Betrayal

Chapter 38

Two Weeks

Ali

I stare at the bottle of pills.

Katherine wrote me another prescription for antidepressants. I picked them up a couple days ago. I've barely been out of this apartment. Mostly, I've slept. And cried. I've waited for the sting of it to subside and to begin to not think of him so much, but that hasn't happened.

If anything, it's gotten harder. He called me two weeks ago. Hearing his voice sent me into a spiral. Seeing Lola and Dominic, at his insistence, was hard, too. He pleaded with me to do it and I didn't want to, but I did it anyway. For him. I'd hoped he would be there. Just to see his face. But he wasn't and then I was grateful for that. I'm not sure how I would've kept my composure in that room with his wife there.

Lola grilled me for just a moment, but after seeing me, she softened. She knows something's wrong. She's my best friend, after all, just like Warren said. We walked back here together. She insisted and was stunned by the apartment. I didn't answer many questions about how I'm living here. I hadn't come up with any lies because I wasn't expecting to see her again. I certainly wasn't expecting her to come here. I was too weak to protest. I'm still weak now.

I hold the bottle in my hand and study it. Little blue pills. Low dose. A starter. It could regulate my mood and help me with all my anxiety and depression, she said. It would do good for me. She insisted, but also insisted it was completely up to me.

She's visited a few times a week. She brings a different food every time. Pizza, sandwiches, wine, coffee. We sit and we talk. Sometimes about Warren, but other times it's like we're friends. We chat and it's comfortable. She's told me about her husband and her children. I've told her more about my childhood and my mother.

I've been invited to her home, too, but haven't gone. It's too close to him. If I see him I know I'll break down. Even just a glimpse could send me careening further down into the darkness than I already am.

Nausea overcomes me all at once. As I vomit into the bathroom sink, I count how many times I've done this since I woke up. Four or five, I think. I feel clammy and cold, yet hot and sweaty at the same time. I'm trembling. My hands are shaking.

I've had this thought, completely irrational and impossible, that I could somehow be pregnant. Every time it crosses my mind I push it away. I'm on birth control. He's had a vasectomy. I checked my pills when I started to get sick like this and haven't missed a single one, except for right after he ended things. I wasn't thinking right and let myself go without taking them. So there's no way. I'm sick because of how he destroyed me and hurt me. My body is trying to recover.

But every time I throw up, I can't stop myself from wondering. I can't imagine things could get worse than they already are. I can't let myself think that way. I'm not pregnant. I had my period last month on time and I should be starting my next one any day now. I've been dreading it.

Still, I should go and get a test. Just to be safe. I keep telling myself that. Just to be sure. To ease my mind and calm my nerves. But I haven't. I think about it when I've had to go to the store. I avoid the area where they sell the tests.

I take a shower. I brush my teeth. I get dressed. Jeans and a cropped shirt. It's hot out today, though I haven't decided if I'll go out. For a long time I lay on the couch and stare blindly at the television. I've kept it on almost constantly just to have some background noise. Right now it's on Sex and the City. Normally it would make me laugh. I don't pay much attention to it now.

I glance across the room at my easel. Sitting on it is my most recent painting. The only painting I've done since Dominic's birthday portrait. It's of Warren. Much darker than the first one I did. It mimics how I feel. Broad strokes, his eyes black as night, his face just how it was when he told me it was over.