Finding Purgatory (7 page)

Out of breath and dizzy, Tori pressed her hands to the tabletop. It hit her like a sucker punch to the gut that she could no longer blame her foster parents or the system when things went wrong. From here on out, it would all be on her. Panic began to encroach. It closed off her lungs and made her heart race.

A tray slammed down on the empty spot at the table next to her. She gasped as she jumped, and when she looked up, she was staring at her former foster sister’s furious face.

Ariel shoved her. “What the hell is your problem, Vicky?”

Anger, Tori’s oldest, most steadfast companion, had her on her feet and in Ariel’s face in a heartbeat. “Get the fuck away from me.”

“Great job with the drama, bitch. My parents were dealing with your bullshit all weekend.” Ariel pushed forward so Tori had to stumble back.

“Don’t give me that shit.” Tori stepped right back into the other girl’s personal space, determined not to give her another inch. “They always wanted me gone. You always wanted me gone. What’s wrong now? You miss me?” She made a sarcastic face. “Aww. That’s so sweet.”

“What. Ever. Fucking psycho.”

Ariel made a move to walk away but ran her shoulder into Tori’s as she did. Tori saw red. She whirled, grabbed Ariel by the arm, and shoved her backward.

The next half hour or so was a blur. Both girls went at each other to the hollers of their fellow students. They were pulled apart by teachers and dragged to the principal’s office. Tori was still high on adrenaline and fury when the principal lectured them. She only heard every other word. She seethed silently and muttered, “Yes, ma’am,” where she was expected to. Principal Dunn looked flustered when Tori told her that she didn’t have to bother calling Ariel’s parents for her. Tori was an adult and under no one’s control.

“Well, this is certainly not the way an adult should behave.”

In addition to detention, they were sent home for the day. Tori couldn’t resist snickering at Ariel who had to wait for her parents. “Don’t worry. They can’t seven-day you no matter how much they want to. They’re legally required to keep you.”

The parting shot left its mark. Tori signed herself out and walked out the door, leaving Ariel glowering in her seat.

Once she was out in the California sunshine, Tori felt a little more rational. She hated when anger got the best of her. Not that she minded the actual physical aftereffects of a fight—she’d definitely had worse than the dull ache at her ankle and the sore spot on her arm—but she was embarrassed.

Well, there wasn’t anything she could do about it now. Ariel had always gotten under her skin, and it had been a stressful weekend.

Tori wandered for a few minutes, not sure what she wanted to do with the next two and a half hours before Ani would be back to get her. The public library was a few blocks away. She had a library card because it had been easier to do her reports and research there than to take her chances with the Everett’s one computer. It had been a while since she’d checked her e-mail. She didn’t expect to have received anything, but it was a way to pass the time.

Almost as soon as she logged on to her Gmail, Tori regretted it. The message sitting right on top, sent on her birthday, was from the one person she’d been trying hardest not to think about.

Tori glared at the simple subject line while her heart twisted and her throat got tight. She moved the mouse, selected the message, and went to hit the delete button.

She hesitated.

And opened the e-mail.

From: Raphael Diego

To: Victoria Kane

Subject: Merry Birthday

Hey, Tor.

Can you believe today is finally here? I remember my eighteenth birthday. I was so damn impressed with myself. But you were there, weren’t you? Fifteen years old and looking at me like I was the biggest idiot for buying porn at the gas station when I had my own computer in my room. Who pays for porn? The guy who can do it legally for the first time, obviously. And cigarettes! I smoked the whole damn pack that first week in public places just because I could.

So here’s a little wisdom from an old man with three long years of experience with this adulthood thing:

1. People always told me that I shouldn’t be too eager to get out of high school, I’d just want to go back. People are stupid. Who in their right mind would want to go back to high school? I couldn’t stand being around teenagers even when I was one.

You are, as always, the exception.

2. Well, I don’t have a number two. Buying porn and cigarettes is overrated. Voting is pretty cool. Other than that, I don’t think I have anything figured out. But whatever. Not a lot of people do.

Anyway. I hope you’re doing something fun. Today I’m going to do what I said we would do together. You remember, I hope. If you come, cool. If not, well, I’m not going to say I understand, because I don’t. I really don’t.

I love you. I miss you.

The words blurred, and Tori’s eyes burned with tears she didn’t want to cry. She remembered planning what they would do together on her birthday and missed Raphe terribly in that moment.

Tori shook her longing away and growled at herself. It was stupid to think of him, stupid to think like that. Stupid was what got her where she—

Again, her thoughts shifted, and Tori gasped, her hand going to her mouth.

In all her thoughts about turning eighteen and being back at school when her life had changed entirely, she’d sort forgotten she was knocked up.

“Fuck,” she muttered loud enough to draw a glare from another patron. She made a face at the man but didn’t push it. She slunk down in her seat and rubbed her eyes.

No doubt about it, she sucked at this. Anxiety made her heart speed, and her throat was tight with shame. It was so stupid that God or science or whatever was responsible for procreation made it so any asshole could make one of these things. She was pretty sure the kid wasn’t going to survive the incubation process intact at this rate.

What kind of a stupid asshole forgot she was pregnant and got into a fight?

She blew out a shaky puff of air, trying to get herself together. Nine months. Less than that. She’d been with Raphe almost two months ago. She could be responsible for another human being for the length of a pregnancy.

A
ni knew she wasn’t being as attentive as she should have been. She’d been trying not to think about Tori’s first doctor’s appointment, but now that she was sitting in the waiting room, she couldn’t escape the anxiety that tainted her bloodstream, making her jumpy and distracted.

