Forked Roads Back

104 - TESSA

FOUR MONTHS LATER

ONCE AGAIN, I'VE BEEN feeling sick all morning.

I've been feeling sick for the last few weeks. The kind of sickness that only comes in the morning... or when it's brought on by particular smells.

I told myself it was nerves - the fact I'd finally heard from our old school - but it was definitely getting worse. The interview came and went, and yet the sickness didn't go away.

I didn't want my gut to be right. I didn't want to believe the thoughts in my own head.

Amazing as it was to believe I may be pregnant, no matter how much I wanted this, I still had things I wanted to do before we settled down and started a family.

Jamie and I are getting married in July. After Charlotte and Danny's wedding, we moved ours to the closest date Achnagairn could slot us in for, because I knew my heart. I wanted a couple of years with just us, maybe doing a bit of travelling before the two kids turned up.

I'd always pictured two - twins, maybe - as well as the house with the white picket fence, the large garden out back, and maybe a dog to go with it all. I wasn't a high-achiever like Jamie, just seeing the lightbulb behind a child's eyes when they get what I'm teaching them is dream enough, but I knew I had to think about Jamie's dreams in all of this too. He wanted to start his own company, he wanted to earn his millions before he was thirty. He wants to be able to provide for me, even though I've told him numerous times he doesn't have to.

To be honest, the current dream is to stop feeling so sick all the time.

In fact...

I sit up sharply from bed and dash for our bathroom, holding my mouth shut so nothing comes out before I make it to the loo. I only just make it in time, before I spectacularly splutter last night's amazing dinner into the toilet bowl.

My whole body is wracked with chills as I dry heave twice, wretching, holding my now-empty stomach.

Taking a breath, I sit back, reaching up to grab a towel from the door as the cold sweats form on my skin, trying to keep myself warm.

Please be food poisoning, I tell myself as I lean forward and dry heave again.

I repeat the process about four times before the nausea finally seems to subside.

"Tess?" I hear Jamie call from outside the door.

A minute later, the bathroom door opens, wafting the smell of coffee and breakfast in with it, which turns my stomach again.

Puking once more, I groan as Jamie shuts the door and sits down next to me.

"You okay?"

I have just about enough energy to scowl at him, but he just smiles with a shrug, kissing my clammy skin.

"I just want it to end," I groan, suddenly sitting up as I empty my stomach one more time, holding onto the seat for dear life. "Can you just kill me," I tell him.

He chuckles. "Never."

Leaning back, Jamie hands me a glass of water from the side and I wash my mouth out and spit into the loo before flushing it all down. I repeat the process twice, and I do feel colour slowly coming back to my cheeks as I do so.

Done for the day, it seems, I say to myself.

"Do you think it's something you ate?" Jamie asks, coming back from the bedroom, having grabbed my dressing gown.

He picks me up off the floor and gently sits me down on on the now-closed loo. "You've been puking for days. There can't be anything left in there."

I pull my dressing gown tightly around me and give him a nervous smile.