Giftchild (24 page)

Then I scrubbed my legs, washing away all traces of blood.

It would stop. It
would
.

I was rinsing the conditioner from my hair when the back pain began. It was subtle at first, just an ache deep in my spine like I might have had if I'd been standing too long in a line, or contorting too much to get a perfect shot. I held my breath, standing beneath the spray, letting the hot water hit my back where it hurt. Heat was good for cramps. My body would relax. The pain would ease.

Except that it didn't. The next wave felt like a sharp stabbing. The pain shot up my spine.

I stepped out of the shower, hands shaking. If I had pain or bleeding, the doctor had said, he wanted to hear about it.

I dried my hands on a towel.

More watery drops of blood splashed across the floor. My back throbbed. I pulled on my underwear and pad, wrapped another towel around myself, and headed for my room.

Under a pile of notes on my desk I found the paperwork from the doctor's office, including the number I was supposed to call. With fumbling hands, I found my cell phone and dialed.

A recording answered. "If this is a medical emergency," it said, "please call 911, or go to the nearest emergency room."

I swallowed.
Was
this an emergency? That's what I was calling to ask
them
.

"If you have a question for the nurse, please leave your name and number, and we will get back to you as soon as possible."

I pinched the paper with the phone number on it between my fingers. "This is Penny Overman," I said after the beep. "I'm bleeding, and I . . . don't know if that's a problem or not."

I left my number and hung up.

My back throbbed again, and I fumbled through the rest of the papers, hoping there was something more helpful in them. There, on one of the papers, was the list of miscarriage symptoms: back pain, cramping, bleeding.

I read the words over once, twice, three times. I had two symptoms out of three. Unless the back pain
counted
as cramping, in which case I had all three. I collapsed onto my bed.

If I wanted to know exactly what a miscarriage was like in all its graphic detail, I could ask Mom. But unless I wanted to terrify her, I couldn't tell her. I'd just wait for the doctor to call back. And they'd tell me it was nothing.

I grabbed a water bottle from my nightstand—I kept them there now, because I was constantly parched. I woke up dying of thirst at least once every night. Now I sipped my water, and took deep breaths. If I had a miscarriage, did that make me exactly like Mom? Would I cry for weeks? Would I crumble to pieces?

It only took five minutes for the phone to ring, but it felt like forty.

"I'm calling for Penny," the nurse said.

I fought to keep my voice from shaking. They probably got calls from panicked girls all the time. All the time. And it was probably usually nothing. "That's me."

"Penny, this is Dr. Kauffman's nurse. How are you doing?"

"Okay, I guess."

"Tell me about the bleeding. How heavy is it?"

"I don't know," I said. "Medium?"

"Is it gushing or dripping?"

"Dripping," I said. "Is that bad?"

"It's probably fine," she said. "But I think we should have the doctor look at you, just to be sure. Can you come in?"

That wasn't what I wanted to hear. If it was fine, I didn't need to be seen. "Do I have to?"

"I think you should to be on the safe side."

Safe. That's exactly what I wanted to be. "Okay. What time?"

"We'll fit you in as soon as you get here. I'll let the front desk know you're coming."

I closed my eyes. Not right now. Right now was urgent. I wanted to come in leisurely sometime in the next few days. That's what you did when you saw the doctor for probably nothing.

"Okay," I said. "I'll see what I can do."

Mom had gone out with the car, so I couldn't drive myself. She'd answer her cell phone if I called, but then I'd have to explain. To Mom. That the person carrying her baby was bleeding.

I wasn't going to do that for probably nothing.

I immediately dialed Athena. Her phone rang five times and then went to voice mail. I swore, hung up, and then dialed again.

This time it hit voice mail after two rings.

She was probably in class. Like everyone else in the world I knew.

I hung up again and shook my phone. I could leave Athena a message, but then I'd have to deal with her later, after everything turned out to be all right.

I still needed to make it to the doctor, and I needed someone to drive me. There was only one other obvious choice. But he was at school.

