Exhale

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

At around ten, I got a text from Leslie. Ur not here. Ur somewhere else.

Right. I'm at home.

Um. Why?

Long story. I'm not feeling well.

For the next two hours that was all I heard from her until noon.

"You're not here, you're somewhere else," Leslie told me once more when she called me at lunch.

"Sorry," I told her, feeling partially bad that I'd abandoned her for the day. I'd explain what had happened to me, but she wouldn't understand. She'd laugh, or look at me like I was crazy. Then we'd probably laugh together because as far as I knew, I was. "I'm sick. I threw up this morning."

I'd convinced my mom that morning to let me stay home once she saw my chalkiness. Part of it was because I threw up last night's dinner. The other part was because I had seen something unbelievable, including being on the brink of death, which caused my ailment.

She paused before saying, "Omg, are you pregnant? That's a sign of morning sickness."

"What?" I felt my eyes go wide. "No! That is not a sign."

"Yeah, it is. It was morning and you were sick. That spells 'baby'."

I pinched the bridge of my nose. "No, Les. I'm not pregnant. Whose child would I be having anyway?

"Um, your own. However the father of your baby could be anyone."

"I don't really know a whole lot of guys here," I admitted. Especially in that way.

"You know Adrian," she commented casually, but there was a pull in her voice. The hair on my arms rose. "Not in that way," I told her. In a much worse way.

"Or do you?" She asked, seductiveness playing into her voice. "Y'all are English partners, aren't you?"

"Yeah..." I hesitated. "Your point?"

"Point is," she started, "when you met up, who knows, you could have gotten a little friendly with each other. You could have been working on your Sex Ed project with him instead. You know, identifying each other's different body parts, seeing if they work right. I can just imagine it now, he's doing you in such a good way, and whispering sweet nothings into your ear. Your hands are all over each other. I can just hear you now. 'Mmm, oh yeah, ahh'!" She released a squeal next, and I wanted to throw up all over again. My face had heated up at least three degrees higher than a deathly high grade fever.

"Stop! " I exclaimed. "I don't want to be thinking about this right now. We haven't even met up for our project. It's only been a day."

But as I pondered on this, a really quick, sick little thought came to my mind. Truth was, I did want to get that close to Adrian. I wanted to feel him close to me. I wanted to feel his touch. He was bad news and he drew me in. Like the witch from Hansel and Gretel.

"That doesn't surprise me," Leslie broke me out of my thoughts. "He wasn't here again today. Probably committing some crime."

I smirked at the thought. She was right. I knew where he had been first thing that morning.

When I went back to school the next day, Adrian wasn't there. Neither were Jet and the others. I sighed in relief, knowing that I was spared for a day.

But as a few more days past with him gone, I started to wonder about his whereabouts. I started to get a bad feeling in my stomach. I wasn't sure why I was feeling that way, but I was hoping that his absence was not because Jet found out about what wasn't done to me, and just because he skipped way too often.