Starlight (Peaches Monroe #2)(72)
Author: Mimi Strong

The pain is worse than before.

Something terrible is happening to me.

I’m going to die here.

I need to drain the water before I drown, but I don’t want to.

The phone is ringing.

Someone is at the front door.

I just want to sleep, escape the pain.

I try to take off my wet socks so I can be comfortable, but I can’t reach with my hands, and it’s too hard.

Why is everything so…

Am I awake?

Someone is banging on the door downstairs.

It’s the pizza man. No, it’s not.

I roll onto my side. I don’t want to hurt anymore.

There’s a crash.

I should be scared, but I’m not.

The phone is still ringing, and I know it’s my father. I know his ring.

He won’t let anything bad happen to me.

The airplane dropped from the sky, the engines roaring as we came in for the landing. The pregnant girl next to me was holding my hand and praying.

Pray for me, too, I thought. Pray for us all.

The wheels went RZZZZT on the pavement, the plane bounced like a car losing control, and then my seat felt more upright again. We slowed.

I let out a nervous laugh and turned to the girl. “See, everything’s fine.”

She released my fingers and looked around like someone waking from a nap. “My first time flying,” she said.

I nodded like an old pro of four flights. “You’ll get used to the landings.”

We got off the plane, and I hugged my new-yet-nameless friend goodbye. I gathered my luggage and set out for the taxis to take me to the bus station.

Beaverdale is too small to have its own airport.

The night the EMT guys found me barely conscious and in labor, I heard them talking about a helicopter, and how they might need to transfer me elsewhere for an emergency C-section. I was delirious with pain, and I had pre-eclampsia, so my blood pressure was sky-high. Everything seemed like it was happening to someone else—someone on TV—so I wasn’t at all worried. I struggled to keep my eyes open just to see what would happen next.

We drove to the hospital, siren on the whole way. The siren is louder inside the ambulance than you’d think, which only made me respect the calm EMTs more.

The next part happened quickly, with me barely getting transferred off one rolling bed to another, and there was an entire human being coming out of me.

They took him away, and I began to wail and wail, inconsolably. I didn’t know I was pregnant, and now I was so sure I’d f**ked up this little human who deserved so much better than me. I was so sure he was going to have everything wrong. When they brought him back into the room, bundled up in a pale yellow blanket, I thought they’d brought me someone else’s child.

He was so perfect, so precious.

And I couldn’t look at him.

I couldn’t hold him, because I was too ashamed. The nurses would take better care of him, and they didn’t argue. They just took him away, checked my vitals, and whispered outside my door.

I stopped talking to everyone there, except for yes and no answers. I didn’t want to look anyone in the eyes. I wanted to die.

My parents arrived at the hospital in the morning, having come straight home as fast as they could. They didn’t say anything except that they loved me. I rolled over and said I was tired. They took turns staying in the room, so I was never alone.

For that, I will always be grateful. For their love, their forgiveness, and for never leaving my side.

By the time the bus pulled into the Beaverdale depot, I felt like those hobbits at the end of the Lord of the Rings. There is nothing glamorous about traveling, unless you own a private jet that can land on a regular driveway, but I don’t think those have been invented yet.

The plan had been for my father to give me a ride home, since Shayla, my usual taxi, would be working. To my surprise, I stepped into the bus terminal and saw three familiar faces between the potted ficus trees. My mother held up a hand-made sign covered in stickers, reading Welcome Home. Kyle was holding a Mylar balloon shaped in a heart. His little orange T-shirt had Team Peaches written on the front with those standard block letters you get at T-Shirt Bonanza. My father looked embarrassed, but his expression turned to happiness as soon as he spotted me.

My mother called out in a stage voice, “Isn’t that Peaches Monroe? The world-famous superstar?”

I ran over to them quickly, my rolling suitcase wheels unable to handle the speed, the bag rocking back and forth with a thwap-thwap-thwap. I dropped everything and grabbed all three of them in a hug. Kyle wrestled free, so I had to chase him around the potted trees, threatening him with big, sloppy kisses as he squealed and squealed.

I nabbed him finally and spun around with him in my arms. “I missed you so much!”

He squirmed out of my arms and used his chin to point over to my suitcase. It was a gesture I’d seen my father make a thousand times. “What did you bring me?”

We walked back over to my parents, then proceeded out to the car, still talking.

“What makes you think I brought you something?” I asked, teasing.

“Mom said.”

“You don’t believe everything Mom says, do you? She puts vegetables in the chocolate cake.”

My mother elbowed me. “Libel and slander.”

My father cleared his throat. “Technically, it’s either libel or slander, but not both. It’s more of an accusation, but given what I’ve seen happen to zucchini in our kitchen, not a baseless one.”

We climbed into the car, both of us kids in the back. I gave Kyle the package from inside one of my shopping bags, and he tore through the wrapping.

It was a science kit I’d picked up at LAX, with over three hundred separate pieces to delight him and drive my parents crazy. We spent the short car ride to my house arguing over whether or not the package could be opened in the car, or if doing so violated my father’s rules for in-car conduct.

At my house, my father brought my bags into the house, and all three of them came in. My mother tidied up the living room (making some very big eyes over the ashtray full of evidence of Shayla’s recent downward spiral), then she karate-chopped the pillows. My father checked that the railing on the staircase was still secure (he’d fixed it two months earlier) and looked around for other hazards. Kyle went straight for the new fridge, as though he had a special psychic sense for new things, and started filling cups with ice cubes and water, much of it ending up on the floor.

Half an hour later, I’d shooed them away, and I went up to my bedroom to rearrange my walk-in closet to make room for my new designer clothes.