Wasn't he? What if he'd decided to stay home to avoid me, the way I'd done to him? Then he might be around. He might answer his phone. I wasn't supposed to see him outside school. But this was . . . maybe not an emergency . . . but definitely an extenuating circumstance. Giving rides was totally something that
friends
did.

I dialed Rodney before I could second guess myself. Again.

The phone rang. And rang. And rang.

And then went to voice mail.

I swore again. He had to be at school. I put the phone down and scrunched down on my bed, which, now that I was clean, I could tell definitely smelled like unwashed Penny.

I had to call Mom. I had to. I'd just tell her I changed my mind. I thought I should be seen by the doctor. Like, now. But it wasn't serious. Nothing serious.

And of course, she would totally believe me.

I cringed with my finger over the button to dial.

And then the phone rang. I looked down at Rodney's name.

Rodney was calling me back.

"Hey," I said, trying to sound casual.

"Hey," he said back. "You just called?"

"Yeah," I said. "Aren't you at school?"

"I just got out of first period," he said. "Didn't you?"

I took a deep breath. "No."
Casual
, I thought. Like I was asking him for a ride to the store.

In the middle of the freaking school day. "I need a favor."

"What's that?"

"I need you to drive me to the doctor's office."

Rodney paused. "Right now?"

"Yeah," I said. "Can you leave school?"

Rodney's voice was strained. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I said. "The doctor just wants to check some things. Can you come get me?"

"Your mom can't take you?"

I squeezed my eyes shut. I could lie to him, but I could already feel the cracked door of our friendship beginning to edge shut. This was a stupid idea. A terrible idea. He couldn't leave school for me. Obviously he couldn't. His parents would find out.
My
parents would find out. "Never mind," I said. "Sorry to bother you."

I heard a loud bang on Rodney's end, like a door shutting. "This is serious."

"I don't know," I said. "I mean, no. It's fine. I don't want to worry anyone." I cringed. Anyone but him, apparently.

"I'm on my way," Rodney said.

"No," I said. "You don't have to—" But Rodney had already hung up the phone.

The drive from school to my house should have been fifteen minutes,
if
no one stopped him on his way to the parking lot. Instead, it took him five.

"I'm not dying," I said as I opened the door. And, as if to make a liar out of me, my tail bone ached viciously.

"Right," Rodney said. "But you need to go to the doctor badly enough that you called me out of school."

I bit my lower lip, hard.

Rodney steered me toward the car. He'd left it running. He opened the passenger door for me and then ran around the car to climb in the other side.

As he backed out of the driveway, he glanced at me. "Is your mother going to meet you there?"

"Um." Hadn't I told him that I didn't call her? Probably not. I'd probably dodged the issue. I chewed my lip. Why couldn't I stop lying to him?

"Um?" Rodney said. "You didn't call her?"

I floundered for an explanation. "I didn't want to worry her." That, at least, was the truth.

Rodney's mouth dropped open. "She doesn't know you called me? Because I'm not even supposed to
be
with you."

I smashed my palm into my forehead. "I won't tell her, okay?"

"She's your mother," he said. "She's going to ask how you got to the hospital."

I shivered. "The
doctor
," I said. "Not the same."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Penny," he said. "This is really messed up."

I slumped in my seat. He was right. Of course I had to tell her. But if Rodney insisted that he was just my friend, that wasn't a commitment, right? It wouldn't interfere with her adoption. It ought to be okay for us to be just friends. "I'll tell her," I said quietly. "Once I'm sure I'm okay."

Rodney raised his eyebrows at me. "And if you're not?"

I took a deep breath. "I'm sure I am. Don't argue with a pregnant woman. She has intuition." Though, if that was true, I was pretty sure my intuition receptors were entirely clogged.

I gave Rodney directions to the doctor's office. He drove like a maniac, and I was half convinced we were going to crash into a pole and die.

At least then I wouldn't have to talk to my mother.

We arrived at the doctor's office, and I climbed out of the car, moving with purpose so that Rodney couldn't come over and try to help me.

