Head Above Water

I sometimes wonder if I mix my feelings up with alcohol.

I'm not much of a drinker, but when I do drink, it's straight. Vodka gives me bad memories, and rum, while delicious, tasted like the breath of one of my foster dads. There was something about whiskey that tasted like a fire, like something was being set ablaze inside of me. It was my poison of choice.

So while I lay here alone in my room, Alexa playing music on the Echo, a glass of whiskey in hand, I wondered if I missed him so terribly because of the alcohol or... something else.

Blue eyes you could drown in, but warm hands that will always pull you out of the water—that's what he was, like he was both the sickness and the cure.

And sometimes it truly felt like I was dying, like I'd fucking suffocate if he didn't call me and remind me that he still wanted me. If I changed, if I became this ugly thing with no teeth or hair, would he still love me for the hell of it? Did he just lie awake at night staring up, looking for meaning in the popcorn ceiling? Did his mind become infected with me; did I make him sick too? Did he know that I could be the cure, too?

Or was it just me?

I looked out the window, finding the moon in the distance, a sliver hung in the air, still bright enough to light up the whole night sky. I hugged a pillow, looking up into where the universe lay before me, up where suns and stars and galaxies waited to be discovered and explored, and I wondered were they better off not knowing what it meant to be loved? Weren't things supposed to be simpler without feelings?

The relentless beat of my heart thudded in my ears, thumping to let itself be known, reminding me that I was still alive, and that I was still fighting. Twenty-nine years I've been kicking in the water, rising to the surface, refusing to let myself drown, and it's funny, all I had to do was

trust someone

. Wes came into my life, and it was like a trust fall, one where you close your eyes and just fall, and he caught me just before the water drowned me. And it wasn't just that—

he taught me how to float.

He taught me how to live.

—

I shouldn't be hungover but I was. I was sprawled out on the bathroom floor, swallowing down the urge to hurl. I hadn't even drunk the whole bottle. Hell, I don't think I'd drunk half.

Why was I constantly getting sick? Was I fucking cursed?

"Babe."

I felt a hand come and check my forehead. I opened my eyes, my vision a little blurry, and found Wes looking down at me. It was weird seeing him in a t-shirt and jeans all the time now that he'd graduated from residency and wasn't working in a hospital anymore.

"Hey," he said softly, giving me a small smile.

"Hi," I replied, coughing to cover the gag from needing to throw up.

"Am I really that disgusting to look at?"

I rolled my eyes.

"No fever, at least," he murmured. "Was it something you ate?"

I shook my head. "Drank," I croaked.

"Too much whiskey?"

Fuck, he knew me. He read the look of shame on my expression and laughed.

"Come on, let's get you to bed," he said, gently taking me into his arms. He lifted me off the floor and carried me back to my room.

"What if I throw up on you?"

"There's this great invention I have to tell you about, Celie," he said, pressing his lips to my temple. "It's called a washing machine."

I punched him in the chest.

"Don't call me that," I grumbled.

"It's been over a year now and I still don't have the right to give you a nickname?"

"I don't like nicknames."

"And I don't like Mondays, yet here we are."

I snorted, but it was replaced a moment later with a groan. "I should be at work," I complained. "I can't keep slacking off like this."

"Slacking off? Celine, that company runs just fine because of you. Give your employees some credit. They know what they're doing."

"Really? That's why we're six points behind goal in quality assurance?"

"No idea what that means. Don't speak call center to me this early in the morning."

"Well, you're always speaking hospital to

me

so this should make us even."

"Actually, I changed my mind," he said. "You talk call center, I talk hospital, and we drive each other up the wall."

"What the hell does that achieve?"

"Mind-blowing make-up sex."

I laughed, and immediately my head throbbed. Ouch.

Wes grinned, gently setting me down on the bed. He took the hair tie from my bedside table, putting it between his teeth as he carefully braided my hair. Yeah, my boyfriend knows how to braid hair. Give a man a little sister and a job working with kids, and he'll learn how to braid hair. I didn't really mind at all, considering how good it felt to have his long fingers brushing through my hair. I sighed in relief when my hair was finally out of my face. If I had to throw up again, at least my hair wouldn't be getting in the way.

"I'm going to go make us some breakfast."

"Wes, I'll throw up," I protested.

"You'll like it," he said. "You need a hangover meal."

