Cyrosphere 8: Lives Uneasily Affected (2 page)

Ginger looked puzzled and asked, “You do?”

“You are leaving me to run off and star in the circus, right? Come on honey, you know you can tell me anything,” Lucas stated as he gazed into her eyes.

Slowly he reached for her hand and squeezed. In that moment, Ginger knew she could handle anything. She nodded, squeezed his hand and announces, “We’re having a baby.”

That must have been the last thing Lucas expected. He was in total shock as his hand slipped out of hers’. He zoned out before walking out the comma area. Luke collapsed on the couch and stared at the TV as if it held all the answers. Ginger waited ten minutes before sitting across from him on the sofa.

It almost took an hour for him to snap out of his daze. She waited into finally he went into the kitchen and ate a cold dinner. He didn’t utter a single word. Ginger was too distracted to eat as he went to bed without a sound.

Great, I hoped tomorrow brings a different outcome she thought as she went to bed.

                                                        Chapter 4:

Going to bed without talking over things, Ginger didn’t know where she stood with Lucas on the baby talk. Was he still processing? Was Lucas in shock or denial? All these thoughts and a ton more went through her head when she went to bed.

Waking up to the unknown was even worse. While Lucas went through her normal routine, she made oatmeal and tossed in fresh blueberries and bananas.

Today at least Lucas was chatty while he discussed his day about meetings and development on a new book he was promoting. Next he blabbered on about the Men’s health magazine he publishes. About time he finished, Lucas went right into domestic mode and cleaned the entire kitchen. He kissed her goodbye, told her to text or call if she needed anything. He was off.

Ginger wondered did he even process what she told him, or was he a total nut case. Since she took off teaching last night, she went to her office to finish grading the pile of papers in her desk. That took all of an hour before she was finished, calling up Jurnee to see if she could talk.

Sadly Jurnee left Adorsa with the twins at the library so she could help Penny on a art exhibit that was opening in two days. It totally slipped Ginger’s mind that the exhibit was this week, as she hung up and tried a different approach.

The last person she’d call for help might be the one person who’d understand what she was going through. The last fifteen months has been amazing becoming friends with MaryAnne Kris. Since she was in Jensen’s life that required her to be in Ginger’s life too. They slowly bonded with lunch and that escalated to movies, book reviews on double dates before finally shopping trips.

They weren’t bestfriends or anything but they did get along. Her relationship with MaryAnne was closer then the bond she shared with Adorsa. Every since Ginger moved out, Adorsa felt like it as a personal attack or something.

Gretchen supported her and even helped finance Dino’s auto-body shop. The man was pure mortal but a God when it came to mechanics.

She pulled out her phone and dialed MaryAnne, who answered on the second ring. They planned to meet for lunch at the South Bay Galleria.

                                                                      Chapter 5:

At ten-forty, she sat in the food court. Ten minutes too early but Ginger was still too anxious to sit at home and wait. Ginger pulled out her tablet and sent a few emails concerning the hotel work. That didn’t take long, so she started replying to her students and their questions about her class, or the mid term coming up in a few days.

Being a professor of English Rhetoric and Composition was the most rewarding thing Ginger has ever done. It made life worth living knowing she was inspiring others and teaching, which made waking up pretty damn amazing. The creative writing class she also was teaching tonight would make her problems float away.

Teaching was her relaxation from the world and all its complications. Clear her mind, focus on the craft of creativity and just go all out. A cough disrupted her thoughts; Ginger looked up to see MaryAnne. She was in a red blouse, white shirk and a black blazer.

The woman could dress, always elegant and only from a few simple pieces. It was like she was made to be in the fashion world. Japanese food sounded really good, so they went and ordered. Ginger sits down in the food court, waiting for the uneasiness to clear as they ate in silence.

“So I guess I’ll start. How are things?” MaryAnne asked.

That seemed like such a simple question but Ginger wasn’t quite sure how to answer that. One she was definitely freaking out and that was clear. The next was, in a few months and she’d be responsible for raising a child. Some part deep, very deep inside was excited.

Right now thought, that wasn’t what was on Ginger’s mind. She wanted to be excited but had to worry that Lucas was in denial or simple blanked out on her delivering the news. That fact was on repeat and made everything else feel that much harder.

No part of her thought he would abandon her, it was just hard to be excited when your partner wasn’t. Ginger decided to bite the bullet and told MaryAnne everything. It was good to finally get everything out in the open. All her anxiety and neurosis were immediately replaced with problem solving mode.

With someone to listen to all her worries, now they didn’t seem so huge. “Thank you for listening to me. Go on and on about all my crap,” Ginger gushes and smiles.

MaryAnne grins and responds, “No worries. I didn’t get a chance to be a decent mom to Feltus and since I’ll never have any more children. It felt good to be needed, just for a few minutes and offer a supporting shoulder to relay on.”

Once again, Ginger didn’t really image how MaryAnne must feel. To be without her child, and to witness him die twice. In that moment, Ginger felt like she had a real understanding friend in MaryAnne.

