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She passes me one. “This is not really a good look for you.”
“I can’t eat that. I’ll just throw it up,” I moan.
“You’re throwing up because you haven’t eaten anything, dummy,” she says, shoving the cracker closer. “That’s why it’s called morning sickness. You get it on an empty stomach.”
“How do you know?”
“My sister. She had to take the medication they give chemo patients to stop hers, it was that bad.”
I sit up and nibble one. “Okay then.”
“Feel better?”
I nod. Weirdly, I do.
“Want to eat something real?” she asks.
She gives me a hand and helps peel my sorry ass off the floor. Strangely, I go from nauseated to ravenous beyond all reason in a matter of seconds. “A bacon cheeseburger sounds good actually.”
“It’s nine in the morning, babe.”
I pout. I guess this is what pregnancy cravings look like. “Ugh.”
We go downstairs and I begin pulling apart the fridge, looking for something that appeals. Nothing does, except weird things.
“Are you going to eat these olives?” I ask her.
She makes a face. I think she got them last Christmas in a charcuterie board gift set. We’d eaten most of the cheese and crackers, but the olives had quickly been relegated to the back of the fridge since neither of us liked them.
Until now.
I pop open the lid and toss back a couple, the oil dripping down my chin. “Mm. Sweet nectar of the gods.”
“Gross,” she observes me like a patron at a zoo.
Don’t care. While she watches, I empty about half the bottle down my throat. “You’re right though. I feel better. What day is today?”
She says, reluctantly, “April first.”
“Really?” Immediately I feel worse. “Oh God.”
I know she understands exactly what that means, because she was going to be a bridesmaid.
Thinking fast, she changes the subject. “We need to find somewhere that serves bacon cheeseburgers in the morning.”
“I bet a place in Portland does.”
“Well, I’m not going all the way there. You should get that boyfriend of yours to grab one for you on his way back from the hospital.” She catches herself before I can correct her due to my mouthful of olives. “Sorry, co-parent of yours.”
I swallow my mouthful and look in the fridge for whatever else appeals. “He wouldn’t do that for me.”
“Are you sure?”
I’m not. In fact, I’m pretty sure he actually would do it for me based on the meal he made last night.
“Okay, yeah. He probably would. But I don’t want him to,” I say.
“Why not?”
“Because. He made me this amazing dinner last night. Veggie risotto. I don’t want to keep relying on him for everything. I don’t really want to rely on him for anything. I’m just trying to keep it to the bare minimum.”
She pats her heart. “He made you dinner?”
“Yeah … but it was odd. He had Mozart and candlelight and romantic stuff like that.”
“Aw!” She’s all dreamy. Eyes lit like Christmas and everything. I never pegged Mad for a romantic. Before Joe, she was definitely a lot more cynical about relationships.
“It’s not ‘Aw.’ Don’t you get it? It’s for the baby. Aren’t there studies that say classical music makes babies smarter? And veggies are obviously nutritious for the baby. He just wants a healthy pregnancy, that’s all.”
She eyes me as I slam the fridge door. I’m still hungry, but there’s nothing interesting in there.
“And just what makes you think that’s all he cares about?” she asks.
“Other than the fact that he’s teased me all my life?”
“Yeah. But just like Cam said, he probably did that because—”
“Oh no he didn’t. He didn’t pull my pigtails on the playground because he didn’t know how to express his love for me. That’s all a load of crap,” I mutter, thinking back to all the times my mother used to say the same thing—oh, he’s only teasing you because he likes you! “He didn’t just tease me. He ripped my heart to shreds.”
She leans against the sink. “What exactly did he do to you? A few mean emails? That doesn’t sound so—”
“—it was worse than that. You see, for a while he texted me—anonymously. I didn’t know it was him at first. I poured out my soul and he made me feel heard and validated. We had a connection. A real connection. He even asked me to a dance. But then he didn’t even show. I was fifteen. And it was like, my whole life ended that day. It was awful. And the worst part is, I didn’t know it was him until later. So while I was sitting there waiting for my mystery date to show up, he was taking pictures with my brothers and all of their dates. He was smiling and having the time of his life all the while knowing that I was being stood up.”
She lets out a little sigh, her expression laced with pity. “Damn. That’s pretty unforgiveable. Maybe he was too nervous to go through with it, because of what other people would think?”
