Chapter 25 10 Years Ago
CHAPTER 25
10 YEARS AGO
August
I half expected Wes to message me in the week that passed after our argument, but there was nothing but radio silence. Not even an answering bedtime flicker of his lights.
“Why so glum, beta? Are you worrying about university?” my dad asked me. It was the afternoon, and despite the sweltering heat outside, I was bundled mournfully under a pile of blankets on the sofa. I’d never fought with Wes before. I’d never fought with anyone besides my sister, and the unrest made me queasy and depressed.
“A headache,” I managed to get out.
He got up then, shuffling, and returned with a cup of chai. “With two sugars, the way you like,” he announced, leaving it steaming on the coffee table in front of me.
“Thanks, Dad,” I said, taking a sip and burrowing back into the covers.
“Wow, someone’s PMSing,” Mel announced, flouncing into the living room. My mug was now empty, but I still didn’t have the energy to emerge from my cocoon.
I grimaced. Periods were not a dad-friendly conversation topic. “Very funny.” But her joke jogged my memory. When was the last time I’d had my period?
I unbundled myself and went upstairs to check my phone calendar for the reminders I’d started leaving for myself after an unfortunate incident stained my favourite jeans in math class last year.
My heart climbed up my throat as the page loaded. June . Was it possible I’d had my period last month and forgot to note it down? But with the way Wes and I had been all over each other, how would I have missed it?
I needed Wes. I needed him to talk me down. Now.
Lia: Just checking in. Was hoping to talk?
The three dots that signalled he was typing appeared and then disappeared. He wasn’t going to answer.
My father’s words flashed through my head. These people are not like us. They won’t be there for us. I was going to have to deal with this alone. But I needed to know for sure.
I forced myself downstairs. “Do we have any soda?” I asked my mother.
“No soda,” she said, throwing a tray of samosas into the oven.
“Can I drive to the general store? I have a period craving.” Somehow, I sounded normal, even though I feared the worst.
“Yes. If you get some chocolate chips, I can also make you some cookies,” my mother said, clucking and pressing the back of her hand onto my forehead.
“Sure,” I said. “Does anyone else need anything from the store?”
My dad called from the living room. “I need some more TUMS,” he grunted. “This heartburn isn’t going away.”
“No more chilies with dinner tonight, Karim,” my mother replied. “Can you grab them, dhingli?”
My knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel by the time I arrived at the store. I picked up a case of Sprite and some Chipits milk chocolate chips and forced myself to the pharmacy aisle for a pregnancy test.
The box was innocuous looking. Clearblue, 99 percent accuracy. But condoms were supposed to be just as effective and we’d used them every time. We were safe.
The cashier, a lady in her thirties, rang up my purchases, her face twisting in sympathy. I said, “For my friend. She’s nervous,” and smiled a big, innocent smile that made my face split into two. Once she was no longer looking at me, I crept to the blue outhouse in the back.
My cycles were typically like clockwork, but the stress of the past few days would make anyone late. This test was only for reassurance. Soon I’d know my period was en route and everything would be okay.
Peeing on the stick was a process of painful stops and spurts. When I finished, I put the stick to the side, wiping my hands with sanitizer, my breath steadier. There was no way that I was pregnant. I was going to be Lia, successful lawyer. Not Lia, the failure who brought shame onto her parents who had sacrificed everything for her. Not Lia, who gave up everything for a boy who wouldn’t even text her back.
The three minutes passed and I turned back to the test, expecting relief to flood in me. But there it was, the second crisp blue line, the same colour as the fluorescent porta-potty.
Pregnant.
I left the proof behind in the overflowing trash, my ears roaring. I could be like Ms. Forest, trapping a boy with a baby he wanted nothing to do with. Our child would be like Wes, torn between two worlds. My parents would abandon me. My future that we’d all worked so hard for, a distant memory. Everything that I was, that I was meant to be, would be taken away.
There was only one path forward.
Time felt like it was speeding up and slowing down all at once. I was both handing my mother the chocolate chips and hiding in my room to call the closest family medicine clinic for an urgent appointment. They told me they didn’t have room for me, but when I was unable to suppress a hushed sob, the receptionist soothed me. “I’ll find you a time, honey,” she promised.
I let out a sigh of relief. I couldn’t imagine what would happen if my parents found out. I would be imprisoned in my room, a shame on my family. My dad’s trust in me, my parents’ love. I’d thrown it all away. And the only person I could tell, who needed to know, wouldn’t answer my messages.
They booked me into an urgent cancellation spot for the next afternoon. I tried calling Wes. I needed him with me. But he didn’t pick up. I left a voicemail and then a text message, asking if we could talk.
Defeated, I crawled into bed. It took all my energy to fake a smile for my mother when she knocked at my door before bed. Once everyone was asleep, I wrapped up pads in toilet paper and stuffed them in the bin in the washroom so my mother wouldn’t get suspicious that the menstrual supply packages were unopened.
Hours passed without a message from Wes. I stared at his window, waiting for him to come home, but it remained dark.
Finally, at midnight, he texted me.