Life sure can be funny and here she was going over all her worries with MaryAnne. Why? That was one question on repeat playing inside her head. Maybe it was because Stacey, Yvette and Penny would just offer support. She didn’t need that right now and that was the real reason she called Jurnee. MaryAnne was a better substitute then she ever could have guessed.

                                                                      Chapter 6:

After lunch MaryAnne, Ginger needed to stay busy. She went home to grab her stuff for the night classes and her laptop to do some writing if inspiration hit. Once in the downtown office, she called to tell Stacey that she would be able to go to the exhibit with her.

Next she did a five hour shift at the hotel. Ginger mostly paper-work and other management work that consisted of checking figures and budget reports. After she took a bust to USC so she could teach her two classes. She sends a quick text to Lucas that she’ll be late and loved him.

Ginger put her phone in airplane mode, if he wasn’t ready to deal- fine. She’d do what she did best, get caught up in work and excel. First she returned the graded papers, taught a quick lesson on free flow and allowed the students to work in small groups.

While they worked in pairs, Ginger imputed the grades electronically. She tore up the slip of paper she kept and left her grade book at home. After twenty minutes, she made the students work on improvising for scenes from Shakespeare.

Next for the last twenty minutes, Ginger asked the students to write a mini weboside on any of their favorite books. Class ended and they all ran out the room. The next class was more anxious to leave, since it was eight thirty. They all seemed to be burning on Redbull and caffeine. This class was a whole lot more vocal and creative, so they turned in their project of creating a small short independent video blog.

They acted out a few scenes from the Odyssey. Ginger loved the classics like Homer. Once that was done, they still had 16 minutes left so she let them go early. One student, Vincent Drayden stayed behind to talk to her. He was a bright twenty year old demon that also went to Dark Force University a few spells inside the school.

It seemed that not only was Ginger’s plate filled, but the school wanted her to give a lecture on psychic connections. Damn, someone must have told them about the unique bond she temporarily shared with Stacey. Once Hannah died, it split and she was allowed privacy.

A part of her knew it was to keep others safe. Ginger was a Rosetta stone, able to decipher hidden things that no one else saw. Her time power already made her priceless but combined with the angel blond – she as a true rarity.

She thanked Vincent for delivering the news, went upstairs to her office to start reading the papers. First she’d read them all together to get a sense of writing styles and overall class flow .Next she’d grade individually. It was hard to be objective when each student had his or her own individual voice and writing style.

Sometimes like this, it made education seem like a waste. Giving an A for standard form over creativity was what academia liked, but not Ginger’s own personal viewpoint of learning. A whole hour went by, she was it was almost 11:20 so she stuffed everything in her bag and headed for the door.

Walking across campus at midnight was nice. It brought a sense of closeness to nature and cleared her mind of all the clutter. She switched her phone back on and waited for the outside world to bombard her. Somehow she felt it, a change in the air or maybe it was her intuition but something was definitely off.

              Chapter 7:

Closing her eyes and clearing her mind, Ginger didn’t know what it was right off the bat but something was up. Someone had did something, so she used her mind to do a telepathic check of the nearby area.

She felt it, a small glimmer of another mind and then it vanished before she could try and read it. Ginger tried again and the mind was gone, but she knew for sure it was an indigo. Why was an indigo targeting her?

The rest if the way home, Ginger was on high alert. Something was definitely up and she just couldn’t put her finger on what it was.

Taking a moment before she walked back to the hotel; Ginger kept expecting someone or something to attack her. Her mom instincts were on high alert as well her flight settings if something happened. Not a lot of people could avoid a mind probing and yet somehow this indigo did it and barely got detected.

That is what worried Ginger the most. Over the years, she developed a system to deal with threats. Something about this time was different. It was like the rules were changed and no one told her.

Things were going so well that is had to be too good to be true. Tomorrow she’d tell Mark and Penny, see what they could uncover. With Mark’s connections and Penny’s magic, whoever had decided to target her will soon regret it. From here on out, Ginger had to protect her fetus and that meant at all cost.

Trying to go to bed with the worry someone had followed her home. She knew that was irrational and this anxiety was always there, but somewhere in the back of her head. All the damn hormones from baby made her mind feel cluttered and chaotic.

The fact that Lucas was acting normal didn’t help. He didn’t stay up to see she got home safely. Sure he had work early and Ginger got home at a quarter after midnight. Finally after anxiously tossing and turning for twenty minutes, Ginger crashed hard.

              Chapter 8:

Waking groggily the next morning was the worse. It was like she got no sleep at all. Seven thirty arrived a little too quickly for her. Ginger sat up and saw a gift on Lucas’ side of the bed.

The tiny red jewelry box was wrapped in a bow. Ginger picked it up and slipped off the bow. Placing the lid to the side, she saw a pair of silver caret earrings with small green emeralds. It was the most amazing thing she saw, oh wait.

What is this for? Had Lucas finally realized that she told him she was carrying their child, or had she forgotten some anniversary? Shit! This was not good. She needed to calm down. There was no way all this pressure probably wasn’t good for the baby.

Before she could think a moment longer, Lucas came in carrying a tray of fresh fruit, tea and a hot stake of French toast. Man she loved him, her fiancée. Sure he had proposed and she accepted, but Lucas had yet to buy her an engagement ring.