Random Acts of Hope by Julia Kent Read Free Book Online Page A

I stop—I…oh, God.” I sagged against her, letting the feelings come in. They flooded like a tidal wave. She pu l led me to a bus station bench, the scent of urine overpowering, the lingering staleness of millions of cigarettes smoked here some sort of base comfort. We sat on the dirty aluminum bench and I cried until I had no more tears.
    It took a lot longer than I thought.
    Peeling me off, she fished around in her tiny purse until she found an old coffeehouse napkin, balled up but unused, and said apologetically, “Here.”
    “Oh, God, oh, God, what was I thinking?”
    “You weren’t. You were feeling.”
    “ I’m n ot supposed to feel! Not when it comes to Liam.” I started to hyperventilate. F l ashes of so many memories from five years ago hit me, hard. The phone call with him. Going to P lanned P arenthood alone, too ashamed to ask a friend to go with me. The confirmation of pregnancy. Going to health services for an eight- week appointment. The talk about “options,” which was code for abortion or adoption.
    “I had a baby in me. I had a baby in me with Liam,” I whispered. The dreams that tormented me, so wonderful in slumber where Liam was attentive and loving, cradling my belly in his hands, talking to our unborn child, always dissipated in the cold light of day when I woke up and realized the only real thing was my nausea.
    Puking before midterm exams. Puking after midterm exams. Puking, once, during midterm exams. Finishing out my semester by the skin of my tee th and only because the professor whose exam I missed when I was bleeding out in a dorm bathroom gave me a pass because I had an A average otherwise.
    Which left me with a C- in that class.
    “ Charlotte,” she soothed.  
    “I never told my mom, you know?” I was raving. “My own mother. I was so ashamed. Not at being pregnant—accidents happen, and I was on the pill —but at the way Liam acted. It felt like I’d done something so wrong that I deserved to be treated like something you leave in a dump, so I couldn’t bear to tell my mom. I kept it a secret, and then I miscarried, and she never found out.”
    “I know, honey. I know,” Maggie crooned as I choked and bleated into the early fall night.
    “And five years,” I raged on. “Nothing. Nothing. Not a word. Then the bastard sees me at a party and orders sex toys!” My harsh laughter caught the eye of passersby, who involuntarily steered a few feet away from the bus stop.
    “Sex toys from me ! The woman who hasn’t had sex since Liam!” There. I’d said it.
    Maggie startled, her body tense against mine, but she kept her mouth shut, eyes kind and filled with something close to pity.
    “You know what he said to me, back then, after I told him I was pregnant? You know what he said, Maggie?” The wind whistled through a giant hole where my heart was supposed to be.
    “What?”
    “He said, ‘Oh.’ That’s all. Just ‘oh.’” A dark exhaustion began its slow creep through my limbs, the feeling familiar.
    “That’s it?”
    “No—he also told me to ask our friend Amy to take me to Planned Parenthood to con f irm the pregnancy when I asked him to drive me.”
    “Jesus. What a gentleman.”
    I snorted. “That’s the thing!” I wailed. “He was a gentl e man! We’ve known each other since he was in sixth and I was in seventh grade. I’ve known him since before his voice changed! And all those years of friendship, then more, meant fucking nothing. Nothing. He threw me away like a piece of trash.”
    “Oh, honey.”
    “Threw our baby away like a piece of trash.” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Which is exactly what happened. My baby became medical waste. Trash. Just…something you throw away and forget ever happened.”
    “No, no, Charlotte,” Maggie soothed, her arm around my shoulders.
    “Except I can’t forget. Can’t forgive, can’t forget, can’t move on, can’t stop thinking and now he kissed me and he—GOD DAMN LIAM!” I