Heather
I tried to convince myself that Killian was just being protective. That he said what he said because he cares about me. But I couldn’t. His words played over and over again in my head as we sat together in the hospital room, the word ‘abortion’ sticking out as if it were a slur. It floated across my brain, typed in boldface, red font, all caps.
It was the second time in less than twenty-four hours that someone had mentioned it, the other time being my own father. I know Killian hadn’t said it the way my father had, forceful and cruel, but that didn’t matter. What I needed more than anything else was someone to be on my side. Someone to support me and trust that I could make my own decisions. The last thing I needed was another man telling me what to do, telling me how to take care of myself.
The silence between us grew heavy, and I wondered if Killian could feel it. I wondered if he carried the weight of it the way I did. He must have because when it became nearly too much to bear, he offered to leave, give me time to rest. I didn’t stop him.
He kissed my forehead before he went, twisting a strand of my hair between his fingers, and I let him, though it didn’t bring the same flutter to my chest. It didn’t fan a flame inside of me. I felt cold, distant. Like I was encased in a block of ice, and he was standing outside trying to melt me with a matchstick.
The remote for the TV was broken, so I had to wait for a nurse to come in before the channel could be changed or the volume could be adjusted. The lights were dimmed, but they still had a fluorescent flicker that made my skin look papery and see-through. The doctor recommended I stay overnight for observation, but I couldn’t sit in the tiny, sterile room another minute. I insisted I felt fine and that I’d go home and immediately rest. They tried to dissuade me, but I insisted.
The clothes I came in were folded on a chair in the corner, and upon unfolding them, I realized I’d been wearing Killian’s clothes. A giant T-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts. I grudgingly slipped them on because anything was better than the open-backed hospital gown.
Rolling the sleeves and tying a knot in the hem of the shirt made it fit a little better, but the boxer shorts were a total loss. No way I was going to be able to convince anyone I enjoyed walking around in blue and red plaid shorts with a slit down the crotch.
The burner phone still had a charge, though the battery was critical, and I was able to order a taxi. When the car got there—a bright yellow minivan with a missing hubcap—I realized I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go. Going home definitely wasn’t an option, and I didn’t want to see Killian. Not now, anyway.
I checked my wallet and pulled out my debit card, an emergency credit card, and $125.00. Even if Dad had canceled all of my cards, which I highly doubted, I would be able to stay in a cheap motel for a few days on the cash alone.
I asked the driver—a balding middle-aged man with a tattoo of a snake wrapped around his neck—to take me to the nearest motel. If he was weirded out by my clothes or the fact that I was coming out of a hospital and headed to a motel by myself, he didn’t show it. I made myself feel better by thinking that he must drive much stranger people than me on a daily basis.
I relaxed into the small back seat and watched the blur of the houses rush by the window, wondering who lived inside each one. Thinking that each one held different people with different lives and different thoughts made me feel small. Eventually, I closed my eyes, tired of seeing anything at all.
###
Killian
The towel from our shower was still on the floor of the bathroom, and the side of the bed where Heather had been laying was still mussed, as I hadn’t been in any mindset to make the bed before rushing her to the emergency room. Signs of her presence filled the space, but it still felt like a dream. The whole night had been too much to handle; a rollercoaster of anger and pleasure and terror. I could only imagine what it had been like for Heather.
Mentioning the abortion was supposed to be a sign of my concern for her, of how much I cared for her, but I feared she hadn’t taken it that way. Sitting in the hospital room with her afterward, I’d stayed silent, thinking for some reason she’d apologize to me. For what, I don’t know. Maybe for not understanding my meaning? For not being appreciative of how much I cared about her?
But back at my apartment, it all felt petty and unimportant. I should have explained myself right then. I should have apologized for mentioning an abortion. I should have hugged her and told her I had just been scared, but that I knew she could have this baby and everything would be fine. Heather didn’t need more doubt and fear. She needed reassurance, someone she could depend on, and I’d royally missed that mark.
As soon as I got home, I wanted to go back to the hospital, but I knew she needed time. She needed to rest and relax. I kicked my jeans and boots off and climbed into bed, but I couldn’t sleep. The events of the night kept running through my head on a loop. The few times I did manage to drift off, I’d jolt awake, thinking I felt Heather shaking next to me, my arms stretched out towards the empty side of the bed trying to hold her together.
