Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 97592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Okay, scary.
I take inventory.
Stark white walls reflect unforgiving fluorescent light, and a scratchy white sheet rubs like sandpaper on my body. There’s an incessant beeping from somewhere to my right, but when I go to slap it like I do my alarm clock, a painful cord tugs at my arm.
Ow.
Shit. Is that…an IV?
Am I in the hospital?
I move my head to the left, and pain shoots down my side and around, right into the length of my ribs.
Ow, jeez. Okay, maybe it’s good that I’m in a hospital. That really fucking hurts.
More carefully this time, I continue my perusal of the room. My heart lodges itself in my throat when I see him in a bed a few feet away from mine.
An onslaught of tenderness, of adoration and affection, floods into my veins.
I want to go to him. But I can’t find the strength to move a single one of my limbs.
But wait…his eyes are closed, and there’s a white bandage stretched across his head.
Is he okay?
My ribs pull again, and I wince.
Are we okay?
Footsteps fill my ears, and I slowly turn my head to the right again. A woman walks inside. Her belly is rounded with pregnancy, and it reminds me of my sister, Brooke.
The woman doesn’t look at me. She goes straight to his bed and sits down in a chair beside him. But when she looks across the room, her eyes meet mine and she startles.
“Oh! Oh! Oh my God!” She hops up from her chair and grabs something, tapping her fingers against it maniacally.
In a few seconds, a voice fills the room.
“Can I help you?”
“Uh…hello? Uh…hi…Uh…I think she’s awake,” she fumbles to answer. “The woman…the woman beside my…boyfriend is awake. Her eyes are open.”
Boyfriend?
“I’ll send the nurse in,” the voice replies, but all I can think is, boyfriend?
How could he be her boyfriend when I’m in love with him? When he’s told me he’s in love with me?
“Hu—” I try to speak, but my throat is so dry it’s like my vocal cords are stuck together. I swallow against the blockage and try again, but all that comes out is a rough, squeaky sound—one that doesn’t sound like anything at all.
The woman stares at me with longing in her eyes as she grabs his hand and squeezes. She’s holding his hand. Everything inside my body wants to revolt against the gesture.
With her free hand, she nervously rubs at her rounded belly, and that movement triggers a memory to break the surface of my consciousness…
We laughed and smiled and kissed as we walked toward his apartment. We stumbled down the hallway, anticipation coursing through our veins, hands greedily grabbing at each other’s clothes. We couldn’t get close enough.
Everything felt like bliss.
Everything felt perfect.
Until we reached his door, and she was there.
“I’m pregnant,” she told him.
Agony rips through every part of me as it all comes flooding back, and I let out a scream I didn’t know I was capable of. Doctors and nurses and what feels like a million people flood the room at once, and right in the middle of my cries, everything, once again, goes black.
It feels like a metaphor for my life.
Where Sammy Baker goes, disaster and chaos follow.
Friday, April 22nd
I tuck my big tote tightly beneath my arm, trying to ignore the fact that it’s boasting the smells of Italy to everyone within a one-mile radius, and churn and burn my legs like a lady on a mission.
After a quick check-in at the front desk, I smack the visitor sticker to my chest and push through the lobby doors of Calhoun Elementary. Immediately, I spot the sign that reads Career Day in a bold but playful font, pointing toward the auditorium, and I haul my skirt-covered ass as quick as my nude heels will take me.
Surprise, surprise, I’m late to something again.
In my past life, I was a time-management beast. I made it where I needed to be five to ten minutes early, and I never, but never wasted anyone’s precious time.
But since the moment my birth canal opened its mouth and shot out my first baby two full weeks after my due date, I’ve been perpetually behind.
I think it was a sign. Or an omen. Or fortuitous, at the very least. And unless they change the way clocks work, I’m pretty sure it’s my forever destiny. At least, it will be until my two boys are grown.
My phone pings from my garlic-scented bag—trust me, it’s a long story—and I pull it out to find a text message from my sister. As I read, I power walk so hard I’m just short of a jog. My mall-walking grandma would be so jealous if she were alive to see me now.
Brooke: Where in the hell are you???
Me: Relax. I’m in the building.
Brooke: I’ll relax when you deliver the goods.