Fate's Return (Twisted Fate, Book 2)

Chapter Fifteen

"Ugh. You don't have to hold my hair, Mom."

"You would rather throw up in it?"

She had a good point. God, but I hated it when people saw me throw up, even my parents. It was the equivalent of an ugly cry as far as I was concerned. Crying and puking were both embarrassing, and painful. I felt like my eyes had been hit with a blow torch and my innards swirled with an electric kitchen mixer that was overheating after being used for too long.

"You should go see to dad," I said, and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. Twisting around, I used my hands to help myself off the floor and stood to face her.

"Your father is fine. Let's just get you back to bed, hmm?" She patted my cheek and smoothed my hair away from my face so that she could look me in the eyes. "I'll send him to the store to pick up more Baby Angels and—"

"No."

She reached up to put the back of her hand to my forehead, but I knocked it away. She frowned. "Honey, if you're sick—"

"I'm fine," I said, and it was true. Now that I'd emptied my stomach, I felt great. So fine that the familiar tenderness that always accompanied being sick was absent from my abdomen. In fact, I was starving, and the scent of my mother's roast floating up the stairs from the kitchen was making me salivate.

"You should be in bed, Alyssa."

I shook my head and side-stepped her so that I could stand in front of the sink and reach for my toothbrush. "No." I grabbed the toothpaste. "I should brush my teeth before joining you guys for supper. I'm hungry."

"You're hungry?"

Looking up, I nodded at the mirror and saw her frown behind me. "Famished."

She stared at me a few minutes longer as though determining if I was taking drugs. Telling her the mere smell of weed made me green wouldn't help, not with how sick I'd been since Saturday. No, she'd think I was a stoner. Hell, maybe becoming a stoner would make me feel better.

"I can make you soup?" she asked, raising her eyebrow.

"No. I'm hungry for your roast."

She paused, watching me, but finally nodded. "Fine. Supper will be on the table in five minutes."

"Fine."

I watched her go before I began to brush away the bile lingering in my mouth, and then scrutinized my reflection in the mirror. I paid attention to every movement, each feature. Nothing had changed over the last week except for the length of my hair, which I'd done to myself. So, then what was wrong with me? Other than talking to myself and expecting an answer, of course, which I knew couldn't be found in a mirror.

Bending over, I rinsed out my mouth and spit in the sink, and then made my way to the kitchen.

My parents spoke in hushed tones until I walked into the room, and then they stopped talking altogether. As if their choice of topic wasn't obvious. They couldn't hide the questions in their eyes, the worry that they felt something must be wrong. I'd heard of parents who tried to shelter their children from the world, over-compensating with something. But until now, I'd never felt that way.

I was an only child. My parents called me their 'miracle baby' because, until I'd been conceived, they had believed my mother was incapable of carrying to term because of a hostile uterus or something. But somehow, I was here, and I felt bad that they were scared that someday I wouldn't be anymore. It was every parent's nightmare, and no parent should have to die before their child. I guessed that was just another of the world's great injustices, because it happened all the time: mothers burying daughters, fathers burying sons, entire families turned to rubble over the death of a child too young.

"I'm fine," I said, answering their unspoken question, and took my chair, the legs scraping against the linoleum as I pulled myself closer to the table. "I promise that I feel fine, okay? Stop looking at me like you want to throw me back in the crib so that you can coddle me for another eighteen years."

"Speaking of cribs...?"

"Dad, seriously?" I sighed. "I'm not pregnant."

"You could tell us if you were," my mother insisted. "You're almost eighteen, and very mature for your age. We would just want to help you."

"So, if I was only fifteen, you wouldn't want to help me?"

"That's not what she meant, Alyssa," my father said, and pinned me with his steely gaze.

"Whatever." I rolled my eyes and reached for the jug of water standing at the center of the table and continued as I poured some into an empty cup, "Like you said, I'm mature for my age. If I were having sex—which I am not—I'd be smart enough to use a freaking condom! Just because I got a nasty case of the flu doesn't make me pregnant. Geez."

"We've heard you getting sick every time you wake up."

"Wow, Dad. I guess it's time to pull out your Bible because you obviously believe in Immaculate Conception." I speared a piece of my roast and shoved it into my mouth without cutting it. "I'm not... even"—I swallowed— "dating anyone."

"We met Brenan—"

"—and Suzie's dad talked to me about her and Deryk," my father finished, sharing a look with my mother before they both focused back on me.

"Seriously?" I laughed, waving my fork in the air. I narrowed my eyes and swallowed another mouthful of my supper. "Suzie and Deryk have been dating for two years, Dad. Guess what?" I lowered my voice to a whisper and leaned forward as if sharing a secret, resting my palms against the ledge of the table so that the fork stuck straight up in the air. "She's a virgin, too." I sat back up with jerky movements and opened my eyes wide as I covered my open mouth in surprise.

"You don't have to cover for Suzie. I was a young woman once. It's easy to get caught up in the emotions of your first love."

"I'm not lying." Putting another piece of roast in my mouth, I held my mother's gaze as I chewed, and then added, "Suzie is a virgin, Mom."

"You just don't understand—"

"What, Mom? First love?" I laughed, but it sounded hollow. "I do understand, and I know how much Suzie wants to let her emotions take over. I envy her because she still has that chance. The reason I haven't been dating isn't for lack of options. Brenan's nice, but I haven't decided how I feel about him yet. I'm still trying to move past my first love, which I gotta tell you, would be a helluva lot easier if he wasn't dead."

I looked away as their mouths dropped open so that they wouldn't see my tears.

First love was great, while it lasted, but in my case, it sucked worse than no love at all.

I pushed my chair away from the table and set my plate on the floor for Scruffy to finish my supper. At least one of us should enjoy it, and my appetite had vanished. I hadn't meant to tell them about David, but I was just so tired of the same thing being said over and over like I was too simple to understand it the first time.

"Alyssa—"

"Mom, I really don't want to talk about it. If I must prove to Dad that I'm not preggers, fine. Go buy the test." I turned and walked out of the room, calling over my shoulder that I was tired and going to bed.

Stomping up the stairs, I closed my bedroom door for privacy with just one goal: figuring out what was wrong with me before I really was forced to pee on a stick.