"You don't know what I need."

"I'm a doctor. I know exactly what you need."

"If you could stop shoving that in my face, that'd be great."

He laughed. "What's the matter, baby? Medical degree too stiff for you? I've got something else a whole lot stiffer if that's what you're into."

"Disgusting."

Wes went to go make the hangover meal, whatever the hell it'd be, and I slid my phone over from across the bed. A few missed calls from work, a text each from Addie and Rita asking after me, and one from Janie asking if I'd help her convince her mom to let her go on a trip to Big Bear with some friends for a week. At seventeen? If I was her mother, I sure wouldn't let her go unsupervised to the mountains either.

"You're on your own, kid," I mumbled as I typed it into a text.

"Celine, the place has burned down in your absence," Bethany, the new senior supervisor said when I called her a moment later. Lisa had retired, and I'd picked Bethany to take her place. She worked hard, was never late, and had plenty of experience. Plus, I liked her and that didn't hurt.

"Well, why don't I just get in my car and drive over to kill you?"

Bethany giggled. "I'm totally prepared to defend myself with a fire extinguisher."

"You'd lose the fight. Guaranteed."

"You're probably right, but I'm going down guns blazing."

"Talk numbers to me, Beth."

"I love it when you ask me to talk dirty to you."

I laughed. "I'm serious. How are we managing?"

"Looking good. Up a point in quality assurance, if that makes you feel any better."

"It does."

Wes walked in with a plate of sunny side eggs and sliced avocado. Sure enough, my stomach grumbled. He handed me the plate and took the phone from my hand. Before I could protest, he shoveled a spoonful of avocado into my mouth.

"Hi," he said into the phone with a high-pitched voice to imitate me. "What? This

is

Celine!"

I swallowed down my food and opened my mouth to say something, but he fed more avocado into my mouth. I glared at him as I chewed.

"Honestly, Beth, you're just insulting me now," Wes said, sounding mockingly shrill. "You are fired, madam!"

"

Give me that

," I snapped, taking the phone out of Wes's hand. "Hello?"

Bethany was giggling like mad. "If I wasn't married, I'd probably steal that one from you."

"You can have him. No returns though," I said as Wes disappeared back into the kitchen. He returned with a plate of his own food.

"Deal," Bethany said. "Now, are you coming in today or should I have Darlene cancel your appointments?"

"Just cancel up to noon," I said, checking the time. That gave me another two hours to get it together and Uber to work.

"No," Wes said. "You need to rest."

"Are you sick?" Bethany asked.

"Just hungover," I admitted sheepishly. "Please don't tell anyone."

"I was just about to announce it to the entire call center. Thank god you told me not to."

"Beth?"

"Yeah?"

"Shut the fuck up."

"Why don't you shut the f—"

"Don't finish that sentence if you're on my Floor."

"...fuck up," she finished. "I'm in your office, actually. I was picking up your walkie to walk the Floor. Also, stay home, Celine. I'll have Darlene clear your schedule, and I'll pick up the workload for you today. Just stay home and for god's sake, please eat something."

"Am I really that predictable?" I grumbled.

"Yes," Wes and Bethany both said.

"Whatever. Call me if anything comes up." I hung up the phone and reluctantly ate another bite of avocado.

"That's my girl," Wes said proudly, acting as if I'd just won gold at the Olympics.

I flicked a piece of egg at his face.

—

That night I didn't drink any alcohol, but oddly enough, I woke up hungover the next morning too. No joke, I rushed to the bathroom and dry-heaved for fifteen minutes into the toilet. It was not my most elegant moment.

Wes wasn't there to take care of me this time. He'd spent the night at his mother's, and she was likely cooking him up a grand breakfast. It was a work day for me, so he probably wouldn't be dropping by anytime soon.

I brushed my teeth, gurgled some mouthwash and hopped into the shower. I took a quick hot shower, and hissed involuntarily as I ran the soap over my breasts. They felt almost... swollen. And sore as hell.

"Oh, no," I said, swaying in the shower. I put my hands out and steadied myself against the tile wall. "Oh, fuck."

I have to be honest here: I hadn't been counting the days since my period. I

never

counted. So sue me. Of course, at moments like these, I could see just why women bothered.

I slid to the tile floor and wrapped my arms around my knees. Maybe this was nothing. Maybe I was just imagining it.

