"Watch me."
19. Jamie
The text arrives just past eight in the evening.
We know who the father is.
I'm standing in the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil, and for a moment the words don't make sense. Wrong number. Spam. Some kind of scam.
Then the second message arrives.
Nice apartment. Akari works late on Thursdays, doesn't she?
The kettle clicks off. I don't move to get it.
I make it to the bathroom just in time. My knees hit the tile hard enough to bruise as I vomit bile into the toilet, my body heaving even though there's nothing in my stomach. The baby kicks in protest, a sharp jab under my ribs.
"Sorry," I gasp. "Sorry, sorry."
My phone buzzes again. I left it on the kitchen counter. I don't want to look. I have to look.
I pull myself up using the sink, rinse my mouth, and walk back to the kitchen on legs that don't feel like mine.
48 hours to leave town. Or everyone finds out whose bastard you're carrying.
It’s the Cranes. It has to be. That means Carter knows.
I throw the phone across the room. It hits the wall and clatters to the floor, screen cracking, and I stand there with myarms wrapped around my belly and try to remember how to breathe.
Forty-eight hours.
That’s fine. I was already planning to run. It was going to be after the baby and I recovered.
But forty-eight hours means now. Forty-eight hours means today.
I look around the apartment. I have to tear it all down in two days.
I retrieve my phone. The screen is shattered but still functional. I delete the messages, then block the number, then stand in the middle of my bedroom and try to figure out where to start.
It doesn’t occur to me not to run. A year ago, I’d have screenshot the messages and posted them online. A year ago, I didn’t have another life to protect.
Clothes first.
I pull my duffel bag from under the bed and start emptying drawers. Nothing fancy. Nothing that won't stretch over my belly. I fold a week's worth of underwear, four t-shirts, three pairs of paternity leggings, one pair of jeans with the elastic panel that I hate but that are the only pants I can still button.
Socks. I always forget socks. I grab all of them, shove them in the side pocket.
Toiletries. I waddle to the bathroom and sweep everything into a plastic bag—toothbrush, toothpaste, prenatal vitamins, the industrial-size bottle of antacids I've been living on.
I catch my reflection in the mirror. Pale. Hollow-eyed. The swell of my belly straining against my sleep shirt.
Keep moving. Don't think.
Documents. I pull the fireproof lockbox from my closet and sort through it. Passport. Birth certificate. Social security card.
Cash. I have an envelope tucked behind my winter coats. Three thousand dollars, saved over years, emergency money I never thought I'd need. I count it twice, then stuff it in the inside pocket of my jacket.
The baby stuff is harder.
