Chapter 12: Toothless Monsters
Melissa
My feet are in Elaine’s lap and she’s massaging them while we watch Pitch Perfect for the thousandth time.
“I think I can do that cups trick.” Speaking of cups, Elaine’s on her third margarita, while I’ve almost finished the entire chips and salsa by myself.
“Don’t. You’re drunk and you’ll just make a mess.”
She swats my foot. “I am not drunk!” She struggles to get up, but I push down with my legs, pinning her in place. “Let me up!”
“Seriously, can we please just finish the movie? I told you tequila would make you wild.”
“All the little kids do it at my school.” She’s whining now. “I’ve been wanting to try.”
“I don’t have any solo cups.”
Pouty face. “Fine. But you can’t crush my dream. I’ll do the cups!”
I grab the remote to rewind the scene we’ve missed while she was talking, but the movement pinches my stomach. “Oh, shit. Why did you let me eat all those chips? I’ll have heartburn.”
“I’m not about to get between a pregnant lady and her snack foods.” She takes another wobbly sip of margarita. “Besides, you’re in that lucky ‘eating for two’ stage. Live it up!”
“That’s a myth. My doctor said I shouldn’t gain more than fifteen pounds with this pregnancy.”
She leans forward and scoops up some chip particles from the bottom of the bowl. “Have you seen your fiancé? He’s a giant. That baby needs food.”
“Not sure chips and salsa count as real food.”
She flops back, and we’re quiet again, watching. She takes another, longer drink, and my eyes cut to her face. She’s not smiling. She’s been down since she got here, and I know Lainey well enough to tell it’s more than just missing Patrick.
“You okay?” I ask as gently as possible.
A few moments go by, and she blurts it. “I did something really bad.”
My brow lines in confusion. I can’t guess what in the world she might have done, but I can tell it’s seriously bothering her. “Do you want to tell me about it?”
She sits up and puts her margarita on the coffee table, then flops her arms at her sides. “Just… don’t lecture me. I know it was wrong.”
Eyebrows raised, I nod and take her hand. The anticipation is almost too much.
She takes a deep breath and then lets it out. “I stopped taking my birth control pills last month.”
My head ducks forward. “What?”
Her grip tightens on my hand. “You heard me.”
“Does Patrick know?”
“No. And I know it was wrong. I was having a really hard month, and then Kenny called, and it made me so depressed. I just felt like… I’m going to lose him, Mel.” Her voice cracks, and her green eyes are so round when she looks at me. “I panicked.”
“Oh, Lainey!” I reach forward to hug her, but she pulls away, shaking her head.
“I know, it was manipulative and all that… and there’s more.”
Sitting back again, I chew my lip. Now I’m nervous. “Okay?”
Her voice is thickening, and I can tell she’s going to cry. “I pulled this stupid stunt, and… nothing happened. Nothing! We must’ve had sex a hundred times last month, and I started today just like clockwork.”
I begin to breathe again. “But that’s a good thing, right?”
She nods, but she doesn’t answer me.
“Hang on.” I roll my awkward self so I can put my feet on the floor and then scoot closer to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “What are you thinking right now?”
“That I’m broken?” She puts her head on my shoulder as the tears fall. “What if I can’t get pregnant? I really will lose him… then what will I do?”
At that moment, the show’s enormous musical performance erupts from the screen. We both jump, and I scramble for the remote to mute it.
My heart is thumping, but I go back to where she is, taking her hand. “I think you should talk to Patrick about it. He might want to wait on another baby, considering what’s happening with Kenny—”
“Yes, Kenny. She can have his babies.” She cries harder, falling into my lap. “He’s going to leave me for her.”
“Oh my god, he is not! For starters, Patrick doesn’t love Kenny, he loves you. And jeez, Lainey, it was only one month! Come on…”
Sitting up and shaking her head, she wipes her nose with the back of her hand. “I know it’s true. I can feel it in my gut. This is just what I get.”
“What you get for what?”
“For being jealous? For thinking evil things about Kenny and her baby…” She sniffs. “I actually hoped—”
“Stop. You have always been dramatic. Just because you thought something about your fiancé’s baby mama doesn’t mean you actually meant it.”
“I meant it.” Her voice is low and her chin drops. “I’m a horrible person, and now I’m getting what I deserve. I’ll never have Patrick’s baby, and he’ll leave me for her. Just wait and see.”
“What the hell! Of all the—I am never letting that boy leave town again! And you’re cut off. No more margaritas.”
