Beyond the Black Curtain

Chapter 38 - Oh Baby

Rae

I've never felt so exhausted in my entire life. Putting together this surprise birthday party for Sebastian in such a short amount of time took so much out of me, I feel like I could just drop dead and sleep for a full week.

Seeing the look on his face though was all worth it. His joy at being with the people he loved the most had brought me joy as well, if not more. I hope someone had taken a video of when his mom showed up, it was such a beautiful moment that I was such a crying mess beside him. He's such a mama's boy and I knew I had to somehow try and bring Georgeta here for his birthday.

Six weeks later

I wake up just 2 minutes before my alarm blasted off in my ear. I return the phone to the nightstand after switching it off for the day and turned to my left to reach out for...an empty space?!

Rubbing the sleep off my eyes was my rude reminder that I was spending an extended amount of time alone in bed. I quickly thought what day it was and realized Sebastian had been out for almost a month now. I groaned and fought back a shudder of tears when I recalled our goodbyes when I took him to the airport a few weeks back.

Georgeta had been kind enough to offer to stay with me but I gently refused. School was about to start for her, and I'd be at work anyway for most of the day; I didn't want to leave her alone in the apartment.

Darius and Olivia had occasionally come over to join me for dinner or take me out for it. Scarlett would call every once in a while as well, still apologetic as ever that she wasn't able to come out for Sebastian's birthday. I think she's leaving for Europe in a week and she'd promised to squeeze in some time to see me before she leaves to attend to her own schedule of reshoots.

My phone pings and I pick it back up again to find yet another text message from Taylor.

Just two more weeks, Rae. Need ur decision.

I growl a little at this. I realized I've been putting off making the decision, despite him not being here, I still wanted to talk to Sebastian about the offer I got just days before he left.

The offer? I couldn't even believe it myself when I was first told. A two-month stint as guest editor for Vogue Italy as well as an opportunity to shadow Emanuele Farneti while there. The publishers had been so impressed with the launch and subsequent readership of Escape so far that they were planning to put up another magazine solely dedicated to fashion.

I told them I'd think about it first, reasoning out that I was just getting warmed up with Escape and that I still have so many ideas I want to flesh out into print.

Pressing the sleep button once again, I gingerly get up out of bed, fearing the bout of nausea that's been nagging me the last few days would come again. I took a deep breath but when I was about to let it out, I found myself making a mad dash instead to the en suite and threw up instead. My head then throbbed so badly in an instant I wanted to cry.

I waited until the dizziness subsided and tried to gauge how I was feeling.

"Yup, no, I can't," I mumbled to myself when I tried to stand up. I dialled Olivia and told her I won't be able to make it to work today and if she could drop by with a few supplies I thought I might need while I veg out in bed the whole day.

"Jeez, Rae, what happened to you? You look like hell ran you over fifteen times," Olivia commented as soon as she saw me lying down in bed.

I was about to say something in response but my stomach churned and before I knew it I was dumping my face in the toilet bowl. Olivia was at my side in seconds, pulling my hair back as I retched and heaved onto it.