Pricked (Page 39)

Sinking against the back of my chair, I stare at the words on the papers in front of me until they become nothing but random letters that don’t make an ounce of sense.

Did he know?

Is that why he pushed me away?

I think about that night in the car, when we drove to Hidden Oaks and I showed him my grandparents’ house and told him about the night they were killed. He was quiet after that—more so than usual. Looking back, I bet he was putting it all together.

He knew …

But I don’t understand why he kept it from me.

“Madden Ransom is a con and a criminal and the son of a murderer,” my father says with the confidence of a prosecuting attorney. “I’m sorry you had to find out this way … especially given your … current condition.”

A flash of nausea hits me. I’m not sure if it’s morning sickness or fifty thousand emotions coming to the surface all at once, but I run to the hallway bathroom, knocking over my chair in the process, and fall to my knees in front of the white porcelain bowl.

When the contents of my stomach are empty, I push myself up and wash my hands and face. I don’t want to believe any of this. The Madden that I knew had a big heart. He was quiet and contemplative. He would never hurt anyone, never get into mischief.

But then again, how well did I really know him?

Apparently less than I thought.

44

Madden

She’s been gone a week now, and I hate to say it, but it’s been the longest week of my life.

I check my phone for the tenth time today. I sent her a couple of texts this week, seeing if she’s okay. I thought for sure I’d have heard from her by now. I thought for sure when she stormed out of my place that night she was overreacting and that she’d come back once she cooled off.

But she’s gone.

She’s really gone.

And I can’t stop thinking about her. Not for one damn minute. In fact, it’s so bad I’ve almost screwed up a couple of tattoos this week. In the number of years I’ve been open, I’ve only cancelled on my clients maybe two or three times and never by choice, but today I decided to give myself a mental health day. I had Missy reschedule everyone on my books today, and I headed across town to Mom’s place to hang out with Devanie.

“What do you want to do today?” she asks, chomping on a piece of pink bubble gum before wrapping it around her finger a dozen times. “Can we go to the mall?”

“Yeah, sure,” I say. “Have you heard from Brighton lately?”

She wrinkles her nose. I’m sure she thinks it’s odd that I’m randomly asking about her Boys and Girls Club mentor, but she shrugs and says, “I haven’t seen her since two weeks ago. She got a job so we can only hang out on the weekends. We still text though.”

“Recently?”

She studies me. “Yeah … this week … why are you asking?”

So she is ignoring me. Her phone’s working just fine.

“Just wondering,” I say.

“Mm hm.” She gets up from the sofa and heads to the kitchen, returning with her phone. For a second, I think she’s going to show me something … a text from Brighton or something along those lines, but she plops back down on the cushions and starts tapping out a message to one of her friends.

For a second, I think about that text I saw on her phone last Friday from Thom-with-an-H. He was obviously asking her out Friday night—which is tonight. The thought of her going out with some guy while I sit around missing her makes me see red for a second, and then a rush of adrenaline courses through my veins.

I get up from the chair because sitting there working myself into a bundle of ridiculous emotions isn’t going to change a damn thing.

Glancing at Dev, I spot the biggest smile on her face as her phone vibrates and she reads a new message.

“What?” I ask. “What’s that smile for?”

She swats me away. “None of your beeswax.”

I swipe the phone out of her hand and hold it high enough that she can’t reach it.

“Who’s Dylan?” I ask.

“Madden! Give it back!” She jumps but still can’t reach.

“Who is he?” I tease. Kind of.

“He’s just some boy,” she says.

I hand the phone back. “Some boy who makes you smile bigger than I’ve ever seen you smile in your whole damn life.”

She fights a smirk before clutching her phone against her chest and sitting back down. “I think I love him.”

Rolling my eyes, I hook my hands on my hips. “Dev … you’re a kid. You don’t know what love is.”

Devanie frowns. “Yeah, I do. It’s when you can’t stop thinking about someone and they’re the only person you want to be with and when you’re not with them you get sad and if you could only be with one person in the world, it would be them. That means you love them. It’s not complicated.”

If I were to go strictly off of Devanie’s oversimplified definition …

… a person could say I’m in love with Brighton Karrington …

… and they probably wouldn’t be wrong.

45

Brighton

“I’m sorry.” The tech performing my sonogram must be new because she’s taking forever, and she keeps squinting at the screen like it’s the first time she’s ever done an ultrasound before.

Obviously this is my first time, but I feel like this is taking a lot longer than it should.

“Is everything all right?” my mother asks.

“Um.” The tech hesitates. “Why don’t I grab Dr. Robbins? I’ll be right back.”

She leaves in a hurry and I look to my mom.

“What’s that about?” I ask.

“I’m not sure, sweetheart. Maybe she’s new?”

The gel on my belly is cold and wet and I haven’t moved an inch since she left. A couple minutes pass before the door swings open, and in walks the tech and a woman with kind eyes the color of violets and shiny silver hair that curls in where it hits at her shoulders.

“Brighton, hi. I’m Dr. Robbins,” she says. Her voice is sweet and mild, but she doesn’t smile. “Let’s take a look and see what’s going on, shall we?”

I feel like that’s not the kind of thing an obstetrician would say to a patient unless there was a problem, but I wait in silence and let her do her job.

Dr. Robbins squirts more jelly on my stomach and moves the transducer from side to side, trying to get a look from different angles. A couple of times she pushes so hard it hurts, but I don’t say a word.

A few times she presses a button on the machine and pictures begin to print out.

“Okay,” she says a minute later, handing the transducer to the tech. Flipping on the room lights, she takes a seat on a rolling stool. A pained expression paints her face and the tech hands me a warm washcloth to clean my belly. “I’m so sorry, Brighton, but it appears that you have an ectopic pregnancy.”

She begins to explain what it is and how it happens, but I tune her out.

“So we’ll schedule your procedure as soon as possible,” she says. “We’ll go in laparoscopically and remove the gestational sac. The sooner we get in there, the better the odds are that we can save that fallopian tube.”

The doctor apologizes once more and tells me to call if I have any further questions after I leave. The tech hands me my file and tells me to check out at the desk around the corner, and that they’ll call me with my surgery appointment time by the end of the day.

My mother walks me out a moment later, and as we head to the checkout desk, I glance down at my file where the doctor has marked the appropriate diagnostic code for today’s visit.

ECTOPIC PREGNANCY – NONVIABLE.

Nonviable.

Like Madden and me.

How poetic.

We finish checking out a few minutes later and head to the parking lot. My mother is abnormally quiet today. Either she doesn’t know what to say or she’s still in shock from the initial discovery of “my situation.”

“Are you still going to work?” she asks. “After … what just happened?”

“I am.” I don’t have a choice. I’m three weeks into this job.

“You’re a lot stronger than I give you credit for,” she says, her smile bittersweet as she rubs my arm. “I’ll see you tonight?”

I nod, and she wraps her lithe arms around me before heading toward her car on the other side of the parking lot.

It’s a fifteen-minute drive from here to work, but by the time I get there, I have no recollection of having driven at all.

This entire morning has been a strange blur. The future I’m looking at now is very different from the one I was looking at when I first woke up a couple of hours ago. It’s funny how quickly life can change.

While this pregnancy was unexpected, the tiniest part of me was growing more excited with each passing day … even looking forward to meeting the little babe when the time came.

And now … they’re going to go in and remove it.

Like it’s some kind of tumor.

I head into the lab, stomach swirling, head pounding, heart breaking.

My veins flood with a cocktail of grief, relief, and then guilt. When I board the elevator to my floor, I feel nothing at all.