Page 5

CHAPTER 5

SIENNA

By the time, I get back to Russell’s place, I’m ready to throw up. I basically ran the whole way back, pushing the stroller and carrying Zoey until I couldn’t breathe. She got sick of being jostled around and soon started squawking until I slowed to a shuffle and panted my way to the front door.

It opens before I can turn the handle, and Russell greets us with a cheerful “Hey, family! How’s my little girl?” Reaching for Zoey, he takes her out of my arms, tickling her tummy and making her giggle and squirm.

But her humor doesn’t last long. Soon she’s grousing and then starts crying.

“What’s the matter, lil’ bug? You tired?”

“Y-yeah.” I find my voice. Having stored the stroller with trembling hands—wrestling it shut with a desperate grunt—I manage to stand and face my roommate.

“Are you okay?” He frowns, concern flashing through his eyes. “Sienna, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” I smooth back my hair. “I’m just not feeling great. I think my period might be due or something. I’m not sure.”

Zander called me Sparks. I haven’t heard that nickname in three years. I didn’t even realize how much I missed it until he whispered it on the playground. I shouldn’t want to miss it!

He destroyed me!

The words in my head are screaming so loud, I miss the first part of Russell’s sentence.

Blinking, I try to focus on what he’s saying.

“…it sucks, but maybe it’s coming early.” He gives me a sympathetic smile while my forehead wrinkles.

Does he know my cycle?

You live together. He’s not stupid… and he takes out the trash.

I try to talk myself out of the chill that’s racing down my spine and shake my head. It’s not weird that he knows when I have my period—it’s weird that he knows when it’s due . I’ve only been here a month, so I would have had at least one. But surely he didn’t make some kind of mental note or?—

Ugh! Just stop thinking about it. Put Zoey down for a nap and then fold yourself into a corner and cry. You know that’s all you’re capable of right now.

“Well, do you want to go lie down? I can give Zoey a drink and settle her for you.”

“That’s really, sweet. Thanks.” I force a smile. “But I can put her down. Then I think I’ll take a nap as well.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” I reach for my daughter, needing her chubby little arms around my neck, needing her soft hair ticking my exposed skin, needing her weight against my chest.

Cradling her in my arms, I don’t even mind when she wipes her snotty nose on my shirt. She’s getting grizzly, so I hurry through her diaper change. I need to start potty training her soon. From everything I’ve read, she’s showing me signs she’s ready, but I just wanted to get settled into Russell’s place first.

It’s been five weeks, Sen. You’re settled.

Swallowing back an unexpected sob, I try to ignore the fact that Zander and I have probably been living in the same town for over a month, and I didn’t even know it.

Shit, had we passed each other in the street and not even realized?

Picking up Zoey, I rock her in my arms for a minute before laying her down in her crib. She grabs Piggy Watson and Professor Lovebug, squeezing them in her arms before curling onto her side. I rub her back, watching my precious angel fall asleep and still trying to wrap my head around the fact that she was talking to her father less than an hour ago.

Her father.

The man who didn’t even know she existed.

I never thought I’d be the type of woman to keep something like that a secret. But I also never expected Zander to change so much when he left for college.

I couldn’t bring a baby into his life. After what I saw, I didn’t want to bring him back into mine.

But how different would things have been if he’d known the truth?

A shudder runs through me as my mind skips over the last time we were together and straight to the doctor’s appointment that changed my life forever …

The doctor’s office was cold and sterile. I didn’t like it. But if this woman would help me figure out why I kept throwing up all the time, then I was willing to stay in my seat. At first I wondered if it was pure heartache. Zander had been gone for over a month, and I knew that I was supposed to be getting over him and enjoying school, but I missed him so much. Walking the halls knowing I wouldn’t be seeing him around the corner… knowing I couldn’t wait for him after football practice… knowing he wasn’t going to be holding me anytime soon… It was a killer.

I’d been miserable ever since he broke up with me, except for that one perfect night when we said our final goodbye. I wanted that night back. I wanted it back over and over again.

Mom took my hand, giving it a little squeeze and looking as worried as ever while the doctor typed notes and continued asking questions.

“She’s been throwing up for about a week and half,” Mom explained. “At first I thought it was just a stomach bug, but the fact that she’s still so ill makes me wonder if she might have something really nasty, like campylobacter or gastroenteritis. Can she be tested for those, please?”

“If that’s what we need to do, we definitely will. Let me just ask a few more questions first.” The doctor smiled kindly at me. “Have you had any fever?”

“No,” Mom answers for me, obviously mystified by this. “No fever, no rashes, no diarrhea. She just can’t seem to hold her food down.”

