This Life • (J.C)

[-20-]

Joy took the job—she was officially Ryan's assistant. After airing out what had happened that night two years ago, things between Joy and Julian were peaceful.

As time went on, she felt less guilty about her decision—the thought of it nothing more than a distant memory.

•••
Nearly three months of being a tour manager for the band and Joy could barely get out of bed. She had thought it was the first stages of the flu. But that didn't stop their ridiculous requests to have only red M&M's and Fiji water after every show.

This was probably the moment Joy knew she wasn't going to like being a tour manager. The band was insensitive to her needs, claiming that it was just PMS and that the label should've hired a man to do the job.

She pushed through it for as long as she could—the night sweats, the crippling cold that followed after she had knocked the covers off herself in the middle of the night.

She had blacked out on her way to the tub; she awoke lying face down in the floor. Joy assumed she had gotten up too fast, but she had never in her life passed out before—at least when alcohol and narcotics weren't involved.

She was dead sober—dry as bone, as some would say. She remembered being too weak to move once she regained consciousness. But she eventually found the strength to crawl to the toilet, just to dry-heave.

After three days and nights of her symptoms not letting up, she knew it was time to seek help. When she arrived at the ER, she was expecting to be sent home with a prescription of antibiotics—assuming she had caught an infection of some sort. She'd been running a mild fever that just wouldn't seem to break.

She felt like she was dying—something was obviously wrong. She felt it in every part of her body.

All tests came back normal.

All except one...

Unbeknownst to Joy, the blood that was taken was also to test for pregnancy, among other things. She found it puzzling when asked of her last menstrual cycle—a shedding uterus lining seemed like the furthest cause of her problems at that time. She couldn't say for sure, her cycle had always been a little wonky and the stress of being a tour manager of a group she loathed made it even more wonky.

"It looks like you're pregnant. That little thing seems to be the cause of all your problems. Pretty crazy, huh." The doctor chuckled—he fucking laughed.

Joy didn't have time to process what he had said; the doctor had whipped back the curtain and dropped the biggest bombshell of her life without so much as a preparation speech.

Joy laughed in response. "No. No, I'm not pregnant. You have to have sex to get pregnant." Her smile faded when seeing the doctor's brows furrow questioningly. She couldn't remember his name, but she remembered the glistening baldness of his head—that chipper demeanor quickly turning sour at her remark. "I jus- I can't be pregnant. I haven't had sex in..." She trailed, becoming lost in a memory that didn't exist.

She had tried recalling the events of that night after hailing a cab in the middle of the street—when Julian climbed in on the other side and ravished her face with kisses until the cabby spoke against it.

The last thing she remembered from that night was her head laying in Julian's lap; his hazy eyes gazing back into hers with his brown hair hovering over her face. She remembered the streetlights zipping by—the sound of a distant car alarm.

She'd never admit to anyone what he had said to her as she gazed into his eyes in the back seat of that cab.

"I could see myself loving you forever. Stay... jus- stay... for me."