I continued staring at him, my body profoundly aware of his presence, yearning for him to touch me.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, I am. His death definitely knocked the wind out of me, though.” He looked down at my stomach, then back up at me. “Are you alright?”
I shrugged. “Hanging in there.”
He looked at all of the items still strewn on the table. “Why are you selling this stuff?”
“It’s almost the end of the summer, and we’ve all accumulated a lot of junk. Plus, I needed to downsize.”
Rush sucked in his cheeks. “Downsize? Sounds like I wasn’t the only one who did a lot of thinking while I was gone.”
I looked down and nodded. “I’ve decided to move back to Queens.”
“And your mind’s made up…just like that? No discussion?”
“I need to do what’s best for us.” My hand automatically went to my belly. I’d been doing that a lot lately—rubbing and not even realizing I was doing it.
“And that’s running away? Because fucking running away solves everything, right?” he said bitterly.
“I’m not running away. I’m just doing what I feel I need to at this point in time.”
We stared at each other. After a long time, I took a deep breath and said, “Can you tell me you want to be with me? That you can accept the hand we’ve been dealt and move on?”
His face had been hard, revealing his anger at hearing about me downsizing in anticipation of my move back. But when I asked that question, his features softened. That told me his answer: he felt bad that he couldn’t bring himself to tell me to stay with him. The trip might’ve done him some personal good, but apparently the internal debate he’d been having didn’t come out in my favor.
Rush looked down. “I wish I could, Gia. I wish I could.”I sat out front with the unsold goods until long after dark. When Rush left hours ago, I took a seat in a beach chair that I should’ve been trying to sell and didn’t get back out of it. If someone had a question, I answered from the chair, not even bothering to get up. If they wanted to pay, they had to bring me the cash. His short visit had drained all of my energy.
It took everything in me to force myself to get up and pack everything that hadn’t sold. Most of the stuff I just tossed into boxes, figuring tomorrow I’d sort out which of my roommates had given it to me to sell. I folded the tables and dragged the bigger stuff into the garage.
I wanted nothing more than to plop down on my bed, but I’d been sitting in the sun outside all day, and then dragged the boxes in while it was humid tonight, so I was pretty sure that I could use a shower.
In the bathroom while I undressed, I noticed a little spotting in my underwear. That had happened to me before, and my doctor had said as long as it was light, it wasn’t that unusual. So I tried not to get alarmed, even though it sort of freaked me out. But after I washed my hair, I looked down and noticed that the water running down my leg had a pinkish tint to it.
Scared, I rinsed off and grabbed my cell phone, calling the doctor while dripping in the shower stall. It was late, so an answering service picked up and said that the doctor would call me back. By the time I dried off and wrapped myself in a towel, my cell was already ringing.
“Hi, Dr. Daniels. Thank you for calling back so quickly.”
“What’s going on, Gia? The service said you’re having some bleeding? Is there any cramping with it?”
“No. No cramping. I had a little spotting and then when I went in the shower, I noticed the color of the water coming down my leg was pink.”
“Did you do anything out of the ordinary today in terms of exertion? Any heavy lifting or anything?
“I moved some boxes around…but I didn’t really do that much lifting. I mostly just dragged things.” God, I hope my stupid tag sale didn’t hurt the baby.
“Okay. Well, one drop of blood can turn a good amount of water pink. And a small amount of spotting is somewhat common, especially early on. So don’t get yourself too frantic over it. But we should probably bring you in to get checked out. My office is closed, so why don’t you meet me over at South Hampton Hospital in about an hour? Go to the Emergency Room, and just tell the nurse that you’re meeting me. She’ll set you up with an outpatient admission and check your vitals if you get there before I do.”
“Okay, Dr. Daniels. Thank you. I’ll see you soon.”