Bad Boy Rich

He purses his lips, annoyed. “Stop, you’re making a fool out of yourself.”

“Large!” I yell out, the lady at the checkout smirking from behind the counter.

“Milly. Shut up,” he complains.

“Okay, so large it is. Now, ribbed for her pleasure?”

“Yes please!” I topple over, holding onto the shelf so I didn’t fall.

“Okay, that’s it. If you two don’t calm down, I’m leaving you here. You got me?”

Phoebe stands beside me, the two of us silent and running our fingers along our mouths to show we’ll behave. Liam relaxes, until Phoebe points to another item on the shelf. “Tampax? For an extra heavy flow?”

I burst out laughing, tears streaming from my eyes until my breaths slow down and I stare at the box in front of me. Periods…periods…when was my last period?

I can’t seem to focus; Phoebe’s cackling about something else but my mind won’t stop questioning. When the fuck did I last get my period?

September…October…

August.

My focus becomes incredibly clear; my hands moving towards my breast and cupping them. They’re large, tender, and unusually sore. The beat of my heart begins to race uncontrollably, the room spinning in circles yet fixated on the one blue box right in front of me.

Pregnancy test.

The bile rises, my stomach churning, and without notice, the acid runs up, into my throat and onto the ground with a large gurgle.

“Milly! Are you okay?”

In a state of shock, I knew what my head refuses to compute. The signs were all there, and I was a fool to think he couldn’t find his way back to me.

And this time, he played the ultimate game.

Created my nightmare inside of me.

I wished often, just like now, that my memory would fade.

Disappear into the still of the night. If I could take away Mom’s disease, I gladly would and feel it myself. For I didn’t want to remember. Not the moment when my life changed forever. And not the moment when I began to despise the man that consumed me whole.

“The baby’s heart rate is high. We need to take you to the OR, now.”

Mom and Phoebe clutch both hands, worriedly. Around me, there’s chaos. Beeping monitors and people hustling. The nurse is young; doesn’t look a day older than me. What would she know? She didn’t look like she had been through this, and I didn’t like the way she had a gleam of panic in her eyes.

I catch a fleeting stiffening of Mom’s face. Her hand is gripping mine; her knuckles almost stark white. I want to tell her everything will be okay but I would be lying. I didn’t know if everything would be okay. This could be the beginning or the end.

“But she’s only thirty-five weeks, surely that can’t be safe for the baby.”

A man—attractive with two cute dimples nestled into his ebony skin—places a needle into my wrist, stabbing me and wrapping some tape to secure it. For someone who stabs people for a living, it would have been polite to ask me if needles freaked me out.

“It’s safe enough. We have no choice, the baby appears distressed. You’re in the best hands. Now, do we have the father here?”

Phoebe jumps quickly. “No, she has me. I’ll be the dad.”

The nurse says nothing, and with some additional help, she wheels me to the door and tells us only one can enter the operating room.

“I want my mom,” I cry, openly.

“I’m here Milly, right here.”