"Thanks," I said without looking at him. "That was really nice of you."

Rodney climbed out of the car, following me inside.

"You could go back to school," I said. "Then you'll just get marked tardy in one class and it won't be a big deal and your parents won't—"

"Penny." Rodney put his hand on my arm, which had apparently been violently shaking.

Crap. I should be putting up a brave front for him. I should be making him believe that he was okay to go.

"I'll stay in the waiting room," he said. "At least until your mom gets here."

I stared straight ahead. Until Mom got here. And saw him in the waiting room. And totally murdered me, birth mom or not.

"You don't have to," I said.

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Obviously," he said. And he took me by the arm and guided me into the office, as if I couldn't walk in on my own.

I would have argued more, except that I wasn't actually sure that I could have.

"Thanks," I said.

"Sure," Rodney said. "Of course."

But I could tell from his tone that he was as unsure of all this as I was.

There was no
of course
in a situation like ours.

In the doctor's office, Rodney took the seat as near to the door as possible.

It wasn't fair of me to leave him here like that for long. I pulled out my phone. "I'll text my mom," I said. That was clearly what I should have done to begin with. I sent her one line:
I'm okay, but at the doctor's. Meet me here?

But, like a coward, I still turned off my phone so I wouldn't have to see her reaction.

When I approached the receptionist's desk, I expected to be asked to take a seat. But instead, the nurse came right out and ushered me into a room they had waiting for me.

Now more than just my hands were shaking. If they really wanted me to think that this was no big deal, they should have let me wait for twenty minutes, at least.

The nurse did take the time to check my pulse and blood pressure. I told myself that meant they weren't really in a rush—they probably wouldn't do that if they thought I was going to have to go into immediate surgery or something.

But then a worse thought cut through, one I wished I hadn't thought of at all: if miscarriage was a thing that could be fixed by surgery, Mom would have been under that knife. If I was miscarrying, there was nothing they'd be able to do.

I clutched the edge of the exam table while the blood pressure cuff tightened around my arm. Mom had been caught in a whirlpool of grief for years. I'd been trying to reach for her, to save her. But what if in doing so, all I'd done was caused myself to fall in?

"Relax," the nurse said.

Fat. Chance.

I breathed deep. The pain in my back had subsided, for the moment at least.
See
, I thought.
Nothing wrong. False alarm. I've terrified Mom for nothing.
When she was done with my vitals, the nurse had me describe the problem. How long had I been bleeding? How much? Then she handed me a drape. "Undress from the waist down. Put this across your lap. The doctor will be just a minute."

I held the drape in front of me. It was just a piece of soft fabric that looked like it had been washed many, many times. "Should I leave my underwear on?" I asked. "I'm wearing a pad."

She reached into a drawer and handed me a thick pad of gauze. "Sit on this," she said.

What if I soaked through? Did that mean the baby was going to die?

Dr. Kauffman came in almost immediately after I sat down under the drape.
It's just because they squeezed you in
, I told myself.
It's just because he's trying to get to his next patient on time.

"Penny," he said, "I hear you're experiencing some bleeding."

"Yeah," I said. "That's normal, right?"

"Sometimes," he said. "Let's have a look."

The nurse stood in the corner of the room while he stretched on a plastic glove and helped me lie back on the table. He poked at my abdomen first, then at the bleeding area. I chanted the anatomy in my head as he went over it. Uterus, ovaries, labia, vagina, cervix. I didn't need to learn those from a physiology book. I'd heard them in health lectures since I was ten.

"All right," Dr. Kauffman said. "I'm going to send you over to the ultrasound room. That way we can get a better look at what's going on."

A stabbing pain shot up my spine again, though I couldn't tell if it was cramping or panic. He was supposed to take one look and tell me it was fine. There wasn't supposed to be anything to look closer
at
. "You can't just use that cart thing again?" I asked.

Dr. Kauffman actually had the nerve to smile. "I just want to make sure we don't miss anything," he said.