Finally, after a few sleepless hours, the sun came up, and I put my same dirty jeans back on, brushed my teeth, and left for the hospital. The drive there felt unending. I walked through the automatic doors right as visiting hours began, but I waited at the front desk for a receptionist for ten minutes.
When she finally arrived, blue circles under her eyes and a tall thermos of coffee in her hands, she insisted Heather Rourke was no longer in the hospital.
“That’s not possible. I brought her in last night. She is definitely here.”
She took a loud slurp of her coffee and turned her head to one side like a dog who doesn’t understand a command. “And I can assure you, sir, that she definitely is not. It says so right here.”
She pointed to the screen but covered it with her hand when I leaned forward to try and read it.
“Is there someone else I can talk to?” I asked, trying to keep my cool, but wanting nothing more than to knock the woman’s coffee from her hands and shake her into understanding.
“Oh, yes,” she said, smiling up at me, “there are many other people here you could talk to, but they are going to come to this computer, read the same information I am, and tell you the same thing. She checked herself out last night.”
I grunted out my understanding and walked towards the doors to the parking lot, but then stopped. Where was I going? If Heather wasn’t here, where was she? She didn’t have a car, but I’d had the forethought to grab her purse on the way to the ER, thinking that they may need her driver’s license or other forms of ID. I’d been proud of myself the night before, feeling as if I’d thought of everything, but now I cursed myself. Clearly, she’d called someone and gotten a ride somewhere or paid for a taxi or…Went home? Could she have gone back to the compound?
I tried to push the thought away immediately, but it kept coming up like my brain were a Ferris Wheel, cycling through the same process repeatedly, always ending up back at the beginning.
She went back to the compound. I made her doubt me, and she was sick and didn’t have anywhere else to go, and she went home.
Fear clutched at my heart, making my hands tremble. I couldn’t protect her at the compound, and I knew her family wouldn’t. Every fiber of my body wanted to run to her; drive through the gates, crash through Kevin Rourke’s door, and carry her away with me. But I had to be smart. I took a few deep breaths, trying to steady my heart rate and clear my head.
The automatic doors opened, and I was walking through the parking lot before I had even realized I’d made the decision. By the time I got to my car, my phone was pressed to my ear.
“Killian?”
I was surprised to hear my dad’s voice on the other end of the line before I remembered I’d called him.
“Hello?” he said, his voice sounding unsure as if he thought it might be a prank call or a butt dial.
“Hey, Dad,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “I need to talk to you.”
He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was filled with ice. “We don’t have anything to talk about.”
“Then why did you answer my call?” I asked.
I’d caught him. He’d answered my call. Certainly, he hadn’t deleted my number from his phone, and even if he had, he’d memorized my number years ago. He knew it was me and he picked up the phone anyway. For the first time in a long time, hope sprouted in my chest. Maybe I could fix everything after all.
“What do you need to say, Killian?”
“We need to meet,” I said. “It has to be face-to-face. I need you to see me and know I’m not lying.”
Dad always knew when Niall or I were lying. He had the parental instinct that basically made him a human lie detector test. If I could tell him what Heather and I had found out while looking in his eyes, he’d have to believe me.
“That’s not a good idea.”
“What do you think I’m going to do?” I asked, before realizing I already knew the answer.
“You know what I think you’re going to do,” he shouted into the phone, the line cracking around his anger.
“I’d never hurt you,” I said. “I’d never hurt Niall, either. Please, meet me.”
He sighed, and I could hear the resignation in it, the inevitability.
“It has to be at the compound.”
“Will I be allowed in?”
“I’ll take care of everything,” he said. “Be here tomorrow morning at nine.”
“Thirty minutes,” I countered, checking the clock on the dash and estimating how long it would take me to drive there. “I can be there in thirty minutes.”
“Tomorrow at nine,” he repeated, refusing to budge.
The line went dead, and I closed my phone. I opened it again and dialed Heather’s cell number, but it went straight to voicemail. Then I called the burner phone. Same thing. Either she’d turned her phones off, or they were both dead. Either way, I hoped it had been her decision. And I hoped she’d be safe until I could get into the compound. It was going to be a long day.