AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“And how are you handling the talk of Campbell and Nini Verona’s relationship?”
I stumbled on that one. A furrow forming between my brows. We hadn’t discussed this one. That was a name that had come up a couple times while I was around Campbell, but he’d always adamantly denied that they’d ever dated…kind of like I was doing right now with Nate.
Campbell interceded. “Nini and I have never had a relationship. That’s an old rumor after I performed at a fashion show she was in. We won’t be taking any more questions about that.”
We moved away from that reporter, and I leaned over to whisper, “Are you and Nini just friends?”
He shot me a look, and my stomach dropped.
“Oh,” I whispered.
“It was a few weeks right before the tour started.”
I had no room to talk since I’d been dating Nate more recently than that, but I had purposely not thought about how many other girls he’d dated before me. He was a rockstar. The number was likely staggering. And it didn’t matter, did it? He was here with me.
We stopped in front of the next reporter. She wasn’t a person that English had prepped us for. She had the same magazine credentials, but we’d been expecting someone else.
“Do you have a minute, Campbell?” she asked politely.
He glanced at me, and I shrugged. Last one, and then we’d be finished.
The reporter asked a few of the same questions we’d already heard from others. She was on the same script as what English had sent out.
Then, she looked over at me. “Blaire, what do you make of the reports that you were pregnant with Campbell’s baby in high school and had an abortion?”
Ringing.
There was ringing in my ears.
My vision dimmed to nothing.
My stomach plummeted to the concrete.
Suddenly, I was shrinking in on myself and lying on a bed with blood between my legs and tears on my lashes and pain in my abdomen. There was nothing but heartache and a deep aching sadness that I could never recover from. Just pain and pain and pain.
I choked as I remembered my mother driving me to the hospital for my ten-week OB/GYN visit. Ten weeks. Soon, I’d find out if I was having a boy or a girl. A tiny thing was growing inside of me. No one could quite see it yet, but I could. I could feel it. My breasts ached all the time, and I couldn’t stop peeing. I was exhausted and threw up more than I’d ever in my entire life. Even worse than the terrible stomach bug I’d had sophomore year.
I was eighteen and pregnant, against my mother’s expressed wishes. And I wanted this baby. This beautiful baby boy or girl would be mine. The only thing I had left of me and Campbell. He was gone. He was in LA, living his dream. I was here in Lubbock, living a nightmare. But at least I had the baby.
Then, I was in the hospital, getting a standard ultrasound. The doctor paused. Her face fell. She said, “Oh.”
I sat up straighter at the word. Then, I heard the words in a daze. Something about no heartbeat and unviable and miscarriage. Horrible, terrible, disturbing words. I started to cry. My mom stared, frozen, unsure how to comfort me. I wanted Campbell more than anything, but he wasn’t here.
The doctor gave me pills to induce the miscarriage and explained what was coming next. I barely heard them through my sobbing. I was making a scene, but no one faulted me, except my mother, who seemed to be giddy with happiness. She was hardly hiding it either.
The doctor informed me it was common. That fifteen to twenty percent of all pregnancies ended in miscarriage and possibly even more than that if you considered miscarriages before people knew they were pregnant. She tried to make it all sound rational in her soft, careful voice.
I took the medicine and left with my mom. Her words still rang in my ears as I stared forward with red-rimmed eyes and no baby.
“I don’t know why you’re so upset, Marie. This is the best thing that could have happened to you. You have your whole life ahead of you. This is going to make everything so much easier.”
I wanted to vomit, just hearing her say that. As if miscarrying Campbell’s baby was exactly what I should have wanted for myself. When it was the last thing I had ever wanted.
Pamela asked if I needed any help. I gave her the list of things to buy to make the next month more bearable physically. Though nothing could fix it mentally. She dropped me off at the house and then went to the store.
My first instinct was to crawl into bed and cry for another decade. Instead, I called Campbell. I hadn’t spoken to him since the night I’d told him I was pregnant. I never expected him to answer.
