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I just needed to see where he was feeling on the subject, and I could do my best to convince myself I wasn’t far too weird to be the starring character in a nineties rom-com.
I was feeling really good and had turned the radio up in the car, singing with wild abandon regardless of what other drivers thought about it, when I saw my sister’s car parked in the back parking lot. With a slow, heavy feeling in my stomach, I drove close by so that I could make sure it was her car and then parked directly next to it.
We had been just missing each other for the past few months, which was unlike us. Though we talked all the time and had video chatted a couple of times recently, for the most part our communication had been strained. When Jaz had been available to talk or hang out, I was in the midst of a winery visit. When I was between trips and able to hang out somewhere, she was deep in a performance somewhere in the state.
I thought back to the missed call and the fact that she’d never called me back. A missed call with no return, followed by her randomly showing up at my place was not a good sign. Everything about it screamed that something was wrong. The life of a ballerina was usually fodder for a great trashy TV show.
Still, I had an instinct to protect my baby sister at all costs, to make sure that she was okay. That feeling took over everything I had been thinking about with Kane.
Thoughts like the ones I was having about the Sexy Grape Man had to be shoved to the back of my mind until such time that I felt like I could be vulnerable around someone else. But with Jaz potentially in trouble, or at least needing her sister to vent about her dramatic life, I felt like the time for me thinking about myself was at least on pause. If it turned out to be nothing but more stage drama, then Jaz and I could talk about Kane in the morning, probably over a greasy diner meal.
Part of me suddenly brought that thought to mind and hoped that’s all it was. Jaz was terribly focused on her figure, as ballerinas usually were, and didn’t let herself pig out all that often. But when she came to visit me and one of us had something to bitch about, it usually happened over a heavy breakfast that both of us would regret the size of later in the afternoon.
I had worked up an appetite, and the avocado toast wasn’t quite filling it.
I parked and shut off the engine, grabbing my small bag of essentials and hurrying out. As I jogged toward the door, I wondered what it could be that would make her skip a call and instead come all the way out to see me. Even when it was a bad breakup or the time she hurt her hip and was replaced in a show, she called first. I had to talk to her the entire drive to my place on the latter one.
When I got the key in the door and flung it open, all my questions were answered in an instant, and my heart fell into my stomach. Jaz was curled up on my couch, and when I came in, she stood up, one hand staying on her belly.
Her very pregnant belly.
Her face was a tortured mess, makeup streaming down both sides from where her mascara had run. She had tissues balled up in one hand, and her normally beautiful, curly blonde hair was pulled tight in a bun away from her neck. Even though she was wearing a loose T-shirt and yoga pants, her stomach was pronounced enough that there was no doubt.
“How far along?” I asked, surprised my voice could remain even in the moment. Shockwaves were rippling through me, and I was battling the beginning salvos of emotions like disappointment and hurt that I had somehow missed such a major event.
“Seven months,” she said and then broke down crying. I ran to her and held her as she cried into my shoulder. “It’s already too late. There’s nothing I can do but carry it to term,” she sobbed.
“Shh. Come on, sit down, I’ll get you a glass of water.”
I didn’t ask if she was thirsty, I just assumed. Mostly, I just had to figure out something to do with the nervous energy roiling through me. My own emotions were hard to figure out, and I went into the kitchen and poured two glasses, then thought about it for a second and downed one of them. A refill later and I brought them out and handed Jaz hers.
I sat down on the couch next to my sister and watched her drink her glass in one, uninterrupted gulp. I took a deep breath.