Wes: Sry, at the party
I blinked back tears. He’d wanted me there, as his date, and now I was an afterthought.
Lia: I need to talk to you. Can we meet tomorrow before work?
The reply was swift.
Wes: Stop blowing up Wes’s phone. He’s having fun with his FRIENDS
Eyes watering, I put my phone away. I stayed up all night watching his window, trying to catch him when he came home, but I passed out at four a.m. in a restless and lurching sleep. When I woke up, the sky was overcast and Wes’s car still wasn’t back.
Would I be able to find him before…I had to…
I could barely breathe. Every time I thought about what I had to do, I wanted to throw up. My sister was at the library. Maybe I should have gotten her help, but I didn’t trust her anymore.
I needed an excuse to use the car. “I’m meeting Wes and his friends for lunch in Wiarton,” I told my parents. “Can I take the car?”
My mother was exasperated. “You’re tired from your period and you want to run around?”
“All I’ve been doing is resting this summer,” I argued. “School starts soon. I just want to see my friends and enjoy my free time.”
“Fine,” my mother relented. “Don’t stay out too long.”
My father lumbered from the living room. “Lia, can you grab the TUMS from the grocery store this time?”
I had forgotten. A niggle of guilt worked in my belly. “Sure, Dad.”
“Thank you, beta. I know I can count on you.” He gave me a warm smile, but I avoided his eyes. I was not his perfect daughter. Now I was paying the price.
I called Wes again as soon as I got in the car.
“Hey, can you stop calling Wesley? He’s busy right now.” My ears rang with Andrea’s voice. Why was she answering his phone?
I took a deep breath. My need to speak with Wes outweighed my feelings. “Andrea, it’s Lia,” I said tersely. “Can you grab him. It’s urgent.”
“Oh my god,” Andrea said. “He doesn’t want to hear from you. Can’t you take a hint? Stop being so desperate. There’s a reason he stayed with me last night.”
My hands trembled. While I had been here, dealing with this, he’d been with her. “He stayed with you,” I repeated back to her, voice shaking.
“And he used to think you were smart. Yes, he’s still in bed,” Andrea gloated.
My numb fingers dropped my phone into my lap. He stayed with Andrea last night. Desperate, sharp knives clawed at my eyes. All I wanted to do was cry and wail, but I didn’t have time. I had to leave for my appointment now.
Maybe my father had been right about Wes and people like him all along. Maybe they were different. Maybe he never understood me. Maybe I was just a novelty to him, and we were never in love. I spiralled deeper and deeper.
The only person I could count on was myself. Only I could get myself out of this situation, make everything go back to how it was supposed to be. I started down the road, just as the rain began to pour in heaping drops, like the world was crying for me.
I would find a way through this. No one would ever need to know.
As soon as lightning ripped through the sky, my mother called. “The weather looks bad, maybe come back and I can drive you there? Or you can go another time? There is no need to run around after that boy.”
Hysterical laughter bubbled in me. I had to get to my appointment. It was the only thing that mattered. I kept my voice calm as I told her, “I’ll be fine.” I tossed my phone onto the passenger seat.
The sky opened up as I raced down the highway, closer and closer to the doctor’s office. I was so alone, the sky so dark, as I drove towards my future in my mother’s gigantic SUV. Anger tinged with grief coated me, dark and heavy like ink. I needed Wes. We were supposed to be there for each other, forever. Just as I was about to merge off the road, I saw my phone light up from the corner of my eye.
Wesley Forest blazed across the screen.
Instinctively I lunged for the phone, but my hands slipped off the steering wheel, the car veering to the right. The world shook. I dropped the phone trying to straighten the car, but it was too late. The roads were slick with the torrential downpour. The wheels slid. The car and I tumbled into a ditch. My body rattled against the steering wheel as the metal crunched around me. There was a tear and sharp pain through my belly and my head, and everything became smaller, bleary, dark. Something wet dripped on my forehead, stickier and heavier than rain.
My eyes closed.
When I came to, there were flashes of lights, a stinging in my forehead and an ache in my body. My eyes were heavy, but I could hear a reassuring voice and feel the sharp pinch of a needle before I closed them again. There was tearing fabric, a gown and the business-like hands of nurses and doctors in an emergency bay checking me over, forcing me to keep my eyes open until they were satisfied. “It hurts,” I said, as they pulled a pad underneath my gown. The word wasn’t enough to describe the piercing pain in my abdomen, the throbbing of my head, the sensitivity to light. Something sticky was on my legs; I shifted, but the movement sent a stab all the way from my stomach to my neck. I took a short breath and stilled.
After what seemed like an eternity, a female emergency physician escorted everyone out of the room and clicked on a computer. “Lia,” she said, once we were alone, “did you know you’re pregnant?”
I rose on my forearms. She placed her hand on my shoulder, reading the question in my eyes. “You might miscarry, it’s not uncommon after such a trauma. We can do our best to save the fetus, but there’s no guarantee.”
The cramping in my belly broke through the pain in my head. “I don’t want to be pregnant. Please, please get it out.”
