Chapter 7 #2
That was right, because River would have been my age. He was Phoenix’s friend. That would have made us the same age. “I’d love to meet her.”
Maybe. I wasn’t sure how I felt about new people right now. I needed to go home and get my calls made. As Mrs. Trevor set up my next appointment for two days from then I asked her another question that had occurred to me but I hadn’t been able to do anything about yet.
“Is there a gynecologist here?” I’d never been to one.
It was the kind of thing that got arranged by someone’s mother.
Given my situation, that had obviously not happened.
But I didn’t think anything could progress with the guys if I didn’t do that first. I didn’t want much more right now. When that happened. Eventually.
Lily smiled. “Sure. Let me call up there and see if they can fit you in right now.” Her smile was bright but behind her eyes there was sadness. I recognized it because I saw it in the mirror every day and frequently in the gazes of my loves.
I’d seen it in every girl who was in that horrible place with me.
“Maybe sometime you could explain to me how people send their teenagers to a place where they set them up to die.”
He sighed. “I don’t understand evil. Like you, I’ve stared it in the face. I can’t say I get it better than you do.” Dr. Trevor patted me on the back as his wife hung up the phone.
“Go on up.”
Well… that was fast.
“Elevator.” She motioned toward the door. “Fifth floor. Top floor. You’ll see the nursery on your right. Keep walking. It’s there. Dr. Kim.”
Okay. I could do this. I had thought I might have a few days to get used to the idea but maybe better to just do it.
I needn’t have worried about being alone. Standing outside the office waiting were Barrett and Jeremy. They both looked up from their phones and grinned like I was the best thing they had ever seen.
I wished I could roll around in how warm that made me feel.
Jeremy extended his arms, and I walked into them. “You okay?”
“Yes. You?” I was mostly okay. Just not not okay enough to bring it up right then.
He rocked me. “I’m good. Next time wake me when you’re hungry. I can make you better food than oatmeal.”
Barrett laughed. “That has been bugging you all morning, hasn’t it?”
Jer pressed his nose to my hair. “Little bit.”
“I can’t leave yet. I’m going to the gynecologist.” I stepped back. “I have to take the elevator up.”
They looked at each other before they looked at me. Finally, Barrett nodded. “Jer will take you up since he’s feeling so needy, and I’ll wait here for Phoenix who is next door.”
“I didn’t get to cuddle all night and make oatmeal. Yes, I am feeling needy.”
Dina had said to leave them alone when they were like this. They’d been brothers a lot longer than they had been mine. “You know I love both of you.” I tried to wink. I might have looked deranged. I wasn’t really a winker. I put my hand out to Jer. “Let’s go.”
He grinned at his older brother. “She loves us.”
“And here we can be really obnoxious about it if we want to. Hear that, world?” he shouted. “Alatheia loves us.”
The door to Dr. Trevor’s office opened. Lily looked him up and down. “Barrett, please, don’t shout.”
“Sorry.”
We pushed the elevator button to go up.
Jermey took my hand, and it was such a novelty to be able to do this in public without giving it another thought that I squeezed our fingers together.
“I don’t think I would have made it very long without calling you guys when I ran away in my hypothetical what to do when I’m eighteen. Before I knew I was going to die.”
He brought our joined fingers together and kissed them, gently. A warm burst of pleasure surged up my spine. Jer held my gaze. “It kills me that you would have waited at all. Did you really think we were just done?”
It was hard for me to say things that would hurt him, but I did it anyway. “When you didn’t come the first month I thought maybe you’d had enough or you’d been talked out of it.”
He shook his head slowly. “No, Princess. I’m sorry we didn’t come. I’d have battered down the door to get to you. Laid siege on the place.”
I really wished we could be alone right now instead of about to get out of an elevator. “I’d really like to kiss you.”
Jer backed me against the wall. We both breathed hard. I could feel his chest moving against my own. My head spun, anticipation rushing through me. Finally, he kissed me, hard. “Here? You can kiss me. It’s one of the few things I like about this place. Anytime. Anywhere.”
My heart beat fast. “Are you sure I’m not dreaming?”
“You’re not, but I might be.”
The very slow-moving elevator opened, and we stepped into the hallway. She had said to pass the nursery, and I headed that way, stopping abruptly when I saw two babies inside. A boy on one side of the room, a girl on the other.
I’d never seen a baby as young as those two. “They’re brand new.” I spoke aloud, as much to myself as Jeremy. “They’re so small.”
He kissed my neck. “They are. Beautiful.” He was quiet for a second. “Do you like babies? I mean hypothetically. We’re too young for babies right now and everything is chaotic.”
I wrapped his arms around me. “I’ll be honest, Jer, before this very moment I have not given babies the least amount of thought. Remember, when we met, I was focused on getting through life long enough to be on my own and hoping to make a friend. Babies? Whole other universe.”
“My mother was twenty when she had Barrett. I don’t think I’ve ever stopped to consider how young that was.”
I took a breath. “So twenty-one with you and Jules and twenty-two with Phoenix.”
Rosalind was thirty-nine right now. She looked very young. When she was my age she had already been contemplating how to get out of her life. Now she was glamorous in New York and knitted hats in Louisiana.
“I have to make my appointment but will you remind me that I have to tell you something when I get out? Something that might take a moment so not now.”
