Chapter5-thesilence
1103 Words
The clinic smelled too clean.
Not comforting-clean. Not safe-clean. The sterile smell was what caused Liana to wrinkle her stomach. There was a voice in her that told her that this moment might make everything that followed take a different order.
She was sitting on the cushion chair with twisting fingers at the blouse hem, and her legs bouncing lightly. A nurse who was lazy and had his eyes trained to read fear was sitting opposite her.
"Miss Brooks?" the nurse inquired eventually, with a polite and sharp voice.
Yes, Liana said almost in a whisper, which was almost too soft to be heard.
"You're here for confirmation?"
Liana nodded, in an attempt to get herself together.
The nurse gazed at her with quick eye movements up and down. "First time?"
"Yes."
"Alright. We'll be quick."
Quick. The term was flying in the air as a semblance of hope. Time slowed. Each heartbeat throbbed on her bosom.
She was holding the little typed slip a few minutes later and trembling. Two words gazed up at her as a throb:
Positive.
Her throat constricted. Her hands shook violently. She held the paper against her heart and she tried to tame the storm that was in her. She was carrying life.
And then, even as she started to feel the fear start spreading through her, Justin came beside her and with his long figure towering over her like a shield.
You're... pregnant, he said, but calmly, with his eyes bright with something she had not anticipated--joy. Real, unguarded joy.
"Yes," she whispered.
He smiled--only a little curve of his lips, but it brought the tension in her breast a little. "Good," he said. "This... this is what I wanted."
Her heart skipped. The expressions were shock and warmth in one. She had not anticipated him to feel this.
Justin came up, patting a strand of hair off her face, his fingers doing little more than touching her cheek. We did it carefully, I said to myself, he said. "Everything was monitored. You're safe."
"I..." she began, voice faltering. "I wasn't sure..”
You were that, he broke in, and hard and soft. "Everything is perfect. You are perfect."
There was a shilliburr along her back, however, it was not fear. It was novel, this threatening allurement of his presence, the awareness of being noticed, really being noticed.
Later on, when the injections had taken their effect and the first monitoring was provided, they both left the hospital. Liana held the folder Justin had made her, and he was driving up beside her without saying anything, and its touch of her hand would remind her that he was there. Always.
"Have you eaten?" he said lastly, looking at her in the rearview mirror.
"Not yet," she admitted.
He drew his jaw a little closer. "You will. I will have someone come over with food tonight. You cannot skip meals. Not now."
"Yes, sir," she whispered. She felt her aching in a nameless way at the way he said it, which was very firm and careful.
It was a smaller, harsher Westbridge the following day. Liana was strolling the old courtyard with a tightened stomach under the blouse, it was her burden of a secret, heavier than life itself. All the whispers, all the looks, were increased, turned against her.
Somebody grumbled as she went by….She's glowing.
Obviously by way of upgrades, answered another voice mockingly.
Her pulse quickened. She sucked her nails and continued to move.
At that moment she spotted Danielle…the girl who had whacked her some weeks ago..leaning on the stone railing of the humanities building. Her predatory look was flickering at the stomach of Liana.
Well, well," Danielle said, venomously. Seems like somebody is pregnant.
Liana froze. Move, she said and this time she was more assertive.
Danielle stepped closer. "Nice upgrades, huh? Private rides. New clothes. Everyone notices."
I said move, I said, shake, but sharp, Liana, said.
Danielle laughed, with the glint in her eyes. "Careful. You are already starting to look... frail.
Liana unconsciously swallowed, with the sense of the invisible wall pushing even closer. She squeezed her hands together, and would not be afraid.
Later that same night, Justin drove her out of her apartment. He didn't enter, as always. Only his presence was a kind of shield.
Everything; everything is going on as planned, said he as he fussed with his cufflinks, smooth and quick and steady. "Doctors will monitor you. You're protected."
Yes, said Liana with her bag clutched in her hand and her lips parted.
"Speak," he urged gently. "You're thinking aloud."
"What if... things change?" she asked, voice quivering.
Justin stared unswervingly at her eyes. "They will. That's inevitable."
No, no, not that, said she.
He paused, studying her. This compromise, Liana... and it succeeds because we are good-faith. You inform me in case anything has gone wrong.
She felt her heart thumping so strongly that she thought he was able to hear it.
There is nothing wrong, she said to herself.
Justin gave a small nod. Instead, he gave her a little brown envelope.
"Emergency numbers. Mine included. Call over anything... anything wrong.
Their fingers swept across each other. Contact was forced and unintended, but sweet in her palm.
"Goodnight, Liana."
"Goodnight, sir."
She saw the car go and her heart was aching with emotions she could not dare to call.
That night, she dreamed.
She was in the Westbridge campus again, with her hands on her stomach. Unfeeling and cold, faceless students walked past her. Someone laughed. Someone shoved. She attempted to scream--but she could hear nothing.
Pillow wet with sweat she awoke. Her phone buzzed. Unknown number.
”Careful where you walk. What you are carrying is not desired by all.”
Her breath hitched. She gazed at the message until the words got blurred and then she deleted.
The street underneath was black, bottomless. She put a full hand on her stomach, where lay the unstable life there, and the envelope that Justin had sent her in the other.
Then there was pulling of unseen threads, somewhere. Someone was watching.
Justin Cartier was standing in his office, at the top of the city, silvery against the night, glaring down into the streets below, and he did not feel good, in a manner that he had not felt in years.
What does it mean when the world breaks and I am not able to mend it? He thought?
In the far off there was a thunder roll.
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
The storm had not begun yet.
But it was coming.
- Writer
