The Truth About Ever After (30 page)

“Have
you been sick?” I asked, unable to help myself. Eric shook his head, but I
persisted. “You really don’t look that great.”

“Thanks,”
he said drily. “I missed you too.”

“Eric,
you know that’s not what I meant.”

He
stopped outside of the elevator and turned to face me. “I haven’t been sleeping
too great,” he said. “Or eating much.”

I
frowned. “Are they working you that hard?”

He
laughed. “No, Kiki. I haven’t been sleeping or eating because I miss my wife
and I’m terrified she won’t forgive me for being such an ass.”

I
stared at him, feeling the strangest mixture of relief and guilt. He had missed
me.

“I
missed you, too,” I whispered. “You have no idea how much.”

Eric
closed his eyes briefly, as if in relief. When he opened them I saw that they
had darkened with intensity. Suddenly he was kissing me and I was wrapping my
arms around his neck, pulling him close to me, unable to get enough of the feel
of him, solid and real and there with me.

“I’m
so, so sorry,” he whispered against my mouth. “What I said about your family
was unforgivable. And not true at all. I love you, Kiki, all of you.”

I
nodded, knowing he was telling the truth.

Suddenly
the elevator opened with a ding. I jumped back from him. I had totally
forgotten that we were in the middle of a hospital.

I
grinned at him shyly as he took my hand and we boarded the elevator together. I
leaned in to his shoulder as we descended, the motion setting off my dizziness
once again.

“You’ve
lost weight,” he said disapprovingly. “Have you been eating?”

“Not
a lot,” I admitted. “Turns out I missed my husband as much as he missed me.”

Eric
wrapped his arm around me as the elevator reached the ground floor, leading me
out into the main lobby. Suddenly, the dizziness swooped back in, nearly
knocking me over this time. I clutched Eric as he gasped.

“Are
you okay?”

I
nodded, trying to make the word right itself. “I’ve been having weird dizzy
spells,” I said, clutching his arm tighter. “I thought it was from not eating
enough, but they keep happening.”

“We’re
going to have someone look at you,” he said firmly.

“Eric,
no, it’s no big—”

But
he was already pulling me across the lobby to the intake desk. He had me
explain what was happening to a very nice nurse. “Why don’t I get you a
wheelchair?” she said. “And we can zip you over to emergency to have a look.”

“Oh,
I’m sure that’s not necessary,” I said. “I don’t need the ER. I can just call
my doctor tomorrow.” I let go of Eric’s arm so I could stand up straight.

It
was a big mistake. No sooner had I moved away from him did I feel the room
start to spin again, much worse this time. Before I could do a thing to stop
it, the floor was rising up to meet my face.

Chapter Thirty

When
I came to, the first thing I saw was Eric staring down at me, a stricken look
on his face.

“Don’t
you ever do that to me again, Kiki Barker.”

“Thompson,”
I whispered. I still felt woozy and my head was now pounding. “What’s going
on?”

“You
passed out in the lobby,” he said, still looking terrified. “So they brought
you down to emergency to run some tests.”

“Wow,”
I said, shocked. I had never
full-out
fainted in my
life. “Why does my head hurt so bad?”

“Uh,
you hit it.” He looked uncomfortable. “When you fell, I tried to catch you, but
I lost my balance and you kind of pulled me down. You hit your head on the
floor.”

I
couldn’t help but smile. “Real smooth.”

“It
was not my finest moment as a gentleman,” he said, his voice solemn.

“So
what do they think it wrong with me?” I asked.

Eric
shook his head. “No idea. They took some blood to run tests. They wanted to see
what was up before they ran an IV.”

I
shuddered. I hated needles and had felt rather relieved that I was out of it
when they took my blood.

“Kiki,”
Eric said seriously. “You have to take better care of yourself, okay? I don’t
know what I would do if something happened to you.”

“You’re
one to talk,” I teased. “Weren’t you the one that was telling me you weren’t
eating or sleeping?”

“Kiki,
I mean it,” he said. “You have to promise me that you’ll take care of
yourself.”

“Okay,”
I said, squeezing his hand. “But you promise, too.”

“Okay.”

A
very young-looking man came in a few minutes later, introducing himself as Dr.
Kelley. “Mrs. Thompson, there are a few things in your blood work that I want
to talk to you about.” He looked over at Eric briefly. “Would you like some
privacy while we talk?”

“No,”
I said, feeling nervous. What did he want to tell me? “This is my husband; I’d
like him to stay.”

The
doctor nodded and pulled a chair over to the side of my bed. “Well, first of
all, it appears that you may be anemic. Is that something you’ve ever been told
before?” I shook my head, not a hundred percent sure what anemic meant. “Well,
we’d have to do more tests to know for sure. It’s possible that the anemia is a
symptom of something else. Mrs. Thompson, are you aware that you’re pregnant?”

I
stared at the doctor in shock. Had he just said what I thought he said? I
looked at Eric, who appeared to be frozen in place beside me.

“I’m
going to take that as a no,” Dr. Kelley said, smiling. “It’s not always easy to
tell, but from the look of your hormone levels, I’d guess you’re at least three
months along.”

Three
months? Three
months
? How on earth
was that possible? How could I have missed the signs for three entire months?
Eric was now squeezing my hand so hard it hurt.

“Wow,”
I whispered, not knowing what else to say.

“I’d
like to get you on an IV to replenish some of your electrolytes,” he said.
“Your levels are dangerously low right now, and that’s not good for you or the
baby.”

The
baby. Oh, my God. The baby!