I expected her to look aghast, to censure me, but she squeezed my arm. “We’ll figure it out. Don’t worry.”
My eyes were heavy but I managed to get out the most important request. “Please don’t tell my parents.”
Her forehead creased with concern. “Of course, I won’t disclose anything without your permission. You’re an adult.” I turned away from her then, closing my eyes as she fiddled with my IV pump. I wasn’t an adult. I was lost. Something cold flooded through my veins and pushed me into darkness.
I woke up in a hospital bed, legs scraping against starchy sheets, my head throbbing against a limp pillow. The constant low-grade beeping only aggravated it. I tried to haul myself upwards to turn off the alarm, but a hand stilled me.
My parents and my sister were sitting to the side of the bed. My mother with her arms crossed, the crescents under her eyes half moons, my dad’s skin a tone too pale. Mel wasn’t wearing any eyeliner. I felt their tiredness. It was mirrored in the weight of my bones.
“What happened?” I asked. My father’s lips pressed tightly, so thin they disappeared.
My sister said, “You got into an accident. We’re at the Grey Bruce Hospital.”
Everything flashed through me again, the trip to the doctor, Wes, the roads. “Where’s my phone?”
“Your phone is broken,” my mother said.
My father’s voice boomed, even as he hobbled to standing. “Why are you even thinking about your phone? Who do you need to call? Your entire family is here.”
“No one,” I said, cowering under the covers. There was an anger in his voice that I’d never heard before. But I’d earned his fury. I didn’t deserve their love.
“Always that boy,” my father said. “Why are you running after someone who doesn’t even care about you? Look at where it’s gotten you. Here, in the hospital, our car in the ditch.”
“Karim,” my mother said. “Please, let her rest. We can discuss this with her when she’s recovered.”
Tears pooled in my eyes. I wanted to confess, to be absolved, but this wasn’t something I could ever take back. My parents were right. I should have listened to them.
A nurse came into the room. He was tall and thin with spiky, black hair. “I heard yelling, you’re supposed to be letting the patient rest.” He examined the room. “And there should only be one visitor at the bedside.”
“I apologize,” my mother said. “We just wanted to see our daughter.”
The nurse’s face softened.
“Why shouldn’t we be in the room?” my father said. “Our taxes are paying for it.” He went grey.
“Karim,” my mother called.
“I just need some TUMS,” my father said, sweat beading his brow. “Stress aggravates my reflux.”
“Dad?” Mel called, as he took in a deep, shuddery breath.
The nurse propped him up from the back, all business. “Are you having chest pain, sir?”
“My arm is going numb,” my father said, gesturing to his left side.
“Any other symptoms?” the nurse asked. “Shortness of breath?”
My dad moaned in reply, his swarthy face unusually pale as he slumped to the floor.
I barely registered what was happening as the nurse hit a red button above my head.
An overhead announcement blared immediately. “CODE BLUE, ROOM 345, CODE BLUE, ROOM 345.”
The nurse yelled out of the room. “Can someone come now with the code cart, I have a suspected myocardial infarction.”
A swarm of people rushed in, and as they surrounded my father, he said, “This is just stress from my daughter’s foolishness.”
“Keep calm, sir. It’s a good thing you’re in the hospital right now,” the nurse said. “Everyone is here to help you.”
I made a keening noise as my dad was taken from the room, my mother chasing after them.
“I’m going to follow them,” my sister told me, trailing my mother. “Make sure Dad’s okay.”
“Dad, where are you? Dad, I’m sorry,” I yelled.
The nurse came to me, putting his hand reassuringly on my shoulder. “It was good he was here, he got help right away.”
But I couldn’t process what the nurse was saying.
“Dad?” I called, but they were gone. He was gone and it was all my fault. All my fault.
The hope that everything would be okay became smaller and smaller. The hope that Wes would come for me grew smaller and smaller.
Until the last ember went out.
He never came. Not when my CT scans came back clear. Not in the hours when my dad was transferred to Toronto via Ornge helicopter for cardiac surgery. Not when I was discharged early from Grey Bruce to go see him. I left after taking my first dose of mifepristone, the second pill burning in my pocket.
My mother was allowed to go into the post-operative unit to see my father, but my sister and I had to wait outside for him to stabilize. Surreptitiously, I took my second tablet, washing it down with icy water from a Styrofoam cup.
Hours later, our butts sore from sitting in the plastic waiting room chairs, my sister held her phone out to me. “Wes just texted. Do you want to use my phone to talk to him?”
“No,” I said, hollow. “He hasn’t spoken to me for a week.”
Mel’s face melted. “What’s going on?”
“He doesn’t actually love me. He stayed over at Andrea’s last night.” I could no longer keep the tears from my voice. “Promise me you’ll never speak of him to me again.”
Mel parted her lips, but nodded as I turned away crying. My abdomen contracted, sharp and sudden.
“I have to go,” I told her, sprinting away.
I didn’t know if it was the medication or the abdominal trauma, but my wish was being answered.
As I bled in the visitor’s washroom in the Cardiac Critical Care Unit, I vowed that this would be the last remnant of Wesley Forest in my life.