Page 42 of Set Me On Fire

“Speaking of which…” Mum went to the fridge and then produced a bottle of champagne with a flourish, along with three glasses that already had a sliced strawberry in them. “How about a little Christmas champers?”

Jamie and I shared a look. Neither of us especially liked champagne, but we drank it for Mum’s sake.

“Shit, you OK?” Jamie looked me up and down. “You look a little pale and kinda?—”

“Fat?” I slapped my hand down on my stomach. “I’m so bloated.”

“Should start taking those evening primrose capsules I gave you,” Mum observed sagely, before handing me a drink. “Well, cheers.” Her smile was everything right then, beaming bright. “To having all my family under one roof.”

“To finally having a sister to share the shitty job of deveining prawns with.”

I gave Jamie a nudge with my elbow and she shoved me right back, the two of us devolving into cartoonish squabbling until Mum stepped in. My champagne glass was set down undrunk as the Christmas lunch prep got real.

“Now, if you two girls focus on the prawns,” Mum said as I pulled another small knife out of the drawer and handed it to Jamie, “I’ll finish the salads, then your father can slice up the ham.”

“And what are the boys doing…?” I shot my best friend a look. “You’re about to see how it is. We women slave in thekitchen.” I grabbed a prawn in one hand, the knife in the other. “While they…”

I had a whole arse rant there, ready to spew out, but when I looked down at the prawn, my mouth went dry. My bile rose again in response to what I saw and felt. The prawn was jelly like, dead and clammy in my hand, my grip on the knife slipping as sweat covered my palm. It stared up at me with those eyes as I tried to force myself to move. I felt just as clammy the longer I looked at it.

“Mills?”

Jamie’s face swum into view, but I couldn’t answer her. I dropped the prawn and the knife with a clatter and then ran down the hall to the bathroom.

What in the freaking OCD?

I was pouring lime-scented liquid soap over my hands, the citrus drowning out the stink of seafood, and yet I couldn’t scrub fast enough. Bubbles formed in a wild lather before I washed it away. More soap, more, to get the stink, the slime, the everything off me as Mum and Jamie came bursting in.

“Sorry, Mum.” Why the hell was I sounding so sooky? My voice cracked on the words, but I forged on. “I’m gonna get one of the boys to do the prawns. I can’t, I just can’t.”

I’d said something to that effect when I was a kid. Perfectly happy to eat the bloody things, I’d baulked at the process of preparing them. Right now I expected the same lecture from Mum, but instead she moved closer, staring at my reflection as she rubbed my shoulder.

“It’s OK, love.”

Oh fuck, that had me blinking my eyes even faster, because apparently I was well and truly on the hormonal rollercoaster from hell. If I didn’t get a period soon, I’d bloody cut a bitch, just to release the tension. I finally dried my hands off, standingwith them pressed against the bathroom bench, sucking in one breath, then another, as they drew closer.

“Shit, you really are sick,” Jamie said. “Maybe you should lie down? You look pale as milk.”

“God, don’t talk about milk…” I groaned.

There was nothing, literally nothing I hated more than nausea. It hung around making you feel completely miserable until you got better.

“Maybe I should just stick my finger down my throat,” I groaned. “If I force myself to spew, then I should be better.”

Except that hadn’t worked thus far, had it?

“Or you could do this.”

Mum started rummaging through the bathroom cabinet, and I expected her to pull out a bottle of antacids, not this. My expression of shock was a perfect match for Jamie’s as we stared at the serene woman on the box. She had a hand on a stomach so swollen a test would’ve been redundant at this point.

“I’m not bloody pregnant, Mum.” She asked me that every time I was sick, tired, looking drawn, or my period was late when I was a teenager, so much so it’d become a family joke. Mum wasn’t laughing now. Instead, she stared at me with all the wisdom of a mother and that stopped me cold. “I’m not.”

I could’ve said that a lot more confidently, my momentary waver forcing Mum’s eyebrow to raise.

“I’m on the pill. I take it like clockwork.” I fished out my phone. “I even have a notification set every day at the same time.” My calendar alerts danced before her as I waved it in her face. “I never, ever forget. I remember what you told…”

Shit.

“What?” Jamie looked at me then Mum. “You remember what?”

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