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“I’m going to stay at your place tonight. I don’t have classes until noon, so I can get back early tomorrow.”
“Okay.” Typically, I would have told her to go, but I really didn’t want to be alone tonight.
As we walked into the building, I was tempted to go to his door and just touch it. Was that weird? Yes, probably. Once upstairs, I grabbed my laptop, and Clare and I sat down on the couch side by side, the news on the television as we tried to find out anything else.
* * *
That’show the next six days went. We heard nothing new, only replays of the same video over and over on different news channels and websites. Clare had gone home the next morning, but we stayed in close contact. I texted back and forth with Nica every day and even spoke with Annie a few times. She kept telling me that no news was good news. However, I wasn’t so sure. Not after the little bit that I’d learned in the classes that he had been teaching.
Surprisingly, Ralph was very supportive and checked on me throughout the days. Thankfully, he didn’t try to take advantage of the situation either. In fact, Ralph even tried to find out more for me through Jake, but either Jake didn’t know anything, or he was tight-lipped about it.
I was right back to where I was five years ago. Moving through my days on autopilot and sleeping at night when my mind would shut down enough to allow me to. I played through our last conversation so many times and prayed that he would return. When he did, I’d find a way to make him realize that what we had was more important than his work. I’d find a way to get him to stop, to find another job if that is what it took. If he cared about me the way I cared about him, he’d consider it. Now I had to continue to hope he returned—alive.
* * *
Valentine’s Day arrived,and I sat staring at the message on my phone from Nica. Her competition was today, and she’d made me promise to be there. It was the last thing I wanted to do, yet part of me wanted to be there. If for no other reason than to give Alex’s daughter a hug and hold a little piece of Alex close to me one more time.
It had been ten days now since the news had broken about Alex being taken hostage. There had been only one other report concerning him, and in that they announced that at least two of the hostages had been found dead, eighteen were still missing. I couldn’t bear to wonder if he was one of the dead—missing was terrible enough—and I stopped watching the news.
I sipped my coffee, and as I swallowed, my stomach churned, and I raced to the bathroom. I leaned over the toilet and released the light bit of food I had in my belly. Just what I needed, a freaking stomach bug. Ugh.
Or maybe it was the stress of everything. It could have been stress. It was probably the stress and not eating well the last week. I’d barely slept, and food had tasted odd. It was all I could do to get something into my stomach in the first place.
A knock on my door grabbed my attention, and I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand as I went to answer it. Clare stood on the other side, her smile wide and a bag of pastries in her hand.
The sight of the bag sent me racing back to the bathroom, and the dry heaves began.
“Are you sick?” I felt her cool hand on my forehead. “You’re not running a fever. Are you getting the flu?”
“I don’t know,” I said when I could finally talk. “I haven’t felt well the last few days. It’s probably the stress of everything.”
She was watching me closely as I wiped my face with a wet washcloth and then brushed my teeth. As I rinsed my toothbrush, I eyed her in the mirror. “Why are you staring at me?”
“Any chance you are pregnant?”
“No,” I replied, and then immediately my mind started going through the calculations. My eyes must have gone wide because Clare began to laugh.
“You’re pregnant.”
“I don’t know,” I said to her as I turned. “Oh, my god! What if I am? How am I going to raise a child without a father?”
She took me by the shoulders. “Let’s deal with one thing at a time. Go sit down on the couch, and I’ll run down to the drugstore and pick up a test.”
I nodded to her, unable to speak as thoughts of having a child without a father accosted me. My stomach rumbled, and I felt slightly faint as I took a seat. I lay back with my arm thrown over my eyes as I heard her gather my house keys off my hook and leave.
I was still in the same position when Clare returned. “Go pee on the stick.” She tossed a package on my stomach.
“Clare, what am I going to do if I’m pregnant?”
“Well, for starters, you’re going to stop drinking on Tuesday nights,” she replied as she dropped her coat over a chair. “I got you a four-pack. Go take one of them.”
I rolled off the couch, feeling light-headed as I got to my feet. This had to be stress. I could easily be late for my period because of fear, too. In the bathroom, I read the directions and then followed them, leaving the test on the counter before washing my hands and going back to the living room.
Suddenly, I was starving and pulled open the pastry bag she’d left on the table. I dug into the muffin and glanced at Clare, who had a knowing smile on her face. “It’s stress. I’m not pregnant.”
“We’ll find out in a couple minutes,” she said, and I continued to eat. My gaze kept sliding back to the bathroom, and she glanced at her watch after another moment and got to her feet.
“What are you doing?”