—

I threw up the next morning.

Nope, wasn't imagining it.

I called Darlene to cancel my morning and got dressed. I tied my hair up since I didn't have time to brush it, and washed my face, brushed my teeth and practically ran out of the apartment. I took the elevator down, my foot tapping impatiently when I felt the second wave of nausea hit me. I slapped a hand over my mouth and held it in.

"Oh, dear," said an old lady from my building when she found me throwing up in the parking garage. "Your first?"

"What?"

"First child," she said. "I was completely unprepared when I had mine too. Of course, that was over fifty years ago. Here," she got out a small package of tissues and a few sticks of gum from her bag and passed them to me. "You keep these, honey. You'll need them."

"Th-Thank you," I said, stunned. Were strangers really supposed to be this kind?

"Does the good doctor know?" she asked me.

"I—what?"

"Dr. Spenrath. Have you told him yet?"

"I'm not—no... I don't know. I was just about to go buy the test, actually." I didn't know this woman, but she clearly seemed to know me. Wes knew all the neighbors so I guess that should be no surprise.

"Get the cheapest one," the old lady said. "They all do the same thing and the cheap ones work just as well as the expensive ones. And get some water from a drive-thru on the way there. You need to fill up your bladder."

"Thanks," I said awkwardly. "I, um, really appreciate the advice. Please... please don't tell Wes."

"Oh, of course, sweetheart," the woman said. "I wouldn't dream of stealing that moment from you. I'm in 219 if you need any more advice. Come see me anytime. My name's Nancy."

"Thank you, Nancy. I'm Celine."

"I know who you are," the woman said, smiling.

"Of course you do."

"Now go on, go get that test. Buy two or three to be sure, actually."

"I will, thank you."

Nancy. I'd seen her around, but I don't think we've ever exchanged more than a smile before today. She was nice, probably a lot nicer than I deserved considering that she'd never even crossed my mind before. I stopped off at a Starbucks and got some free iced water in the drive-thru before heading to the CVS. It was pretty early, but the one on Main Street was open 24 hours so it didn't really matter.

A store clerk greeted me as I walked in, but there didn't appear to be any other customers. I trailed down the aisles until I found what I was looking for: a pregnancy test that cost literally a dollar. I grabbed a handful and went to the register. The store clerk thankfully didn't comment on my purchases, instead asking me how my day was going. It was going shit, but I lied and told her it was a great morning.

I couldn't delay this any longer. I asked to use the bathroom and was directed to one in the back of the store. My hands shook as I turned the knob to the door, and it was a small and cramped bathroom, but I just had to get this over with. I peed into a little styrofoam cup the cashier had graciously given me when I'd asked. I won't go into detail about how this was all done, but I will say that it's gross as hell.

I did all five tests at once.

Now it was a waiting game. I paced in the small bathroom, round and round, tugging at my hair as my eyes brimmed with tears. This was fucking terrifying. What would I do? Wes and I had always been pretty clear about not wanting kids. A child just wasn't in our plans. We'd talked about spending a lifetime together, and we'd always been enough for one another. I wasn't one of those women that needed a child to feel fulfilled—not that it was wrong to be that way, but it just wasn't

me.

Okay, I needed to calm down. For all I knew, the tests would come up negative. In fact, it could be some stomach bug or even a phantom pregnancy. Maybe my body wanted me to be pregnant and this was its way of telling me. I went through what felt like a hundred different scenarios where I wasn't pregnant. And then I looked at the tests. It was time.

No.

Two lines. All of them. Two fucking lines.

I was pregnant.

—

When I got home, I threw up.

I'm not sure if it was because I was pregnant or if it was because I was absolutely

sick

with this information. Maybe a bit of both.

If I'd had a mother, I probably would have called her first. I would have rang her immediately, maybe before I'd even left the store. I would have cried and asked for advice, and she would have told me that everything was okay, that we'd find a way to deal with this... together.

But I didn't have my mother. She was long dead, taken from me when I'd been too little to remember her face and the distinct accent of her voice. All I could remember was that she didn't sound like the other moms, that she'd sounded

different.

I'd wanted to be just like her. I'd imitated her, had walked through the apartment on a hill, and we'd had a cat—and just like that, memories began to flood my mind. It was like something clicked, like I'd been blocking out my past to protect myself.

