Page 54 of My Cosplay Escape
“It’s okay,” Adam says quietly.
“It’s not okay,” I say, pushing him away. “It’s never going to be okay. Everyone makes stupid mistakes. And people say, ‘It’s okay. That’s what life’s about. You learn from them. Try, try again.’ But I made stupid mistakes, and I’m still paying for them. I’m so sick of still paying for them.”
I grab my bag and push my way past Adam. I make it exactly five feet outside the lecture hall before I lean my head against the wall and slide to the floor. I hear the door close behind me. I hear keys in the lock. I hear my bag shifting off the floor. And then Adam’s hands are around my own, strong, gorgeous hands. He’s kneeling in front of me, and I don’t deserve his tenderness or his concern. “Let me take you home,” he says.
“No!” I cry harder. “I’m not fudging it up for Brent too!” How can I smile and say congratulations and ask all the questions that under the right circumstances are congratulatory but under the wrong circumstances are accusatory?
Adam lifts me to my feet, and I cry hard into his chest again. I need a run, but for the first time since the divorce, I have no run left in me. My snot- and tear-riddled sleeves are pressed against Adam. I hold on to him as I sob. “Please don’t make me.”
“Okay,” he says. The word barely registers above the pounding of his heart. “Let’s go somewhere else. Come on.”
He leads me out an emergency exit to a small faculty parking lot. “It was my fault,” I sob.
Adam buckles me into the front seat of his black sedan like I’m a child who can’t be expected to do it myself. He’s not wrong. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” he says.
But when he gets around the car and into the driver’s seat, the words spill out of me like vomit. “I was twenty-four weeks. Daniel was on some stupid camping trip when it started.” I shudder now with my sobs. “I thought I was cramping because I went for a walk and carried home groceries. I went to bed, and when I woke up—” I sob. I can’t even begin to count how many three a.m. runs I’ve been on to try and forget the blood clots and the cramps that just kept getting worse. “I should have known I was in labor, but I didn’t.” I desperately try to wipe the tears away. “I didn’t know what to do.”
“Sarah, it’s okay.” Adam’s voice sounds desperate. He swerves onto the highway.
I grab my head and groan. A migraine digs in behind my eyes. The swerve of the car makes me feel sick. “The baby would have made it. My baby would have made it. She was perfect.” I wish I could stop crying. “It was my fault. I took a nap instead of calling the hospital when it started.” I shake with sobs. “An ‘incompetent cervix,’ they called it. There are things they can do for that. I could’ve saved my baby, but I didn’t. I napped.” I napped! Having to admit that to Daniel… “I bought this little dress. It was pink with a yellow snail on it.” Newborn size, with matching shorts. Small enough to fit a doll. “Oh goldfish,” I bury my face in my hands.
Adam puts a hand on my neck and rubs. “Hey. Hey, it’s okay.”
I cry in Adam’s car. I cry as he leads me up an old flight of stairs. And then I cry on his couch until I fall asleep.
* * *
I wake up as the sun dips down into the Pacific, the last little piece of it flashing green. My dad claimed Grandma went blind because she watched the sunset every day, looking for the green flash. My eyes are so puffy, it’s hard to see. I squint as my mind reboots. My eyes land on a flat-screen TV, and I bolt upright. I’m on Adam’s couch. I’m at his place. I…
“Hey,” Adam says. “I was just about to run out to pick up dinner. You want anything special?”
“Life Savers,” I say without thinking.
The corner of Adam’s mouth twitches up. “Come again?”
“Could you get me a tube of the green, minty Life Savers?”
“Yeah, back in a few.” Adam grabs his keys. “Don’t go anywhere?”
I shake my head. The minute I hear his car start, I lunge for my bag. I phone Gwen.Pick up. Pick up.
“As I live and breathe,” she says in greeting. “Is this my long-lost friend Saire? I thought you got trapped in the internet and were reduced to just phantom texts that periodically came through at odd hours.”
“I need your help, Gwen. I’m in deep.” My voice is enough to rattle even the most unflappable of friends.
“What’s going on?” Gwen asks. All business. That’s why I called her.
As fast as I possibly can, I explain the triggering text from Brent, and Adam coming to my rescue, and the fact that in less than an hour, I have to be cosplaying. “Or it’s all over. He’s going to put it all together.”
“Holy cabooses. Just tell him the truth,” Gwen says.
“Are you kidding? After all the sobbing and snot and—”
“Yeah, okay. Take a shower and then tell him the truth. Wet hair and tears—every man’s kryptonite.”
I take a deep breath and squeeze my swollen eyes shut. “I need you to cover for me.”
“You need me to what now?” Gwen demands.
