Page 16 of Wrong Number. Right Don.
She loops her arm through mine and we walk out of the bathroom together.
6
NICOLE
Another entire week slips by, and I either face the news or pretend it doesn’t exist. For the most part, I ignore it. When stress hits, I fall back on old habits: I overwork and pretend nothing’s wrong.
Unfortunately, the baby growing inside me doesn’t care about my coping mechanisms. It’s intent on wrecking my body, leaving me with all day nausea. Screw whoever called it morning sickness. One foul whiff and I’m sprinting for a basin, and a hospital supplies plenty of those whiffs.
I’ve been on a solid diet of saltines, yogurt, and applesauce for the last seven days. I can’t keep down much else. If I pretend hard enough, it feels like a simple, noncontagious stomach bug. But it isn’t just the physical symptoms that have made this week hard.
The weight of this presses against my chest every second of the day. Even when I try to ignore it, I can’t outrun the truth. Sometimes I burst into tears without warning, just thinking about what’s happening. None of this feels fair.
The nights are the absolute worst. They’re too quiet and too empty. I should be exhausted after work, especially on days I pull a double, but I just can’t shut my mind off long enough to fall asleep.
The moment my eyes close, my mind races with a thousand questions I can’t answer. Am I going to keep this baby? If I don’t keep it, can I live with that decision? If I do keep it, will I actually be a good mother? Should I bother telling Sergei about this?
I still don’t know what to do about him or if I should even do anything at all. He has my number, but he hasn’t reached out in six weeks. He’s obviously not thinking about me. Even after the casual way he left, some stupid part of me hoped he would want to see me again. He doesn’t, and our time together clearly meant more to me than to him.
I groan, dropping my head into my hands as I sink into the hard plastic chair in the ER break area. I’m worn out, my entire body aching from hours on my feet. My limbs feel heavy, my eyelids gritty, but I know the second I get home I’ll be wide awake again, trapped in my own personal hell.
The chair next to me squeaks as Mia plops down, stretching her legs out in front of her with a loud, dramatic sigh.
“I swear, if one more doctor talks down to me, I’m going to lose my shit. Don’t they know we work ten times harder than they do for a fraction of the pay?”
She’s pissed, indignant. It’s a good distraction.
“Rough shift?” I ask with a weak laugh.
She huffs, tossing her ID badge onto the table between us.
“Brutal. But enough about me.” She turns to me, her sharp gaze scanning my face. “How are you doing?”
So much for the distraction. I could lie, but she’d see through it. So I give her the simple truth.
“I haven’t been sleeping.”
Mia frowns, shifting to face me fully. “Because of the nausea?”
I shake my head. “Because of everything,” I say, gesturing vaguely.
Her expression softens. “What’s been keeping you up the most?”
I let out a breath, rubbing my hands over my thighs. “My brain won’t shut off,” I admit. “Every time I lie down, it’s like a switch flips, and suddenly I’m thinking about everything. My job, my future, the fact that there’s this life growing inside of me. I haven’t even decided if I’m going to keep it, but if I do, I’ll probably be the shittiest mother in the entire world.”
Mia tilts her head, her voice gentle. “Nicole, you’d be a great mom.”
The words blindside me, and a lump rises in my throat. Before I can stop myself, my eyes burn with the threat of tears. I shake my head, blinking rapidly.
“God, I hate hormones,” I mutter.
Mia grins. “You can’t blame everything on the hormones,” she teases. “You’ve always been a big baby.”
I let out a watery laugh. “Yeah, well. Now I’m growing a human, so I have an excuse.”
She nudges my shoulder. “You don’t need an excuse,” she says kindly. “You’re dealing with a lot. I’d be worried if you weren’t freaking out a little.”
I tip my head back against the chair. “It’s more than that. My future used to feel wide open.” I breathe out shakily. “Now, there’s this looming deadline that I have to face immediately. If I keep the baby, my path is set. One decision mapping out the rest of my life as a tired, overworked single mom.”