“If
you’d like, we can take you up to OB/
GYN
to do a
sonogram when we’re finished, so that we can make sure everything is looking
okay. You’ll still want to make an appointment with your doctor as soon as you
can.”

It
occurred to me that I had barely said a word since he started taking. “Um,
okay,” I said, my voice shaking.

He
smiled at me. “This is quite a surprise, huh?” He stood and patted my shoulder.
“I’ll send the nurse in to start your IV.”

Eric
remained frozen beside me, not saying a word. The nurse had finished her work
before he finally spoke.

“Did
he… did he say that you’re pregnant?”

I
nodded. I had no idea how to respond to this. All I had wanted for the last
year was a baby, and now I was actually pregnant. I should be jumping for joy.
But after everything that had happened, was this really the right time for me
to have a baby?

Suddenly,
Eric was laughing. “Kiki, we’re having a baby!”

I
looked at him, watched as he laughed happily, grabbing my hand to kiss it over
and over again. Slowly it dawned on him that he was alone in his celebrating.

“What’s
the matter?” he asked. “Are you not happy about this?”

I
struggled to find the right words. “I’m scared,” I finally said.

“Scared
of what?”

“Scared
we’ll mess it up,” I whispered. “Look at what happened this year. We hit rough
waters and we both completely fall apart.”

“Kiki—”

“No,
Eric, listen to me. We’re supposed to support each other through our problems,
and instead we totally retreated. I was too caught up in my stuff to see that
you were unhappy and you were so unhappy you started blaming me for stuff. What
kind of atmosphere is that to raise a baby in?”

“Kiki,
we messed up, I know that. But we can learn from that. Just because it happened
once doesn’t mean it will happen again.”

I
looked at him doubtfully. “You moved to Chicago, Eric. And we pretty much
stopped talking. That’s not some little mess-up.”

“I
know that, Kiki. But being away from you made me realize how much I needed you.
You’re my family,
my everything
. I cannot be without
you, I just can’t. The thought of having a child with you…” I was shocked to
see tears fill his eyes. “Kiki, I want that so, so much.”

“You
do?” I whispered.

“Of
course I do,” he said, kissing me. “God, why do you think I’ve been so
miserable since we lost the baby? I love you, Kiki. I want us to have a
family.”

Choose to be happy
, I thought to myself, remembering my
mother’s words.
Choose it every day.

“You’re
right,” I whispered, not sure if I was talking to my mother or my husband. They
were
both
right. “We’re having a
baby,” I said, louder now. Excitement was starting to build inside me, washing
away the fear and the doubt. I looked up at Eric, and I was sure the joy in my
face matched the joy reflected back at me.

Chapter Thirty-one

Jen
had asked me once when it was that I knew I was in love with Eric. I told her
it was the first time we kissed, which was kind of true, but not quite. The
truth was, I knew long before that. I didn’t want to tell Jen about it, because
I actually fell in love with Eric on a night that I didn’t really like to think
about.

My
sorority house was hosting a party, the annual White-and-Black Ball. It was a
really big deal, the most important social event we organized all year. I
remember that I was feeling annoyed about the entire thing because I didn’t
have a date. I had only just been dumped the week before. Andrew, the longest
relationship I’d had in my college career, had broken up with me after four
months. He’d been very vague on his reasoning and I couldn’t help but believe
he must not have cared about me enough, once he got to know me. It was a
depressing thought.

Kara,
also dateless, convinced me that we needed to make the most out of the party.
“There’s going to be a ton of guys there,” she had told me. “And they’ll
actually be looking good, since there’s a dress code. None of this scruffy,
baggy jeans, dirty shirt crap that they think passes for fashion.” She rolled
her eyes.

So
Kara and I had planned a major day of shopping and primping. We had our hair
colored and blown out, nails done, legs waxed—the works. Then we spent a
few hours at the mall, trolling all the stores for the best-looking white or
black dresses we could find. I wasn’t super excited about the color
restriction; in general I thought that white washed me out, and I made it a practice
to never wear black—too depressing. I was a girl who loved color. But I
got lucky about an hour after Kara had found
her own
little black dress.

“Ooh,
Kiks
, you have to get that one,” Kara said when I
stepped out of the dressing room at Macy’s. “You look amazing!”

I
looked down at the dress, a very simple white strapless shift, made out of the
softest bleached suede I had ever touched. It felt like heaven on, and I was
shocked to see that it looked pretty good, hugging my curves and contrasting
nicely with the remains of my spring break tan.

“You’re
sure it’s not too slutty?” I asked. It was a little tight. Kara just scoffed,
and I walked away from the store two hundred bucks poorer, with the dress
carefully wrapped in a bag.

Later
that night, as Kara and I mingled, I felt my spirits lift. I had always loved a
good party, and the sorority house was filled to the brim with guests. Everywhere
I looked, people were dancing and having fun. It wasn’t your typical college
kegger
party, which was a nice change.

“Hey,
isn’t that that one cute guy?” Kara hissed in my ear.

“That’s
real specific,
Kar
,” I said, laughing.

“Oh,
you know.
Matt Thompson’s brother.
He came out with us
that one time, right?”

I
spun in the direction she was looking. Sure enough, Eric Thompson was standing
across the room, looking breathtakingly good in a black suit. He had opted for
no tie, and his black button-up was undone at the neck, showing a few inches of
tanned skin beneath. I felt my heart rate kick up a notch. What on earth was he
doing here?

Across
the room, Eric caught my eye and waved, a smile breaking across his face. I
groaned. “I guess I have to go talk to him,” I muttered. “See
ya
.”

I
made my way across the room, cursing Eric for looking so good. What right did
he have to show up at my sorority, dressed all in black and looking like a
total sex god?