She falls back on the cushions to cry. It’s possible she’s on a jag, so I try for counter-maneuvers.
“In fact, I might text him right now and tell him you’ve gone nuts, and it only took one week of him being out of town for it to happen.”
She flies back up then. “Don’t you dare! I don’t want him to know what I’ve done.”
“So far you haven’t done anything but play pregnancy Russian roulette and talk like a crazy person.”
“He’s going to leave me for her, Mel. He doesn’t know it now, but he’s going to take one look at his little baby boy, and it’s going to be over for me.”
Catching her cheeks, I lift her face. “Look at me. Yes, Patrick is going to fall in love with his son, but he is insanely in love with you. Nothing is going to change that. He’s drawn to you. He can’t fight it. You’re the candle, and he’s the moth.”
She blinks tears, and I pull her to me, rubbing her back. “Trust me. I can see what you can’t, and as much as I know Patrick would love it if you got pregnant, you need to include him in the planning.”
“I know,” she sniffs, holding my waist. “I want to believe that.”
“Then believe it.”
We’re quiet for a few moments as her sniffles gradually subside. My thoughts drift to the young woman I’ve only met once. “Why did Kenny call?”
Elaine sits up and grabs a napkin off the table, blotting her cheeks. “She needed him to cosign for her to get a car loan.”
I nod, pressing my lips together. “I thought it might be something with the baby.”
“No.” She folds the napkin and then unfolds it again. “He called the dealer the next day and just bought it for her, said she doesn’t need to worry about a car note.”
That makes me smile. “He’s really sweet to her.” My smile quickly vanishes when I see Elaine’s chin drop. Her brow crinkles again, and I grab her hand, hoping to derail any more tears. “They’re friends. It’s a good thing, Lainey. What if she were a raging bitch?”
Her lips press together as she studies the napkin. “You’re lucky. You don’t have anything threatening your relationship with Derek.”
As much as I want to argue she doesn’t either, I pause and think about it for a few moments. Even though she’s drunk and irrational at the moment—or maybe because she is—I let my guard down. “I used to be afraid he’d never love me as much as he loved Allison.”
Her face jerks up to mine. “What the hell? Whatever would make you think something like that?”
Shrugging, I look at our hands. “She was his first real love. They dated in high school, she waited for him to come back from Iraq. I can tell she was this wonderful, amazing person, and I—”
“Now who’s talking crazy? Derek Alexander is the most threatening man I’ve ever met in my life, and when you’re in the room, he completely changes. It’s like he’s your personal tame lion.”
“Still, she had his heart first, and he mourned her for so long.”
“Okay, so you said you used to be afraid. What changed?”
“Oh! That’s why I’m telling you this.” For a moment my old fears had tried to creep in again, but I scoot forward. “I finally just told him. I said it out loud to him.”
“And?”
“And it was the best thing I’ve ever done. He opened up and told me things… I don’t think he would ever have said to me otherwise. You know how guys are.”
“Patrick will talk, but only when he’s in the mood.”
“Right!” I relax, leaning back on the cushions. “You need to talk to him about how you feel when he’s in that mood.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know. It just feels different, and you don’t have anything else to be afraid of with Derek. No dark secrets.”
“I’m afraid of what might happen tonight.” Once the words are out, I wish I’d never said them. Elaine’s brow creases, and it’s clear she hasn’t connected the dots on what could happen if things get out of hand in Baltimore.
“What do you mean? You think Derek might do something—”
“Illegal. Something that if he’s caught, he’ll be taken away from me. You know how protective he is. He’s done things… And I’m afraid he’ll do them again, and then I’ll lose him.”
We’re quiet, and Elaine’s green eyes travel over my shoulder and out the window. Up and away across the miles to where we both know they’re waiting. She blinks, and she’s back here with me.
“Patrick won’t let that happen. I know he won’t. Derek’s like a brother to him—a brother he likes—and he won’t let him… get caught.”
She didn’t say let him do it, I mentally note. “That’s what I’m counting on.”
Quiet again, we hold hands until she pulls me into a hug. “Isn’t there a saying about how if you speak your fears, they lose their power?”
A knot is in my throat, and I’m not sure I believe it. Still I go with her. “It sounds familiar.”
“Well, we’ve said it then. Now our fears have to disappear.”
I hold onto my friend. She holds onto me, and we settle in to wait, hoping against hope that our fears are now nothing more than toothless monsters.