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“Which is it?” I say with a frolic in my voice. “Tea or cookie? I can’t do both.”
He holds his scowl, his brow full of furrowed lines like the crop lines in the bean field. The years of farm work in the sun and elements have weathered his face into something so beautiful, it’s hard to look at.
Marcy moves back to the bed, grabbing her backpack. “We’re going to be late if we don’t skedaddle.”
She gives me a wink behind Eli’s back and the warmth in my bra grows as I absent-mindedly hiss at my swollen boobs.
Eli gives me a knowing look, making it worse. My milk production has a direct correlation to Eli being close. I had no choice but to tell him my secret a month ago. Shame had me curled in a ball in the corner of my room when he came to fetch me for breakfast about a month before graduation.
I didn’t know what was going on. My breasts were swollen. Warm. Leaking little white dots of milk. It was just a few drops and I thought it was just some side effect from my period because lord knows I wasn’t pregnant. No boys in school would even look at me and that’s fine because I never looked at them. My cycle has been wonky and painful since it started when I was twelve, so I figured this was just another oddity for me to endure.
I’ve had years of horrible cramps, vomiting and horrendous nausea and Eli took me to the doctor demanding they fix what ailed me every month. It wasn’t me having my period that he minded. When I started, he was bigger than life in the local drug store asking a bazillion question about which pads were the best, did they have organic cotton ones and on and on. Nothing embarrasses him and when it comes to getting me what I need? He’s a Titan. That day, he bought out the entire supply of feminine products as I stood by in stone silence. The problem for him was and is seeing me in distress. It makes him crazy if I’m sick or hurt or simply having a bad day.
I swear, if he had the money, which he doesn’t, he would have flown me to the Mayo Clinic if they could have stopped the unfortunate side effects of my periods. But, old doc Rogers who is about a hundred and fifty years if he’s a day, was befuddled, so the new doctor in town, MaryBeth Lassiter, suggested I start taking birth control.
I thought Eli was going to tear the clinic down, so that idea was squashed. Instead, she prescribed an SSRI to relieve the PMS symptoms and a medication called Motillium to help with the nausea.
It did help. But, it had the side effect of making me lactate. I was scared at first, but I trust Eli with everything and since he does the laundry, it wasn’t long before he knew something was up. That was the day he came into my room to find me in the corner in tears. After a conversation with the doctor, she assured us it was a side effect of the medicine and would go away if I stopped taking it.
But, it helped me with the vomiting and nausea so much, Eli convinced me that the side effects were less of an issue than the distress of being sick. Soon after, the pressure started to build and he convinced me that pumping would make it better, so the next day on the doorstep there was the mac-daddy of breast pumps delivered by special courier.
I hate when he spends money on me like that. I know we’re not rich. Not by a long shot. But when it comes to me, Eli sometimes goes overboard, so I make sure to be careful what I ask for because I know, he will turn the world inside out to get it for me.
Today after afternoon chores and going to pick up Marcy, I didn’t have time to pump, so here I am now. Leaking milk as my nipples tingle and Eli growls, fists tight.
“Be back by eleven o’clock,” Eli says as he grinds his teeth together in a terrifying grimace that has Marcy ballin’ it toward the bedroom door.
He’s one of the reasons I don’t have any other friends. Everyone within ten miles of Mumford is terrified of him.
“And take your phone,” he adds in a slow drawl, snapping his tongue across his front teeth as my eyes skitter down to the front of his jeans.
I bite back my gasp as the fullness there sends sweat dripping down my spine and I wonder for a quick, sad second if he has the hots for Marcy.
“Got it.” I reach in my back pocket and hold up the ancient flip phone he relented and let me have in my sophomore year. It’s a wonder it still works, but here in the sticks, even the cell towers are a decade behind in technology.
