15. Alison
Iskipped school yesterday. Technically, I was sick — just not in any way the school nurse could diagnose.
Mom called Edgewood before first period and told them I wasn’t coming.
After Victor’s very public visit Thursday, the ring he’d put on my finger, and the spectacle that followed in the atrium, nobody questioned it.
She kept Tobias home too. Dad wasn’t happy about either of those things.
Mom didn’t care. For once, she didn’t make an excuse sound like a request. Tobias hadn’t slept well.
I looked terrible. Neither of us was going to school. That was the end of it.
So the three of us stayed home. Tobias built a blanket fort across most of the family room and declared it the official recovery zone.
Mom made grilled cheese for lunch. We watched movies from beneath a mountain of pillows, ate too many snacks, and let Tobias choose everything because neither of us had the heart to tell him no.
Our bruises darkened as the day went on — the marks around Tobias’s arm, the ones on mine, Mom’s shoulder and back and temple.
The cut on my lip stung every time I smiled too wide.
We didn’t talk about them much. We didn’t need to.
For one whole day, Dad stayed away, and the three of us stayed together.
Ryan checked on me so often I finally threatened to start sending hourly proof-of-life photos.
He immediately requested one. I sent him a picture of myself holding a spoon.
He requested another with the toaster. I informed him he was abusing the service.
He told me he’d stop when I stopped scaring ten years off his life. I sent the toaster.
This morning, Mom helped me with my makeup before I left.
The bruise on my face isn’t as bad as it looks bare — concealer and foundation soften the worst of it until you’d have to be looking closely to notice.
My lip is harder. The little split has already started healing, but makeup isn’t going to make a cut disappear.
Mom dabs something over the bruising beside it anyway. “There.”
I look at myself in the mirror. Not perfect, but better. My arms are another story, long sleeves take care of those.
Prom dress shopping is the perfect excuse to leave.
Half the senior girls at Edgewood are doing the same thing this weekend.
Prom is still weeks away, but Edgewood treats school dances like diplomatic events — dresses have to be ordered, altered, customized, accessorized, and probably entered into some secret database so nobody accidentally arrives in the same shade of blue.
Nobody will think twice about me spending the day with the girls.
Mom adjusts my hair over my shoulder, then meets my eyes in the mirror. “Have fun.”
“I will.”
“Ally.” I look at her. Her smile is tired. Bruised. But real. “Actually have fun.”
Something squeezes inside my chest. “I’ll try.”
Penny and Xander live next door, so I walk.
Penny opens the door before I can knock. “You’re late.”
I check my phone. “By one minute.”
“Still late.”
“Should I go back and try again?”
She catches my hand before I can turn around. “No.”
I laugh as she pulls me inside, then immediately regret it when the cut on my lip pulls.
Penny's smile disappears. “I hate him.”
“I know.”
“I really fucking hate him.”
“I know that too.”
She closes the door behind me. Cat and Becca are already in the living room. So is Darla.
I stop. “Oh.”
Darla smiles from the couch, a medical bag beside her and the portable ultrasound case on the coffee table.
My eyes go straight to it, then to her. “Is that—“
“Yes.”
Relief hits me so fast my eyes burn.
Cat gets up from the couch. “Before you argue, Ryan was going to lose his fucking mind.”
“I wasn’t going to argue.”
“Good.”
Becca comes over and hugs me carefully. Very carefully. Then she pulls back and looks at my face, her eyes finding my lip. “Oh, Ally.”
“It’s okay.” Three faces change. Right. Apparently we’re no longer saying that. I smile a little. “It looks worse without makeup?”
“That was not better,” Penny informs me.
“I tried.”
Cat’s eyes move over my face. Her jaw tightens.
The boys already told them everything — what Dad did to me, to Tobias, to Mom.
They know about the shaking, the slap, where he grabbed me.
But knowing something happened and seeing what it left behind aren’t the same thing.
I can watch it land all over again, in real time, on all three of their faces.
Darla stands. “Let’s check you.”
We pile into one of the downstairs guest rooms, and while Darla sets up, I sit on the bed. Becca sits beside me immediately. Cat takes the other side. Penny stands near the foot.
Darla looks at me. “Take off the sweater.”
I hesitate — not because of them, they already know, but knowing and seeing still aren’t the same.
I pull it over my head and the room goes completely silent.
The marks have gotten worse. Bruises on both upper arms, dark enough now that there’s no pretending what made them.
Hands. Dad’s hands, still there in purple and blue, wrapped around both arms from where he grabbed and shook me.
Becca inhales sharply. Penny’s face empties.
