you know whose it is?”
I nod slowly. I haven’t been able to speak the words since I found out. Saying it is too terrible. Saying it out loud makes it real.
This can’t be real.
“Dammit.” Lily breathes. “It’s David’s, isn’t it?”
Sobs erupt from me as I nod, once. Lily hugs me tight and kisses my forehead, and I cry into her shoulder. My head throbs and my throat screams and my heart feels like it’s going to shatter.
“Are you certain?”
“Date of last missed period.” I take a shaky breath to calm down. “I haven’t had one in two months. I thought it was stress at first, right? Totally normal. But…”
“The night before mediation.” Lily murmurs and shakes her head. “The drunken goodbye fuck made a baby.”
“And I’ve been a raging alcoholic. I’m killing this baby before it even has a chance, Lily.”
“Stop that.” Lily says kindly and wipes my cheeks. “Plenty of women get knocked up by accident while they are out partying. Shit, my mom was on a vodka diet when she conceived me in the back of my dad’s Volvo in the eighties, okay? You are going to be okay.”
“I don’t think so.” My lip quivers and my head feels like it’s caving in. “I really don’t. And every time I think about going to a… clinic… I start to have a panic attack. I can’t do that, Lily. I can’t. I can’t.”
“Hey, hey. It’s okay.” Lily soothes. I don’t believe her, but her voice is low and calm, so I try to focus on that.
“But—”
“Baby girl, this will be glorious, okay? I will be with you the whole time. I will hold your hair when you puke and I will rub your feet and I will hold your hand for every doctor’s appointment. Fuck all the men in the world. Aunt Lily will be here for every second.”
“Promise?”
“On my life.” Lily hooks her pinkie around mine. “You’d be here to do the same for me. Maybe we can move in together and I’ll be there to help with whatever you need.”
“I can’t ask you to do that. I can’t ask you to change your whole life for me.”
“Kate Lilliana Monroe McArthur. You listen to me right now. You are my best friend in the whole world. I would have died from alcohol poisoning twice if it wasn’t for you in college. I’d be trapped in a dead-end job forever if it wasn’t for you. I’d be friendless on my own if it wasn’t for you.”
“Whatever. You’d do the same for me.” I try to wipe away the tears that keep falling.
“Exactly. So here I am. And we’ll get through this together. We don’t need David.”