Page 146 of Until Now

A pause. ‘It’ll take me about forty minutes to reach you. Can you hold on until then?’

I’ve already let go. ‘Bring a long coat. I’m in the bathroom.’

He doesn’t question it. He promises to be as fast as he can before he hangs up.

I punch a quick text to Archer so he doesn’t come looking for me:gone for a walk, need some air, won’t be long.

By the time the bathroom door bangs open and Chase calls my name, the worst of the pain has subsided.

‘In here,’ I say weakly.

His boots appear beneath the door. ‘Can I come in?’

I close my eyes. ‘Yes.’

When I open them again, Chase stares at me, wide-eyed. He takes in the blood on my dress, on the tissues around the toilet, and he quietly steps into the cubicle, shutting the door behind him. He falls to his knees before me, his hands on my cheeks.

I don’t have to tell him what happened; he can see from the evidence around me. And he doesn’t ask if I’m okay. He just wipes my tears with his thumb and says, ‘We need to get you to a hospital.’

I shake my head, and he bends until he’s at eye-level with me. ‘Frankie, I’m taking you to a hospital. It’ll be quick, and I’ll stay with you—‘

‘I feel like a failure,’ I manage to say. ‘The one thing I was put on this earth to do and I can’t even do that. My own body rejects me.’

Chase’s eyes fill with panic. ‘Hey,hey.’ I look at him. ‘You are not a failure. You are the most incredible woman I’ve ever met, and I will remind you of that every day for as long as I live.’

I bite back my sob. He has no idea how much I needed to hear those words. No idea.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I choke. ‘I didn’t know who else to call—‘

‘Shh. It’s okay.’ His hand comes beneath my hair and he presses my head into the crook of his shoulder. He kisses the top of my head, but it just makes me cry even harder.Safe.Warm.Home. He pulls back, assessing me as he grasps my shoulders. ‘Can you walk, or do you need me to carry you?’

‘I can’t let him see me.’ Carrying will be too conspicuous.

He stands, pulling me up with him. He holds me as my legs tremble before flinging the long black coat around me, and then he guides me out of the cubicle. I pull up my hood as we leave the bathroom into the restaurant proper. It’s busy, but Chase wraps his arm around my waist, and I press into his side, his body a solid force between me and the table where Archer and his parents sit.

He takes me to the nearest hospital, and I’m seen to almost immediately.

Blood tests are taken, as is a pregnancy test, and the doctor asks if it could be just a normal period. I don’t look at Chase as I tell the doctor how my boyfriend struck me in the stomach just a few hours before, but I feel him go rigid beside me. He says nothing; just leans forward in his chair, his elbows on his knees, as he drags his hands over his face.

When the pregnancy test comes back positive, they explain hCG—the pregnancy hormone—can remain in the body several weeks after miscarriage, and indicating by the levels of the hormone in my blood, I was roughly five weeks pregnant. Which means I conceived before Christmas.

They carry out a physical examination, and Chase holds my hand through it all. Everything is just so sore, and I curl my toes and grit my teeth. They said I’ll probably still have clots and bleed heavily for another week. If I bleed too heavily, going through more than two pads an hour, then I’m to go to A&E. They also rattle off a domestic abuse hotline, but I drown that part out.

But as soon as I jump to make another excuse for his behaviour, another revelation hits me: Iamin an abusive relationship. Even before he first struck me, he made me feel guilty about not giving him what he wanted. He made me feel like every good thing he did for me had to be reimbursed with a favour, that I had to dress only for him, that my body belonged to him. I don’t want to admit it, but Lucy was right: Ihavebeen running to him for comfort for the bruises he made. Because he sabotaged my friendships and isolated me entirely; he gave me an ultimatum—stay with him and move away after school, or go our separate ways. He cut me off from my own family—just like he’s been trying to do with Emmy.

I always thought abuse was physical, but it’s taken me until now to realise abuse is also all the ways someone hacks at your soul until there’s nothing left of the person you used to be.

They give me a week’s worth of codeine for the pain, and then send me on my way.

‘Are you okay?’ Chase asks for the fourth time since we left the hospital.

‘Why do you keep asking that? Of course I’m not okay.’

‘Because one day the answer will be different.’

I’m quiet for a moment, staring at the little slip of cardboard in my hand, my blood smearing the hotline as we pass beneath streetlights. ‘I was never going to keep it,’ I whisper into the heavy silence. Chase says nothing, giving me time to sort through my thoughts. ‘But I would have liked to have had the choice.’

When we pull into Chase’s drive, I find my legs won’t work. He lifts me, silent as he carries me up the steps, shouldering open the door, and down the long, white halls of his home. I cling to him as he lowers me onto his bed, so he sits down and gathers me into his lap.

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