Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 95107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
But he doesn’t want to hear it. It’s too late to ease Garrett out of this rage spiral, and the best I can hope for is that he keeps his temper under control while the cameras are rolling. Maybe Landon will have better luck with him.
After Garrett leaves, I welcome the alone time. I slip into a pair of cotton boxers and a tank top and climb back into bed, spending the next couple of hours nursing my cramps and trying to get some work done. Eventually I figure out that part of my stomach pains is hunger and get up to make myself a sandwich—only to come back to bed to see a small red stain on the sheets.
When I hurry into the bathroom to check, I realize my underwear is stained as well.
While it’s not a full-blown panic, my pulse kicks up a notch while I change, strip the bed, and text Allie. She gets back to me while I’m putting the sheets in the wash, with the assurance that some spotting is normal.
ME: You’re sure? I’ve felt like crap all morning.
HER: I’m looking at the Mayo Clinic website right now. Says it’s common.
ME: When does it become not common?
HER: I’ll send you some links. But I don’t know. You know what? Call Sabrina. She’s probably a better person to talk to.
ME: Good idea.
My first instinct had been to text Allie, my closest friend. But she’s right. I should be reaching out to someone who’s actually gone through this. And hey, I’ll even be able to avoid the awkward news-breaking part, because Sabrina already knows about the pregnancy. Allie the traitor let it slip in our girls’ chat.
So I call Sabrina, who picks up on the first ring. I have a feeling she saw my name on the phone and thought, what the hell? We rarely call each other outside of the chat thread.
“Hey. Everything okay?” she asks immediately.
“I don’t know.” I’m suddenly resisting the urge to cry. Stupid hormones. “When you were pregnant with Jamie, did you ever have any bleeding?”
“Bleeding or spotting?” Her tone is sharp.
“Spotting.”
“Light or heavy?”
“Light-ish? Stained my sheets and underwear, but it’s not a constant flow.”
I can almost hear her relaxing on the other end, as she exhales a breath. “Oh, then yes. That’s normal. Any other symptoms?”
“Some cramps this morning, but they’ve subsided.”
“Also normal. My advice is to monitor it for the day. If the spotting turns to bleeding, I’d go to the hospital.” She hesitates. “Could be a sign of miscarriage. But it could also be nothing.”
“Mommy!” I hear a plaintive cry in the background. “I can’t find my purple bathing suit!”
“Sorry. That’s just Jamie.” Sabrina’s voice goes muffled for a moment. “Why don’t you wear the green one instead, then?”
“BUT I WANT THE PURPLE!”
Jesus. I’m pretty sure Sabrina’s covering the phone with her hand, yet I can still hear that kid’s shriek.
“Okay, I’ll find it for you. One sec.” Sabrina returns. “Hannah, I have to go. I’m taking Jamie to the pool and—”
“I heard.”
“Call me if anything changes, okay? Keep me updated.”
“Will do.”
After we hang up, I draw a deep breath and tell myself everything’s okay. But no matter how many times I repeat the mantra, I can’t shake the idea that something’s wrong. Before long, I’m tumbling through my own little spiral as I tunnel deeper into pregnancy blogs and medical journals searching for an explanation. The consensus being that Sabrina is probably right.
Unless she isn’t.
39
Garrett
“Tell us about one of your earliest memories learning to play.”
The interviewer, a former college player turned broadcaster, sits with his pages of questions in his lap. Across from him, my dad and I are in identical director’s chairs. The set is a white-hot spotlight surrounded in darkness but for the red lights of two cameras watching this awkward farce unfold. Not unlike an interrogation. Or a snuff film. To be honest, I wouldn’t be against someone getting murdered right now. Preferably the Armani-suit-wearing jackass beside me.
“Garrett?” the interviewer, Bryan Farber, prods when I don’t reply. “When did you first pick up a hockey stick?”
“Yeah, I was too young to remember.”
That’s not a lie. I’ve seen photos of myself at the age of two and three and four, gripping a child’s Bauer stick, but I don’t have any clear recollection of it. What I do remember, I’m not about to share with Farber.
This guy doesn’t want to hear about my father ripping the covers off me when I was six years old and dragging me out in the freezing sleet to make me pick up a stick too big for my little body and slap at street pucks.
“I think you have a picture,” Phil says, smoothly jumping in. “One Christmas when he was little, maybe two years old? Wearing a jersey the guys all signed for him. He’s in front of our tree with a toy stick in his hands. He took to it right away.”