R. Lilley - Rock Bottom

He stripped me, splayed me out on his bed, and worked on me with his tongue until I was biting my hand not to scream. He was relentless, and finally, when one small shriek burst out of me, he moved up my body and took me hard. There was no mistaking what we’d been up to by the time we were done.

I doubted the neighbors hadn’t heard.

“You’re an ass. It’s like you wanted her to hear.”

“Well, let’s put it this way. I don’t care if she knows, and now you won’t be as embarrassed the next time.”

DANIKA

In the end, it was the exhaustion that broke me.

I had so much to do, day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute. Between work and school, my life was a marathon, and I didn’t know how to slow it down.

There were no pauses for breaks, or naps, or even proper meals.

My fatigue was consuming, but I had always been such a tireless person before the pregnancy that I had no patience for it.

I did not give that fatigue its proper respect.

To this day, I blame myself for that. Hindsight is so very brutal.

It was one misstep, one careless slip that began my unraveling.

I was nearly five months along, a firm bump evident on my belly when I wore something tight, which I’d stopped doing. I wore baggy T-shirts and sweaters, still hiding the pregnancy from Bev, even knowing that it was hardly something I could hide for long. I knew I was being a coward about it, but I hated the idea that this would make her disappointed in me.

So no one knew. No one but Tristan and I, and Leticia, and Tristan wasn’t around much.

It was four a.m. on a Friday, and I was expecting Tristan to be back at his apartment sometime that afternoon. Expecting was a generous word. I was hoping , because he’d told me he’d be there. But, more and more, what he said and what he did were two different things, and I knew that there was a fifty/fifty chance I wouldn’t be seeing him until late that night.

He’d been on point for a while, after the initial stunning news of the pregnancy. But then the band had finished up the album, which was everything we’d wanted, and he’d come home to stay.

But my schedule had gotten no better, no less hectic, in fact, it was more so, and our time together still wasn’t what it should have been. And so Tristan had too much free time on his hands, which was bad for him. I could see it within days, that this wasn’t going to work, and within weeks, desperate to find the right balance, I’d told him to go ahead with the tour.

So to his detriment, we’d gone back to the long distance schedule, and he’d gone on the road. Recording in L.A. had been bad for him. The road was worse. They only had three weeks left of it, and I was counting the days.

I’d been up until one a.m. studying, and I planned to meet up with a study group at the university library for a few hours before my first class.

It’d been a rough week.

I took a five minute shower, rushing in, and unfortunately out, trying to step over the lid of the tub and out with one lurching step that missed its mark, sliding back into the tub.

One foot, and then the other, slipped out from under me, and I jerked forward. I threw my hands out, trying to catch myself, but the lid caught me hard in the stomach before my hands met the ground.

It knocked the breath out of me, the hard metal ridges that formed the tracks of the shower stall cutting sharply into me.

I huddled back into the tub, rubbing my belly, tears stinging my eyes at my clumsy carelessness.

I was thoroughly shaken.

It took me so long to dry off and get dressed, sitting down to slide on every piece of clothing, that I was nearly an hour late to my study group.

But I seemed to be fine after that, and I moved forward with my day, the more time that seemed to pass without any worrisome developments giving me confidence that the fall had done no lasting harm.

It was around five p.m. that I began to cramp. They were not severe cramps, but I called the doctor’s office anyway. I had a brief word with the nurse on call. She sounded bored, and impatient, and I explained my problem in a halting tone. I hated to even talk about it aloud, as though acknowledging a possible problem with my baby was allowing that problem to gain more substance. I did not want this fear of mine to become tangible.

I heard gum smack in my ear before the bored female voice quoted an explanation about braxton hicks contractions, and the things I should look for before I jumped the gun, and hauled off to labor and delivery.

I said a numb goodbye right before the phone went dead at my ear. I’d apparently used up my allotted nurse on-call time.

I called Tristan next, desperate to talk to someone, and he was certainly the only one I could talk to about this . There was no answer.

No answer at five or at six. Or at seven.

At eight, I began to spot. I never called the nurse back, thinking that I’d rather go to labor and delivery than deal with her bored tone again, and none of my symptoms were quite severe enough for that.

I went to his apartment, the cramps getting worse, though not severe.

He wasn’t there. Not even Dean was there.

At ten o’clock, I was doubled over by a shooting pain, and the spotting hadn’t stopped.

I didn’t know who to call. I didn’t want to tell anyone how irresponsible I’d been, getting pregnant by a man that didn’t show up when he said he would, who wasn’t even taking my calls anymore.

I knew I wasn’t supposed to be bleeding this much, but then again, didn’t you hear all the time about pregnant women spotting?

I didn’t know what to do. Should I call an ambulance? The hospital was not that far away, and besides that, after calling Tristan, texting him, over and over for the last five hours, my phone had died. Dean and Tristan had never bothered to get a home phone. Who did, nowadays, when everyone had a cell? But neither of them were here now, and I didn’t have my charger on me.

I didn’t panic. I felt too tired, too lethargic to panic. Panic took energy.

The blood was not so very much, I told myself.

I laid down and found a towel, pressing it against me, hoping to stop the flow if I held very, very still. Was it getting worse all of a sudden? Could it even be called spotting anymore? It had become a steady, worrisome flow.

I rubbed my slightly rounded belly, closing my eyes.

I want this baby, I thought. It was the closest I’d ever come to a prayer.

Please, let me keep this baby .

I had never wanted anything more, not even Tristan’s love.

TRISTAN

Kenny dropped me off at the curb in front of my apartment building. I was fucked up in the extreme. I knew I’d be catching hell for it later, but at just that moment, I felt no pain, and getting a bit of grief seemed a small price to pay for blessed numbness.

I knew I’d missed some texts from Danika, but she was pissed at me again, our last conversation beginning and ending with her bitching at me for being unreliable, and that was more than I wanted to deal with at the moment.

It took me way too long to fish the keys to my apartment out of my pocket and fumble the lock open. I stumbled more than walked to my bedroom. I had just begun to unbutton my jeans, my eyes on the bed in the darkened room, when I realized that I wasn’t alone.

“Danika,” I called softly, not wanting to wake her if she was asleep. I didn’t want her to see me like this again, if I could help it.

I lay down beside her, still fully clothed, reaching a tentative hand out to find hers.

Her fingers were limp, her palm cold as I linked our fingers. I moved closer. Even shit-faced, my first instinct was to warm her up.