Page 129 of Nine Months to Bear
When I finally emerge, the bedroom feels cavernous. The bed is too big, the silence too complete.
Her journals are gone, but one page has fallen behind, caught under the nightstand. I pick it up, expecting medical jargon.
Instead, it’s a loose sheet of paper with a sketch on it. Rough, unpracticed. A baby’s face in profile.
Our child. She’s been drawingour child.
The paper crumples in my fist.
You’re a glorified oven.Christ, I can still see her face when I said that. Then the way she rebuilt herself in real time, brick by brick, until nothing vulnerable showed anymore.
I forgot. That was my mistake.
No, Olivia. The mistake was mine.
The mistake is always mine.
49
OLIVIA
The guest room mattress is too soft. That’s what I tell myself at 3 A.M., staring at the ceiling while my stomach churns. That’s the only reason I’m awake.
Not heartbreak or humiliation, no, definitely not that. Just a bad mattress. I’m basically the Princess and the Pea.
No, actually, you’re a glorified oven.
I roll onto my side and tug the unfamiliar sheets higher. The fabric smells wrong—lavender instead of Stefan’s cologne.
Actually, everything about this room feels wrong. Too beige. Too impersonal. Too far from?—
No.
I’m not doing this.
I push myself upright, then immediately regret the sudden movement. The room wobbles. My mouth floods with saliva.
I jump to my feet and race to the bathroom. The floor tiles are frigid under my bare feet—I swear living in this house is like walking around on an ice rink.
I splash water on my face, avoiding my reflection. I know what I’ll see: dark circles, pale skin, lip swollen from chewing on it until the wee hours of the morning.
Another wave of nausea hits. This time, I don’t fight it. I just kneel in front of the toilet and let it come.
When it passes, I rest my forehead against the cool porcelain. My hands shake as I reach for toilet paper.
It’s too early. One missed period means nothing. The nausea is psychosomatic. The fatigue is from poor sleep. The tender breasts are?—
“Stop.” I say it out loud. “Cut that out.”
But my hand drifts to my abdomen anyway. Flat. Empty. Probably.
Definitely.
I force myself to stand, to brush my teeth and act normal. It’s not like I’m counting the days backwards in my head, right? I mean, it’s not like I’m doing the math and panicking every time the answer comes out way, way too big.
I comb out the knots in my hair like that’ll fix anything, then lean on the counter, too drained to drag myself back to that nightmare mattress. The thought of lying down in that beige, airless room again makes my chest tighten.
Mostly, I don’t want to be alone in it.
