Read Online Losing Gabriel by Lurlene McDaniel - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Lurlene McDaniel
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observation was true.
“Maybe she’ll follow him to college.”
Refusing to rise to Kathy’s bait but seething inside, Lani smiled sweetly. “Maybe she will. Whatever. I just hope he’ll be happy wherever he goes, even if Sloan tags along.”
Kathy offered a derisive snort, signaling she didn’t believe Lani’s sentiment for one second.
Lani kept walking.
Sloan took the test three times and failed it three times. She stood in the cramped bathroom of the trailer, staring at the stick and its plus sign.
Yes,
it silently announced,
you are pregnant.
Her knees went weak as the irrefutable truth slammed into her. Her menstrual period, gone missing for ten weeks, wasn’t going to show up in March. She gagged and retched into the toilet. Dry heaves now. Because she was pregnant, or because she was scared? Both reasons were interlocked and inseparable.
All the time she’d been with Jarred, she’d taken the pill, but once they fell apart, she forgot about taking it. Why bother? The side effects of the anti-pregnancy drug were annoying. The pill made her breasts sore. Not to mention the bloating! But once she and Dawson had started having sex, she’d gone right back on it. She hadn’t missed a dose. Now her breasts throbbed, she was throwing up, and the pregnancy tests were all positive.
She braced her palms against the wall over the toilet, fighting the urge to heave again. Her knees trembled. Her head ached.
LaDonna pounded on the flimsy door. “Hey, hurry up in there! I got an appointment. What’s taking you so long?”
Fear seized Sloan by the throat. How would her mother take the news? She shuddered just thinking about it. “Hold up! I’m getting in the shower…running late.”
“Well, move your ass!”
Sloan turned on the water, hoping to drown out LaDonna, and realized she’d never make the school bus. She felt awful. “I think I have some kind of stomach flu. Don’t think I’ll make it to school today,” she called from under the stream of hot water.
“Then get out of the shower and go to bed. I’m in a hurry!”
Sloan pulled herself out of the stream, did a haphazard dry-off, and wrapped the towel around her. She opened the door, and the steam rushed out.
LaDonna stood glaring. “You look like crap. Don’t give me no flu.”
Not contagious, Ma.
Sloan stepped around her and crossed to her tiny bedroom, barely big enough to contain the pulled down wall bed, dropped facedown onto her rumpled sheets. She thought of the school gossip, of all the hateful things the kids would say about her. They’d talked about her before, but singing in the band had allowed much of the talk to roll off her. Now she had nothing. Fear and nausea clawed through her insides. She moaned. She didn’t want to be pregnant…didn’t want to be a mother. She wanted this growth out of her, wanted it gone. Sobs welled up. She struggled to swallow them down, lost the fight, and smothered her face into the bedding, shoulders heaving uncontrollably.
She sent Dawson a text about being sick, and he called her at lunchtime. “How you doing?”
“Still hanging over my toilet,” she told him. Morning sickness was all-day sickness for her.
“Want me to come by after school, check on you?”
“No.” The single word was terse, said without invitation for discussion.
She told him the same thing when he called after school, that night, and the next morning.
Rebuffed, he couldn’t figure out why she was acting this way. How sick was she? “You need a doctor? My dad—”
“No! I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll ditch classes, bring you one of those chocolate shakes you like,” he offered at lunchtime on the third afternoon.
She didn’t want him to come because she didn’t want to face him. She couldn’t even think of how to tell him. He’d most likely dump her anyway. “You don’t have to keep tabs on me, Dawson. I don’t need you hanging all over me, you know. I’m sick. I’ll get well.”
Her words hurt.
“Maybe she’ll follow him to college.”
Refusing to rise to Kathy’s bait but seething inside, Lani smiled sweetly. “Maybe she will. Whatever. I just hope he’ll be happy wherever he goes, even if Sloan tags along.”
Kathy offered a derisive snort, signaling she didn’t believe Lani’s sentiment for one second.
Lani kept walking.
Sloan took the test three times and failed it three times. She stood in the cramped bathroom of the trailer, staring at the stick and its plus sign.
Yes,
it silently announced,
you are pregnant.
Her knees went weak as the irrefutable truth slammed into her. Her menstrual period, gone missing for ten weeks, wasn’t going to show up in March. She gagged and retched into the toilet. Dry heaves now. Because she was pregnant, or because she was scared? Both reasons were interlocked and inseparable.
All the time she’d been with Jarred, she’d taken the pill, but once they fell apart, she forgot about taking it. Why bother? The side effects of the anti-pregnancy drug were annoying. The pill made her breasts sore. Not to mention the bloating! But once she and Dawson had started having sex, she’d gone right back on it. She hadn’t missed a dose. Now her breasts throbbed, she was throwing up, and the pregnancy tests were all positive.
She braced her palms against the wall over the toilet, fighting the urge to heave again. Her knees trembled. Her head ached.
LaDonna pounded on the flimsy door. “Hey, hurry up in there! I got an appointment. What’s taking you so long?”
Fear seized Sloan by the throat. How would her mother take the news? She shuddered just thinking about it. “Hold up! I’m getting in the shower…running late.”
“Well, move your ass!”
Sloan turned on the water, hoping to drown out LaDonna, and realized she’d never make the school bus. She felt awful. “I think I have some kind of stomach flu. Don’t think I’ll make it to school today,” she called from under the stream of hot water.
“Then get out of the shower and go to bed. I’m in a hurry!”
Sloan pulled herself out of the stream, did a haphazard dry-off, and wrapped the towel around her. She opened the door, and the steam rushed out.
LaDonna stood glaring. “You look like crap. Don’t give me no flu.”
Not contagious, Ma.
Sloan stepped around her and crossed to her tiny bedroom, barely big enough to contain the pulled down wall bed, dropped facedown onto her rumpled sheets. She thought of the school gossip, of all the hateful things the kids would say about her. They’d talked about her before, but singing in the band had allowed much of the talk to roll off her. Now she had nothing. Fear and nausea clawed through her insides. She moaned. She didn’t want to be pregnant…didn’t want to be a mother. She wanted this growth out of her, wanted it gone. Sobs welled up. She struggled to swallow them down, lost the fight, and smothered her face into the bedding, shoulders heaving uncontrollably.
She sent Dawson a text about being sick, and he called her at lunchtime. “How you doing?”
“Still hanging over my toilet,” she told him. Morning sickness was all-day sickness for her.
“Want me to come by after school, check on you?”
“No.” The single word was terse, said without invitation for discussion.
She told him the same thing when he called after school, that night, and the next morning.
Rebuffed, he couldn’t figure out why she was acting this way. How sick was she? “You need a doctor? My dad—”
“No! I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll ditch classes, bring you one of those chocolate shakes you like,” he offered at lunchtime on the third afternoon.
She didn’t want him to come because she didn’t want to face him. She couldn’t even think of how to tell him. He’d most likely dump her anyway. “You don’t have to keep tabs on me, Dawson. I don’t need you hanging all over me, you know. I’m sick. I’ll get well.”
Her words hurt.
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