Pregnant Pause [H.S]

Chapter 24

You 

The first day on my own, I awoke with a pounding headache and a cottonmouth. Hangover. With my ear pressed to the pillow, I could hear my own pulse before I even stepped out of bed and I knew. I knew the day wasn't going to be kind to me.

But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part had been opening my eyes to the right side of the bed and seeing no one. Just empty space with no promises of filling it.

I'd hoped that a shower would clear my head, but as I walked into the kitchen, clean and dressed, my eyes were still adjusting to the morning light and my head weighed a tonne. In lieu of breakfast, I popped a couple of pills and drank two full glasses of water.

As soon as I dragged my feet through the doors of the office, I groaned under my breath at the harsh ceiling lights and the distant, yet ever-present sound of ringing phones. Dreading the day ahead but also hoping it lasted forever so that I wouldn't have to face the night.

I didn't bother smiling at Vic. In fact, I ignored her entirely. The last thing I needed was the reminder that someone else didn't want me. That I'd screwed things up not with one, but two girls. The two people on whom I depended.

I shuffled my feet past her desk, groaning again at the sensation of tiny hammers chipping away at my skull, stopping dead in my tracks when I heard her voice say my name.

"You have mail," she said when I turned around.

Oh.

"Oh," I said, unable to formulate anything clever to say and not caring enough to try. I reached over the desk to take the envelopes from her hand, locking eyes with her in the process.

She must have noticed how dreary I looked – or maybe that my eyes were a bit bloodshot – because she quietly asked, as if she couldn't be sure whether or not it was a good idea, "How was your vacation?"

I almost laughed in her face. "Fan-fucking-glorious," I replied. Lifeless eyes, no curl of the lips.

Then, mail in hand, I turned away from her and plodded to my cube.

When the phone rang a few minutes later, I answered on the third ring, my heart jumping in my chest.

It was a business partner. My heart – or whatever was left of it – sunk. For some stupid reason, I'd allowed myself to think it could be her.

For the rest of the day, I answered on the fourth ring and not a moment sooner. Worked through my lunch break. Stayed in the office until well past dinnertime just to have something to do, and then went home and pulled a cold beer from the fridge.

To finish out the workweek, my days passed in much the same way. I adopted a rhythm: drink at night, wake up with hangover, trudge through the day, drink at night. By Friday, I wasn't sure if my immune system had adapted to the sudden increase in alcohol intake or if I was constantly hungover. I felt shitty enough all the time that it could have been either one.

Not exactly healthy. Not exactly healing.

But it was a routine, and I sunk into the structure because that way, I always knew what to do next. I didn't have to flounder in the lost unknown that was creeping up on me. The emptiness that, one day, would find and devour me.

*

It was on Friday after work that I finally got around to unpacking my bag from Josie's cottage. It had sat in the middle of my bedroom floor, untouched and spilling over until then. It was unlike me to leave it there, but I didn't care. I'd had no motivation to unpack.