Rêveuse

Chapter 24.

"You're overthinking," She sighed as she turned the page in the album. I knew I was.

Charles and Arthur came knocking on my door before we went out for dinner. It was the first time I saw Charles since summer, but he seemed happier to see me this time around. Last time he didn't seem to enjoy my presence at all. So it felt nice to feel like we could at least be friendly again.

Madeleine was there too, and joined us for dinner. She seemed happy to see me as well, which felt nice. She was a nice girl, and we got along well last time we saw each other. Charlotte was there as well, so I talked a lot to them as we went out to eat and celebrate.

After appetizers, they wanted to make a toast and we got a bottle of champagne. I didn't know if it was just dangerous for the baby or also dangerous for me to drink alcohol. But I know that alcohol is particularly dangerous during the first trimester, so I immediately got a bit of a cold sweat. If I didn't drink it, maybe people would question it.

So I cheered, took the tiniest sip and then I put the glass down and pretended to forget about it for the rest of the dinner. It ended up being the only one left that wasn't empty by the time dessert was finished, and Arthur put it in front of me as a reminder that I had it. I shook my head and I put it in front of him as if asking him to finish it for me.

"J'ai tellement la gueule de bois que je ne peux littéralement pas boire ça," I'm so hungover I literally can't drink this, I whispered and he gave me one quick nod before quickly switching our glasses when no one saw it.

We took the same picture as we do every year, where our parents place Charles, Arthur and I next to each other and they take a picture. It's a whole collection of twenty four pictures.

I could barely sleep that night. Firstly because it was the first time in a long time I slept in a king bed all by myself. Evie had her own room. And even if I didn't share a bed with her a lot, I still always slept in the same room as her. If it wasn't with her, it was with Mateo, so being alone felt like drowning in the silence around me.

Then there was the obvious thing keeping me awake. It was so crazy to think that if I keep growing the cells in my body it will become a fully functioning human. It made me so scared to think. I knew too much about all the people who got a mental break because of pregnancy hormones, and somehow I was convinced that I would get that if I actually went through with it.

But in the hours since I found out, I've been noticing more and more symptoms. Like the fact that I go to the toilet as if I drink seven gallons every hour. Or the constant nausea. Though that might be from all the crying and all the emotions. Were my boobs getting bigger? They were definitely feeling off. Thinking about it, everything felt off. My whole body started to feel like someone else's body.

That first night after finding out that something was using my body to grow into a human, I had some existential crisis. I didn't want it there, and my body didn't even feel like a body anymore, it just started feeling like a shell.

Then all of a sudden the sun started to rise and I had barely slept at all. I was exhausted. I wanted to sleep for weeks, but I couldn't actually fall asleep. Every time I had been close to falling asleep, I had to pee, or I got really nauseous and wondered if it was worth running to the bathroom.

When the sun had risen, I gave up on sleeping and I got out of bed. I walked up to the curtains, feeling nauseous, tired and a bit moody, and I only managed to get one curtain up before I realized that I had a very limited time to get to the toilet so that I could vomit.

I vomited like a pig. I had tears running down my face and it felt like it was never ending. And as if my life was a joke to someone, the door to my room opened and I heard singing on the other side of the bathroom door. So I had to force myself to stop, I had to dry my face and pop in two mints into my mouth and then walk out there like nothing had happened.