The doctor nodded, then looked at me, her gaze penetrating my inner core and only exacerbating my anxiety. “When was your last period?”

“Um…” I frowned, confused by the question. What did my period have to do with a stomach bug?

Mom stiffened beside me, her eyes going wide as she turned to hear my answer.

“About three or four weeks ago? My next one’s due any day now.”

The doctor nodded again, tapping into her computer. “And how was it?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Your last period. Was it normal? Heavy? Light? Anything different about it?”

Mom’s breath hitched, and she started blinking really fast.

I frowned at her and started blinking myself. “Um… I guess it was kind of light for me. More kind of spotting for five days or so. Usually, I get this like heavy flood for about two days, and then one day later, it’s over, but I guess it just decided to go long and slow last month.”

“Okay.” The doctor bit her lips together, typed a few more notes, then looked between my mother and me. “Sienna, are you okay with your mother staying in the room with us?”

“Yes, why?”

“I need to ask you some personal questions, and you have the right to confidentiality if you want it.”

“Oh, um… no, Mom can stay. She knows everything anyway.” The questions were making me even more nervous, and the thought of Mom leaving me alone with this doctor was freaking me out.

Clinging to my mother, I gripped her hand tightly while the doctor gave us a professional smile, then asked the worst question ever. “Are you sexually active?”

My shoulders slumped, my voice quaking as I shook my head. “No.”

“So, you’ve never once had intercourse?”

“Oh.” I frowned, my shoulder hitching. “I mean, I have… had… sex. I just don’t anymore.” My insides jerked and trembled, sorrow consuming me like it always did when I thought of Zander.

“And when was the last time you had sex?”

I looked at my mother and admitted, “It was the night before he left, so… When was that?”

The color drained from Mom’s face, her eyes closing as she rasped, “About six weeks ago.”

“Yeah.” I sniffed, my chin bunching until Mom huffed and rounded on me.

“You told me you were being safe! You said you used protection!”

Startled by my mother’s snappy tone, my slow-ass brain was struggling to keep up.

Wait… what were they implying?

A cold fear shot through me, and I couldn’t comprehend that question.

All I could do was argue, “We did use protection. All the time!”

“Did you? That last time? Did you?” Mom’s voice pitched and her arms flailed. I hadn’t seen her lose it like that before, and it was throwing me.

I opened my mouth to emphatically say, “We did!” but then I remembered. As I sifted through the crazy barrage of emotions that had driven my every move that night, I finally got down to the facts .

“Sienna. Think! Did you?—”

“He pulled out,” I quickly interrupted her, remembering that moment with sharp clarity, the look on his face as he came all over my stomach, the way I loved him so deeply, so strongly in that moment that I nearly cried. “Yeah, he definitely pulled out.”

“Oh my gosh.” Mom covered her mouth with her hand and whimpered.

“What?” I looked at the doctor, panic finally blasting through my memories and telling me something I didn’t want to hear. The penny was dropping, and it was hitting every raw surface within me. And following in its wake was a tidal wave of pure terror. “No… that, no! Pulling out is a safe method, right? I mean, right?”

The doctor winced, folding her hands together on the desk and giving me a sympathetic smile. “It’s one of the least reliable.”

My brain seemed to freeze for a second, and I couldn’t speak properly. “No… you… I can’t… I can’t be pr-pregnant.”

“We’ll have you take a test to be sure.” Her voice was so calm.

How could she be so calm? How could she sit there changing my entire life and be so unaffected by it?

“I’m gonna be sick.” Lurching out of my chair, I raced to the bathroom, barely getting the toilet lid up before emptying the meager contents of my stomach into the bowl.

As I wiped my mouth with shaking fingers, the truth sank into my very bones. I somehow knew without any tests that the doctor was right.

Resting my hand on my lower abdomen, I struggled to breathe. I couldn’t move my ass off those cold restroom tiles until Mom came and got me.

She’d calmed down by the time the test results were in, and sure enough, the doctor was right.

“Looks like you’re pregnant.”

Zoey mumbles something soft in her sleep, and I press the back of my hand against my mouth, my eyes filling with tears as I watch her.

She’s the most precious, treasured thing in my entire life.

I didn’t expect her to be such a gift, but she’s been everything I didn’t even realize I wanted. She helped heal my pain. Her sweet newborn cries stitched up my heart, her mouth suckling me, her soft fingers resting on my skin, baby laughter and beautiful smiles… every breath she took was a balm for my wounded heart.

But I don’t think I realized how bruised and scarred my heart still is.

Until I saw the man who demolished it standing there at the playground today.