Read Online Immaculate by Katelyn Detweiler - Free Book Online

dialed Frankie’s. The phone rang five, six, seven times, and I exhaled in relief. A voice mail would be much easier and faster: no questions, no elaborating. Just as I expected the beep of the automated message, I heard a sharp click and a breathless gasp on the other end.
    â€œFrankie and Friends’ Pizzeria. This is Jesse. How can I help you?”
    â€œOh, hey. Hi, Jesse,” I said, flustered. I had barely talked to him since the night we first met. A few necessary words here and there about when to clean, what to clean, but nothing that didn’t relate to dishes and mops and window spray. He was too intertwined with Iris in my mind. He was a witness—living, breathing, irrefutable proof that she had been at Frankie’s, that I had talked with her. That she existed at all and wasn’t a complete figment of my overactive imagination. Besides, I could only imagine what he thought of me afterward, running away from a harmless old lady, barely acknowledging his presence ever since. Though frankly, there seemed to be something a little off about him, too. He was friendly enough to the waitresses and to the other guys in the back, but he still seemed remote to me, distant, as if his body might be there, scraping pizza pans, but his mind was somewhere else entirely. I sometimes had to repeat his name a few times before he’d hear me, before he’d snap out of whatever cloudy daydreams kept him floating through his life.
    â€œMina?”
    I almost dropped the phone, startled that he’d recognized my voice so easily. “Yeah. Yes. It’s uh . . . me, Mina. I . . . I’m sick, Jesse. Really sick. Stomach bug or something. I was up all night puking, and I still am, actually, and really there’s no end in sight, I don’t think—” Hannah coughed, and I cut myself off. “So, yeah, please tell Frankie that I’m really, really sorry, but I just don’t think I can make it in for my shift tonight.”
    â€œSure, no problem, Mina. I’ll help hold down the fort without you here. Feel better, okay?”
    â€œThanks, Jesse.” I hung up and fiddled with the phone, pecking at random keys to avoid the awful, frightening silence that hung in the air between us.
    â€œSay something, Mina,” Hannah said. “Please,
please
say anything that makes all this more reasonable. You have to know how confusing this situation is for me and Izzy. I want to believe you.
We
want to believe you. Don’t we, Iz?” She looked over at Izzy for encouragement, but it was obvious that Izzy was avoiding both of us, staring off toward the creek instead. Hannah gave up on her and refocused her attention back to me. “Help us to do that, Mina.
Please
. Help us.” I barely recognized her voice, which was usually so warm and alive, like sunshine and bells. It was all hollow now, sad and desperate, begging for explanations I couldn’t give.
    â€œI don’t know what else I can tell you,” I said, lifting my head up to face them. I refused to cry again. I refused to look away. “Iris . . . What Iris said to me is the only answer I can think of, and trust me, I know how absolutely crazy that sounds, I do. I really do. But I didn’t have sex, not with Nate, not with
anyone
. I didn’t have anything even remotely close to sex. That’s all that I know. That’s all the explanation I have.” I paused, grabbing, clawing at my mind for anything more I could give. “Maybe there’s another reason besides pregnancy that I’d get those results? Some sort of sickness or condition that would cause a false positive?” I said it, but I didn’t believe it. The words felt wrong, in my heart and on my tongue, but it was one small offering I could give them, however temporary.
    Hannah looked almost satisfied, the corners of her tight, pursed lips relaxing as she considered this new and improved option.