AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She and her child would be alone.
Her breath caught at the thought.
It didn’t return. Not completely. As she struggled to fill her lungs, her body warmed until she felt hotter than in Dixon’s bed under a thousand blankets. Then, like a snap of her fingers, the heat turned to ice.
Hot then cold.
Cold then hot.
Hot then cold.
She grabbed the wall as her vision cut out, the white walls pinwheeling to pink and blue and brown around her. She cut off the water and lurched out of the tub, lightheadedness pumping through her veins. Her stomach lurched too, cramping horribly. She wasn’t sure if she was going to throw up or embarrass herself.
Perhaps both?
Was this a miscarriage? Had fate stepped in? Would she lose the baby after all?
She stumbled to the toilet, dizzy, barely making it in time. Every bit of her emptied in a rush as she sat upon it, her body freezing and burning again, her breath never quite catching. Her skin turned clammy and sweaty, and she snatched up the trash can in the corner. It might have weighed a thousand pounds, though it contained nothing but a few tissues. She hunched over it, gagging, an invisible hand punching her in the chest and stomach as she heaved.
Nothing came out but a few stands of silver. Her heart thudded in her chest, a million beats per minute, thudding and smacking against her skin. The stomach cramps pressed on as she struggled to fill her lungs.
She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t breathe.
Oh gods, she couldn’t breathe.
She was going to die.
Her heart would give out.
Should she have Tristan—no, Dixon—call her an ambulance? How would she pay for it? She had no money.
Her stomach cramped again. She gagged, and her abdomen tightened into soreness. An invisible demon sat upon her chest.
She became too frightened to be embarrassed.
She was dying. This was what dying felt like.
The moment she finally gathered her breath to call out, her stomach cramps eased. Her heartbeat slowed to normal. She didn’t feel quite so cold or so hot, and her vision finally returned. Once the lightheadedness faded, she put down the trash can and stood up, catching her reflection in the mirror.
She was just a girl, standing in a bathroom alone. She’d never looked so pale before, and her eyes had reddened as if she’d been crying.
That was her body’s final revenge against her.
Wincing at the pale woman she barely recognized, she cleaned up the toilet and took another shower. She hadn’t died. She hadn’t had a miscarriage, either.
Why did she feel as though she’d dodged death, then? Showering calmly now, when only moments before she’d believed that she would die?
What the fuck had just happened?
She stepped out of the shower, her skin puckering to gooseflesh as she pulled on her clothes, her hands shaking as tried to clasp her bra and button her trousers. She sopped up the water she’d sloshed on the floor and padded from the bathroom dressed in black trousers and a gray sweater.
She had been in the bathroom for so long that everyone had woken up for the morning. The smell of bacon filled the air and turned her stomach. Spoons and metal clinked together as Katia stirred something in a pan, the scraping barely noticeable over the stovetop fan. Tristan chuckled at her side, ignoring the pan before him filled with eggs. He murmured something in her ear, and a dollop of eggs fell onto the stove from his spatula.
Katia giggled and kissed him on the cheek, stroking him on the chin in a lingering embrace. She’d dressed for the day, if dressed meant wearing another of Tristan’s old t-shirts and a short robe.
Dixon sat on a counter barstool, a frown on his face.
Lila knew her expression would be far worse. She turned away and plopped into the rickety chair in front of Toxic’s computer, the frame grating under her weight.
