Breakaway PA by Jessiqua Wylder

Author:Jessiqua Wylder [Wylder, Jessiqua]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-02-12T05:00:00+00:00

Blurry Vision

Pippa

Xaver is dead to the world. He’s asleep in the living room with an open laptop and papers spread all around him.

“Xaver,” I call from the doorway. He doesn’t respond.

I cross the room and loom over him, reaching out, shaking his shoulder. My cold hand warms due to his heat.

The pungent, spicy powder I used in my chicken curry, which I had the wherewithal to put on a low flame, invades my nostrils and makes me sneeze.

“Bless you,” he mutters.

“I’m bleeding, Xaver. Please wake up.”

My pain isn’t bad, but the trickle between my thighs causes fear to strike my heart like a clap of thunder.

I don’t know if I’m pregnant or not. Reading the pregnancy test instructions while Xaver breathed like a bull outside the bathroom door, telling me to hurry up, was as far as I’d gotten.

When he’d slammed his hand against the door, I’d dropped the test into the toilet. I’d almost cried when it flashed “ERROR” at me.

“What’s wrong, Pippa?” Xaver sits up, his black-socked feet coming to rest on a quarterly report. He rubs his right eye with his palm while his mouth gaps in a wide yawn, showcasing a mouth full of perfect white teeth.

“Xaver… I’m bleeding, and it hurts.”

“The fuck!” Registering the worry on my face, he asks in a brisk tone, “Where are you hurt?”

“I went to the bathroom, and there was blood on my thong and in the toilet, and…” I close my eyes for a moment. Light pink blood surfaces behind my eyelids. The pain in my womb had worked its way up—in my mind—to unbearable.

Xaver’s eyes shutter like a submarine closing its portholes before a deep dive. He goes from personal to business in under a second.

“Can you walk? Ah, never mind.”

He picks me up and carries me to the bedroom. A new comforter and freshly laundered sheets are on the bed. Xaver lays me down gently, not like earlier when I’d bounced before he’d pounced on me.

I ask, “Who changed the sheets?”

He gives me a what the hell look. “I did.”

Xaver turns and disappears into the bathroom, coming back a moment later with two thick towels.

“Leave your T-shirt on and take off the rest.”

While I remove my flannel sleep pants, he fluffs a pillow and lays the towels on top of the fitted sheet.

“I’m calling a few doctors I know. Someone will be here soon.”

His expression, as blank as a new canvas, gives nothing away.

Xaver further peels back the covers and indicates for me to lie down. He sits on the bed and rubs my back in slow, sweet movements.

My heart lurches in my throat.

What is he thinking?

“Does it hurt a lot?” His tone is low, thoughtful.

I rate the pain. It’s more like a dull throb now. Maybe it always was, and my fear made it worse.

“No, it’s better now.”

Xaver stops rubbing my back. He cocks an eyebrow. His narrowed eyes glint like grass green jewels. “It’s not your menstruation, right?”

The ‘right’ comes out loaded, like .38 in a gang war.

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