Mama and Papa. Their faces were blurry, but I remembered how tall they were compared to me, larger than life, especially Papa with his big, warm hands, calloused from the work he'd do. I didn't know what his job was, but I remember running around with his hardhat on my head, and it occurred to me that he might've been a construction worker. Mama had been going to school. She'd sit with her big textbooks on the kitchen table, deep in thought and chewing on the end of her pencil. And I remembered now that she'd smelled like watermelon, maybe from a favorite shampoo or body lotion.

Tears streamed down my face as I remembered bits and pieces of them, the people who'd given me life, the ones who'd loved me,

really

loved me.

And I'd loved them.

"Mama," I whispered. "Mama, I need you."

I cleaned myself up and crawled into bed. I'd be missing another day of work, but for the first time, I felt that it was justified, that I really

needed

this day to pull myself together. I'm not ashamed to admit that I spent the morning crying into my pillow, missing my parents, missing how real they'd been. They'd been alive, not just a dream and a hope, but

real

and tangible and true.

I didn't want to think about what I'd do about the pregnancy. All I wanted to think about was how Mama and Papa had skin like mine, light brown that would tan in the summer heat from days at the beach. I remembered a red tricycle, and a yard, a little one in front of the apartments we lived in, and Papa teaching me how to use it. I'd spun my little legs, making him laugh, and he'd push me around, making me laugh and scream until Mama would come downstairs, smiling as she leaned against the gate. After some time, she'd walk over and kiss Papa and take me into her arms, peppering my face with kisses.

God, how I missed them.

I bawled like a fucking baby. I wanted them so badly. I wanted Mama to tell me what to do, to tell me how to handle morning sickness and mind sickness. I didn't want to keep this baby. Would she have scolded me for it? I remembered the silver cross that hung from her neck, the chain long enough that I'd been able to play with it when she'd held me in her arms. She'd never minded when I'd tugged and tangled it. So she'd been religious, at least a little bit, as far as I could remember. Maybe she'd want me to keep this baby.

But I couldn't change my life on a maybe. I needed to talk to Wes.

—

Wes's apartment in Anaheim Hills was still out of the way, far on the edge of Orange County, just barely within the zip code to be considered a part of civilization. It was miles of nothingness after his exit on the freeway, and small towns, little dusty ones until you got to Chino or Riverside. I parked in his carport and made my way upstairs to the second floor to reach his front door. I had my own key, and I let myself in.

I could hear some muffled talking. Wes's serious voice, from what it sounded like. I walked through the apartment, making my way up the second set of stairs to reach his upper-story bedrooms when I didn't find him in the kitchen, living room or bathroom. I followed the sound of his voice.

"Yes, thank you so much. I really appreciate the opportunity," Wes said into his phone. I walked into his room and found him facing the window, looking out into the hills, over the freeway and to the mountains on the other side. It was a beautiful sight, the greenery and beauty of the view. He had his back turned to me, so he didn't yet know that I'd walked in.

"I'll wait for the email and package in the mail. Thank you again," Wes said, hanging up the phone. He turned around and smiled when he found me standing there.

"I-I have something to tell you," I said.

"Me too," Wes said, grinning. "You want to go first?"

He looked excited, like he could barely hold it in. I decided to let him go first.

"No, go ahead," I said. "I need some good news."

"Your news is bad?" he asked.

"No," I lied. "But yours sounds better than mine. Go ahead."

"I just got off the phone with Johns Hopkins."

Holy shit.

"What did they say?"

"They offered me the fellowship. I guess someone else dropped out of the program, and it's early enough that they could take me since I was next on the waiting list. I've been putting off the fellowship at CHOC, hoping I'd get it."

"Wes—that's... I don't know what to say," I said. I tried not to sound too shocked. Wes was incredible and smart and charming so of course he'd get the fellowship, but I was also caught off guard. This changed everything.

Everything.

Wes walked over and wrapped his arms around me, pressing a kiss to the top of my head.

"'Congratulations, let's have sex to celebrate' probably would work," he suggested. I forced a laugh to keep from giving away how fucking terrified I was. Wes read me easily.

"Babe," he said, hooking my hair behind my ear. "What's wrong?"

I looked up at him, tears escaping from the corners of my eyes. Traitorous bastards.

"I-I'm so happy for you, Wes."