He nodded. “Sure.”
I sighed, walking past the nursery. “I liked looking at those babies.”
“Me too.” He swung our hands together. “But our baby would be cuter.”
I groaned and then stopped when I saw the sign for Dr. Kim outside of a door. Okay, I was doing this. Women did it all the time. I could do this. “This is the kind of thing that girls get taken to by their moms a lot. I mean not all girls, obviously. But some. I guess.”
He nodded. “I hate that you have to go through so many things alone.” He was quiet for a second. “Do you think she would have accepted this? You with us?”
Wow. That was a good question. I hadn’t thought about that at all.
The door was flung open and a beautiful Asian woman stood in the threshold.
“There you are, Altheia.” I didn’t know her, but clearly she knew me.
It was so weird that everyone here knew me already.
“I’m Lynda Kim. Come on. I thought maybe you got lost, but now I see that you just found Jeremy.
Stop making my patient late. I know it’s your fault. Whatever you’re doing. Don’t tell me.”
He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
She pointed at him. “And come by this week and see Joel.” I didn’t know what that was either.
With a nod, she turned to me. “Jeremy and Joel used to play together as kids. Back when Rosalind used to bring them here a lot. Come on, then. No one likes doing this. I know. But you’re being very good getting it done.
” She closed the door on Jeremy. “Oh and because I’m going to go all doctor on you and forget to say this later, I wasn’t born in the Life.
You’re new to it too. If I can help, let me know. ”
Everyone was so nice and helpful here. It would be so easy to just give in and love it.
But Dina’s words floated in my head. There was always the other side of the lake.
They’d killed children and taken Phoenix.
Their granny didn’t trust it here. I would believe in Dr. Kim.
But I was still reserving judgement on a person-by-person basis.
I left in a little bit more pain than when I’d entered. After talking to me for an hour, she had determined that for multiple reasons I needed an IUD. And she had one to put in me right then. So that had sort of sucked but at least it was over.
No babies. Maybe it would sort out my period. She thought it would.
I was glad it was done. I came out to find all four Lents waiting for me. They looked up from their phones in unison.
“What were they doing to you in there?” Jules smiled. “I thought maybe I would need to call a rescue team.”
Was there such a thing? “It took some time. I’m not going to get pregnant now and hopefully I’ll have some kind of regular period. Hurts right now but that is supposed to stop soon.”
Phoenix winced and they all sort of groaned and grimaced. Finally, the youngest spoke. “I’m sorry you’re in any pain. Let’s get you home.”
I leaned into him. “I need to make those calls and then honestly I might be an old woman and nap until dinner.”
“Sounds like a plan. I seem to fall asleep a little bit every day, like in the middle of the day, like I did yesterday here. I can’t seem to help it right now.”
“Well.” Jeremy shook his head. “I’m not an expert but, low key, that might stop if you stopped staying up all night. Just sayin’.”
His youngest brother shoved him gently. “Last night I was helping our girlfriend.”
“And all the other nights you were playing video games.”
Phoenix laughed. “Yes, I was. But last night I wasn’t, and I’ll go to bed tonight because I get to sleep next to Alatheia.”
“Hold on,” Julian called before I could step outside and he rushed to the car, coming back with a black coat. “Try this.”
I caught my breath. “Thank you for this. I know Barrett said you would, but I’m sure you had better things to do this morning than coat shop for me.”
I put it on and it fit, which earned me a Julian grin. “Never anything better than taking care of you.”
“Oh, the cheese.” Jeremy grinned. “He always wins at the cheese. Oh, wait, Princess, you had something you wanted to tell me. Do you want to talk alone?”
All four sets of eyes were on me right then.
I swallowed. “No, it’s probably better all together.
” I hadn’t said anything about this yet.
“Um, when they took me.” I swallowed through the lump in my throat.
“They ripped the pearls from my neck and demanded the sapphire earrings. Those were so thoughtful. My favorite things ever. Not that things matter. They’re small.
I know that quite well. But, I am so sorry. You gave them to me, and they’re gone.”
Phoenix hugged me before Jeremy could, he was closer. I closed my eyes for a second. “They took them at the school?”
“Yes.” I breathed him in.
“I can’t imagine how terrified you must have been. I don’t give a shit about the jewelry. Just that you got hurt. There will be more jewelry. Better jewelry.”
Jeremy took his turn to hug me. “So much jewelry. You looked beautiful in those pearls, but I can do better than that. You’ll see.”
The idea was terrifying. “No. Don’t buy me any more jewelry. I’ll never survive losing it. Okay? Something will happen and it’ll just be gone. I can’t.”
And by that of course I didn’t mean simply the jewelry. I couldn’t lose them or anything else that represented them.
“I think I made the jewelry about you guys. You gave it to me, so it was mine because of you. When they took it, it was like…”
Julian finished for me. “Like you lost them. Jeremy and Phoenix. And eventually it was like you lost all of us.”
I wasn’t surprised he got it. Julian did tend to cue in on things super fast. “That’s it.”
“I’ll wait to get you more jewelry.” Jeremy smiled. “But I will not promise to never buy you any. I think you can count on that. And by wait, I mean only a little bit.”
I sighed. It was no surprise he was determined on this.
“Come on.” Phoenix took my hand. “Let’s get you home.”