Chapter Eleven
Scarlett
I hadn’t known a lot of pregnant women in my life, but whenever the topic arose, the women who’d been through it talked about the joy of having new life inside you, of knowing that you were bringing a living being into the world. They talked about the miracle of your changing body, of the pregnant glow, and of how beautiful it all was.
Morning sickness and swollen feet were an afterthought.
Well, the bitches sugarcoated it. It was hell on hot wheels.
I couldn’t stop vomiting. They called it morning sickness, but it was every-time-of-the-day sickness, and it was violent. Google told me that it only happened during the first trimester, followed by a lot of comments by pregnant women who had kept throwing up until the day they gave birth
Not to mention the smells. God, I was getting sick of my heightened sense of smell. I smelled everything, and it wasn’t a good thing. I couldn’t stand my deodorant anymore, I couldn’t use air freshener, and I struggled with the smell of my trashcan in the kitchen. I’d taken to leaving the can outside my front door.
Was it that much worse now that I knew I was having triplets? Google said that more babies didn’t mean more trouble, but it sure as hell felt like it. And even though Googling everything made me feel like I knew what was going on with my body, Google had nothing to say about how I could stop it.
It was pure torture.
I was hugging the toilet again when someone knocked on my door. I pulled myself up and looked in the mirror. My skin was pasty, and my hair clung to my sweaty face. I blew my nose, splashed water on my face, and tried to smile. I looked like shit. Maybe I could just ignore whoever was here, and they would go away.
“Scar?” Lily called through my door.
I couldn’t ignore her. She was my best friend. That, and she knew my car so she knew I was home.
“Coming,” I called out. My throat hurt from throwing up. I opened the door, and Lily stood in front of me, looking fresh. She was in her office attire–a blouse and suit pants, with her hair pulled back. Her smiled faded when she saw me.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
I nodded. “I’m fine,” I said. I hugged her. She pulled back when I let go and narrowed her eyes at me.
“I’ve known you long enough to know that you’re not fine when you say you are. Have you been throwing up again?”
I couldn’t lie to her. What would one more be, to be honest? But she would see through this lie. It was the only reason I had to tell the truth, which was saying something about how far this had gone, but that was another worry for another time.
“What’s going on, Scar?” Lily asked.
“I think it’s a stomach bug.”
Lily raised her eyebrows. “For three weeks? No bug lasts that long.”
I shrugged. “I’m going to make tea. Hopefully, that will stay down. Do you want something?”
“No, thank you,” Lily said, but she followed me to the kitchen where I put on the kettle. “Are you pregnant?”
I froze and swallowed hard before I turned around.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “How long have we been playing this game with boys? I think I can handle myself by now.”
Lily didn’t laugh at my attempt at a joke. Shit, she was serious.
“You know that I’ll support you if you are,” Lily said. “I’m worried about you. You keep to yourself so much now, and you’re never this sick. This looks a lot like a baby to me.”
I shook my head and took a cup out of the cabinet for myself.
“Are you sure I can’t get you anything? I bought fruit tea the other day. It’s pretty good.”
“Don’t change the subject,” Lily said. I knew where she got her serious attitude from. Evan was just like that–to the point.
I sighed. “I’ll go get it checked out, okay? I’ll go to a doctor, but I know it’s probably going to be a digestive thing. Or a parasite.” Like a baby. “I’ll probably get antibiotics or something.”
Lily narrowed her eyes at me. “You can’t skip out on it,” she said.
I chuckled. “Yes, Mom.”
“I still think you’re pregnant,” Lily said.
I shook my head. “I’m pretty sure I would know if I’m pregnant,” I said. “You know, periods and everything.”
“You’ve been regular?”
Thank God, she’d asked it right. I’d been very regular. I was having a baby, so I didn’t have my period, too, but that still counted as regular. Right?
“Yeah, nothing wrong with my cycle.” I patted myself on the back for my diplomatic answer.
Lily looked at me, and I blinked, trying not to look as guilty as I felt. I was still lying to her in a way, and I hated lying to Lily. She was my best friend, and she didn’t deserve this. She didn’t deserve any of it–not me lying to her or sleeping with her dad or carrying her siblings.
“I still think something’s up,” Lily said.
I groaned. “I said I would go to a doctor,” I said.
“I mean with you being different. I can’t put my finger on it, but I know you. And this isn’t you.”
My stomach turned. She was right, of course. It was all the lies and sneaking around that did it, but there it was.
“I’m going,” Lily said.
“That’s it?” I asked. “That’s all you came to say to me?”
“My lunch break is pretty much over. I came to check on you because I feel like you’re so far away I can’t reach you. I was right, too, wasn’t I?”
I didn’t answer her. Of course, she was right. That was Lily, strong and confident and almost always right.
