A group of friends tries to piece itself back together after losing its glue.
*****
It's a quiet October morning in Palo Alto, California, when the news break out--June Beaumont was...
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GRACE
Our second morning in San Francisco began with Sofia slumped over a toilet and me being the guardian angel, the savior, who had to hold her hair back because neither of us had enough time to find a hair tie.
She was lucky to have someone here with her. The only reason why I was there was because I ran into her in the hallway, courtesy of my crippling insomnia and her upset stomach, and I didn't have it in me to let her do this by herself. That's how the both of us ended up in a bathroom at five-thirty in the morning, trying not to wake anyone up.
I did try, though. I asked her so many times if she needed me to go get Meridian, the only person she ever listened to, but she refused every time. I don't want him to worry, she'd said. Let him sleep. It's not like he ever does. As frustrating as it was, I chose to trust and believe her on that one and didn't chase him down the hallway to handle this situation in my place because, well, it was five-thirty in the morning.
"Must have been something you ate," I said, in an attempt at being comforting. I didn't quite know how to do that, so I could only hope my words and my presence were doing a decent job at it. "You should drink some water."
"Maybe," she croaked out, sounding barely louder than a heartbeat. She'd finally stopped throwing up long enough to speak and I took that opportunity to fetch a small hand towel and dampen it with cold water. Her skin was feverish, scalding to the touch, and I was certain she'd appreciate the change in temperature. "I'm sorry. I know this is gross."
"A little bit," I admitted. "Are you sure you don't want me to go get—"
"Positive." She whimpered and hurled once again, while I rushed to pull her hair back once again. Even though we were trying to make as little noise as possible, some people in the house were light sleepers and I knew we were bound to wake someone up eventually. "I . . . I think I might—"
A quick, random flash of me running into June as she bought a pregnancy test went through my mind as Sofia tried to explain whatever messy situation she'd gotten herself into and I decided I didn't want to see it all go down again. I had already lost June over an unborn child; I wasn't going to let Sofia walk down the same road.
". . . really stupid," Sofia murmured, raising a shaky hand to flush the toilet—something I could have done a lot easier, yet I hadn't. "Stupid. So stupid."
"If the next words that come out of your mouth are something along the lines of 'I think I might be pregnant', I'm literally going to drown you."
Sofia turned her head to face me so quickly I was impressed, considering she'd been vomiting her guts out mere moments prior. Her dark eyes widened, looking even bigger now that her skin had paled and enhanced the purple circles, and her mouth dropped open in shock.
