“Isabelle?” It’s Jericho.
“Just a minute!” I call out in a panic. “I have to go,” I say into the phone.
“Isabelle wait.”
Nausea turns my stomach again as Jericho knocks and tries the handle again. “Doctor’s here.”
“I’m going to be sick,” I tell Julia.
Just before I pull the phone away and turn my attention to the toilet, I hear her say something. “I have them! I found them. You’re not—”
Again, I heave. More toast. I only ate a few bites how can there be more? My mouth tastes awful. I feel drained and empty.
“Isabelle. Open this door.”
I puke in response. I put the phone back to my ear at the next break. “I have to go. I’ll call you as soon as I can.”
“Listen to me. Listen. The pills. I found them. They’re here. Almost three months’ worth. They’re all here.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Birth control, Isabelle.”
“I’m coming in,” Jericho calls out.
“No. I have them. I’m taking them. Oh god.” I grip the edge of the toilet and lean over it and I swear my stomach feels like it’s been turned inside out and as I heave, I hear what she’s saying. Hear the panic in her voice. I remember taking the little packet of pills from inside their hot pink plastic case and popping them out. I remember thinking they looked different, just a little different. And I remember the few drops of blood I bled during the week I usually get my period. I thought it was stress.
I sit back down, and I count. And I barely register the popping of the lock. The opening of the door. Because this can’t be.
No. God. No.
“Julia?” I say, just as a large hand closes over mine and I look up at the blur of him. The vomiting has tears streaming from my eyes.
The vomiting and the betrayal.
Jericho St. James stares down at me, hard and angry, his forehead furrowed, eyes blazing as he slips the phone from my hand, looks at the screen before he disconnects it, cutting Julia off mid-sentence and pocketing the phone.
“What did you do?” I ask him, crawling away from him those few feet until my back is against the tub. I’m still naked and freezing now, shivering even as sweat runs down my spine. “What did you do!” I scream and it’s not a question. It’s an accusation.
And I know with the next wave of nausea that has me doubling over the toilet what this is. Why I’ve felt sick. Why I haven’t been able to keep anything down and why my favorite foods have me retching.
I’m pregnant.
I’m pregnant with Jericho St. James’s baby.