Cat goes terrifyingly still. Nobody says anything for several seconds, so I try to make it easier.
Cat reaches out, then stops before touching the bruises, her fingers curling into her palm instead. “That motherfucker.”
“Cat.”
“I know. Good day.”
Becca takes my hand. Her eyes are already shiny, but her voice is steady. “Good fucking day.”
Penny stares at the marks. “I would like it formally noted that I am also participating in the good fucking day.”
I smile carefully. “Noted.”
Darla isn’t smiling. She steps closer and examines one arm, then the other, without pressing where she doesn’t need to.
Her expression hardens as she works — the arms, the discoloration at my cheek, my lip — and I answer her questions as they come.
Yes, he grabbed me. Yes, the slap split my lip.
Yes, he shook me, both arms, hard. No, I didn’t fall, didn’t hit my stomach, no bleeding, no cramping, nothing feels different.
Cat mutters something under her breath through all of it. I don’t catch most of it. I do catch grave.
Darla glances at her. “Good day, Catherine.”
“I’m having one.”
Penny snorts.
Darla nods once, satisfied, and sets the wand down beside her. “All right. Lie back.”
Becca doesn’t let go of my hand. Darla has me lift my shirt enough to expose my stomach, then squeezes gel onto my skin.
The wand touches me and suddenly nothing else matters. Not my arms. Not my face. Not my lip. Not Dad. Nothing.
Darla watches the little screen, moving the wand slowly. Nobody speaks. Becca’s hand is warm in mine. Cat has moved closer. Penny is so still at the foot of the bed she barely looks like herself. My heart starts beating harder with every second that passes.
Please. Please be okay. Please.
Darla adjusts the wand. Moves it slightly. Then— “There.”
Everything inside me stops. I look at the screen. My baby. “Oh.” It’s barely a sound.
Becca squeezes my hand.
“There you are,” Darla murmurs.
The tiny shape on the screen moves. Actually moves. My eyes fill instantly. “Is that—“
“Baby’s moving.”
A tear slips down my cheek. Cat makes a tiny sound beside me, and when I look at her, she’s already crying.
She wipes beneath one eye and scowls at nothing. “Don’t.” Penny sniffles. Cat points at her without looking. “You too.”
“Shut up.”
Becca laughs softly beside me. I turn toward her, and the tears are already running down her face, and my heart twists — because I know what this sound means to her. What babies mean to her. What she and Danny lost to the same people we’re still trying to survive. For half a second, I worry.
But Becca squeezes my hand so hard it almost hurts. Then she smiles. Huge. Wet. Real. “It’s a good day.”
“What?”
“Your baby’s okay.” She wipes at her cheek. “You’re okay. We’re going prom dress shopping.” Her smile turns fierce. “So let’s fucking get it.”
A laugh bursts out of me. Cat laughs. Penny makes a watery noise that turns into one too.
Even Darla smiles. “Would all of you like to hear the heartbeat before this becomes a group dehydration event?”
“Yes,” all four of us say at once. Darla laughs, adjusts something on the machine, moves the wand — and the room fills with the fastest, most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard.
Becca’s hand crushes mine. “Oh my God.”
Penny covers her mouth. Cat loses whatever battle she was still fighting with her tears.
And I can’t do anything but stare at the screen.
That’s my baby. Our baby. Ryan’s and mine.
Safe inside me. A tiny heart beating away like Thursday never happened.
Like Dad’s hands couldn’t reach this one thing.
Becca leans her head against my shoulder. “Listen to that. That’s your baby.”
I laugh through my tears. “I know.”
“Yours and Ryan’s.”
“Cat wipes her cheeks. “That kid already has approximately nine hundred fucking people obsessed with it.”
“Language,” I say automatically.
Silence. All three girls stare at me. I realize what I just did. Penny starts laughing first, then Becca, then Darla.
Cat points at my stomach. “You hear that? Your mother is already ruining everything.”
“I am not.”
“You’re policing my language in utero.”
“I wasn’t thinking.”
“Clearly.”
I laugh hard enough that my lip pulls, and I wince.
Becca notices immediately. “So help me God, Roman.”
“Good day,” I remind her.
“Right.” She looks at the screen. “Good day.”
Darla keeps watching the baby. Then she smiles. “Heartbeat looks good.”
The laughter fades out. I look at her. “Good?”
“Good. Everything I’m able to see here is reassuring.”
My eyes close. For one second, I just breathe. Becca squeezes my hand. Cat rests hers carefully against my ankle. Penny comes around and puts one on my shoulder. All of them touching me. Holding me here. My baby is okay. We’re okay.