“I’ll talk to you later,” she said when I didn’t respond. She left my apartment, seeing herself out and closing the door behind her. I sank to the kitchen floor when she was gone. This was getting harder and harder to hide. What was I going to do when I was starting to show? And with three babies inside me, that was going to be a lot sooner than if I only carried one.
I was in trouble.
I got in bed and slept for the rest of the day. I was so damned tired. It was a thing, apparently. Pregnant women were tired all the time. When I woke up, it was almost dark, and I felt uncomfortable and restless. I couldn’t get into anything on TV. I couldn’t relax. Lily’s words kept going through my mind–are you pregnant? She wasn’t stupid.
If Evan didn’t talk to her soon, she would figure it out by herself, and then we would all be in so much shit. It would shatter our friendship.
I had to talk to Evan about it. I called a cab and made my way to Evan’s house. On the way, I texted him, telling him I was coming. I needed to talk to him. This wasn’t about sex at all, but he’d known earlier that I wasn’t okay. He would want to talk, too. He was just as good at reading me as Lily was. Apparently, it was impossible hide anything from the Burkes.
Being pregnant also made me emotional. I wanted to cry. Everything felt too big for me. My stomach hurt, and I felt uncomfortable in my clothes. They were scratchy on my skin.
Evan opened the door before I had a chance to announce my arrival. He put his arms around me and folded me against him.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I shook my head. I knew that it wasn’t such a big deal, but suddenly, I just wasn’t okay at all.
“Come on inside,” Evan said. “To the kitchen. I made food.”
I followed him to the kitchen. The whole house had a romantic feel to it. The lights were all dimmed, and music played from somewhere, something soft and soothing. This was so different from all the other times I’d come here, when we’d fucked and I’d left right after.
In the kitchen, candles were lit on the shelves, and the white tiles with stainless steel appliances and granite countertops somehow looked soft and inviting. I sat down on a stool at the breakfast bar. Evan brought a platter with different kinds of crackers and cheese.
“This looks great,” I said. It was light, not a full meal, not a dinner. It was just what I needed.
“What’s bothering you?” Evan asked after we’d eaten in silence for a while.
“Lily,” I said. “We have to talk to her. She was at my place earlier, and she suspects that something’s up.”
“What did you say to her?” Evan asked.
“That it’s probably a bug or something.”
Evan nodded. “Yeah, that’s not going to last.”
I sighed and took another bite of a Saltine. The cheese proved to be too rich for my tender stomach, so I stuck to just having the crackers. My stomach turned, and I paused.
“Are you okay?” Evan asked.
I shook my head. The food was going to make a reappearance. I jumped up and ran to the guest toilet that was opposite the front entrance. I made it to the toilet just in time and threw up everything I’d just eaten.
Evan came after me.
“No, stay away,” I said, my voice strained like it was being squeezed through a tube. “There is nothing attractive about this.”
“I did this to you,” Evan said. “The least I can do is hold back your hair.”
Which he proceeded to do. I couldn’t remember the last time a man had done that for me, if any man ever had. I retched and heaved until my stomach was emptier than it’d ever been. Finally, it was done, and I sat back on my heels, feeling like I’d been hit by a bus.
The front door clicked open at the same time as I flushed the toilet and stood up, and Lily walked in.
She froze when she saw me and Evan both come out of the guest toilet.
“What’s going on here?” she asked. She looked around and took in the lighting, my flushed face, Evan’s guilty look. She narrowed her eyes.
“Is it his?” she asked.
I felt the blood drain from my face.
“Lily.” I didn’t know what to say.
“It is, isn’t it?!” Lily was starting to freak out. “I can’t believe it! I knew you were lying to me, but my dad? Dad!” She turned to Evan. “You couldn’t stick to the rest of the girls in Manhattan. You had to start picking from my friends? I think of going to be sick. You make me sick!”
“It’s not as bad as it looks, sweetheart,” Evan said, his hands up in defense.
“Oh, it almost can’t be, can it, Daddy?”
Evan shook his head. “Really, this isn’t what you think.”
“Come on, cut the crap. Both of you. You think this is fine, fucking each other behind my back and I wouldn’t care? My dad is perverted freak and my best friend is right in there with him. I’m sick of being lied to, by the only two people that are important to me? This is bullshit.”
She turned around to leave.
“Lily,” I called after her. She spun around at the door.
“Don’t you dare, Scar. You could have said no to him, you know? You should have. I don’t want to see you again. You two want to ride off into the sunset together, be my guest but I’m not holding your hand through this. Fuck you, Scar.”
She’d never sworn at me and it hurt like a bitch. I’d messed up. I’d known it for a while but the sinking feeling in my stomach made me want to vomit again. Losing Lily hurt more than any of sex had felt good. Without another word, she left the house, slamming the colossal door behind her. The whole mansion seemed to echo with the bang, and we were left behind in a room that felt like all the air had been sucked out of it.
It wasn’t even the wake of her destruction that we were experiencing, it was the wake of ours.