Just as she was about to turn to her sister, Ani heard a high-pitched giggle, and her head snapped in the opposite direction. She saw a head of bouncing brown curls streak by and the chuckle from the adult shape that followed her. Ani was struck breathless by the sight—a daddy sweeping his dark-haired daughter up into his arms.

The ache at the center of her chest was so bad, Ani felt as though she would pass out from the spike of intense pain. It was all she could do to remember how to breathe.

She tried not to remember, but the memories came anyway.

It had been two weeks between her visit with Dr. Two-Pink-Lines and her appointment with her ob-gyn. Ani could hardly sit still in the waiting room.

“What if the test was wrong?”

Jett smirked. “All three of them, honey?”

She made a face. “I know it’s not likely, but it’s possible.”

“Mmhmm.” He leaned close, nuzzling the side of her hair with his nose. “So there’s another reason for your missed period, then?”

“That could be anything.”

Jett wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “You’ve passed out at the table the last three days. You almost face-planted in your soup last night. There’s another reason for that?”

“So I’ve been tired.”

His chuckle was warm on her cheek. “And last night, when you wouldn’t let me get near the girls because they ached too much? I assume you have an excuse for that, too?”

Ani huffed. “What if—”

He shushed her. “Baby.” He dropped his hand down to her stomach, pressing his palm firm against her shirt. “Baby, baby, baby. We’re going to have a baby.” His grin was so wide, Ani couldn’t help but smile back. Giddiness washed over her.

“We’re going to have a baby,” she repeated in wonder.

“Victoria Kane?”

Ani’s mind vacillated between present and past. She tried to remain grounded. As Tori stood, she looked back at Ani, her expression a plea. Some part of Ani’s inner programming recognized her sister needed her. She wasn’t going to let Tori go through this alone, so she lurched to her feet, following the nurse into the back room.

The nurse’s questions to Tori faded in and out as Ani’s mind wandered. On autopilot, she responded to the tension in the air. She squeezed Tori’s shoulders, hoping the gesture might comfort her sister. When the nurse asked Ani if they were friends, she responded late enough to make the silence in between awkward. “Sisters. We’re sisters.”

Try as she might, Ani could not shake the image of the daddy and daughter out in the waiting room. Her thoughts spun a mile a minute, none of them settling for very long. The panic she’d begun to feel on Tori’s birthday, when she realized what she’d agreed to, began to flood into her with the violence of a ship taking on water.

What she thought she was doing, Ani didn’t know. She hated being here in this office where so many other women had sat with their babies safe in their bellies.
She couldn’t stop thinking about Mara and how hopeful she and Jett had been as they imagined all the wonderful moments and milestones. It had been a room like this where she’d realized she would be someone’s mother forever. She and Jett were parents—an irrevocable bond. Marriage, relationships, didn’t always last, but Mara would be her daughter for the rest of her life.

Now her baby was gone forever. She had an ill-advised tattoo on her ankle she would take to her grave, but she would never see her baby again.

She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t watch her sister’s baby grow, couldn’t take on this part of the journey, couldn’t promise to be some other child’s mother as long as she lived. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t.

“I can’t do this.”

Ani snapped back into the present, the grip around her lungs easing as she was distracted by Tori’s sharp cry.

They were in the ultrasound room and the strong, quick sound of the baby’s heartbeat filled the air. The technician pulled the wand away in response to Tori’s obvious stress, but it was too late. Her expression was twisted, and her breath came in too-quick gasps. She shook her head, tangling her fingers in her short hair and tugging. Hard.

“Honey, hush. Hush, it’s okay.” Ani put her arms around her, surprised when her sister leaned against her immediately. She worked her fingers up under her Tori’s, trying to loosen her grip on her hair.

Tori continued to mumble, “I can’t do this,” under her breath over and over and over again as she rocked back and forth.

It was minutes before she raised her head and sniffled, looking the picture of misery. “It’s really alive, isn’t it?” she asked in a broken voice.

Ani’s heart twisted. She remembered how fascinated and awed she’d been, hearing Mara’s precious heartbeat. This was the antithesis of that. Tori was terrified of the thing growing inside her. Ani wiped the tears from her face with tender strokes and told her it was going to be all right.

“It’s going to be fucked-up. I’m fucked-up. It’s going to be just another fuckup like me,” Tori muttered.

Ani caught her sister’s face in her hands. She tilted Tori’s head up and waited until she could look her in the eyes. “You’re stronger than you think.”

Tori’s answering laugh was bitter, but she didn’t argue. “What do you know?” She pushed Ani away. The movement was feeble, an echo of Tori’s usual bravado. She turned her head to the side and wiped at her eyes.

Watching Tori take a deep breath and call out to the technician that she was done having her dramatic moment, Ani knew she’d been right. Tori was so much stronger than she gave herself credit for. Ani was envious of that kind of strength. Right then, she felt weak. Tired.

Clearing his throat, the ultrasound technician pointed at the screen. “That’s the baby.” His words were timid, and he watched Tori out of the corner of his eye to make sure she wasn’t about to freak out again.

Looking at the tiny, alien, kidney-bean shape, Ani felt it was safe to assume she and her sister were thinking the same thing.

Could either of them be enough for this new life?

Chapter 7: New Routines

“I
f anyone tries to shove Jesus down my throat, I’m hitching a ride out of there.”

Tori hunkered down in the passenger seat of Ani’s car as they pulled up in front of the church a week after her first doctor’s appointment. She was ticked off, but not for any concrete reason. She hated group, but for the first time in her life, she was in one of her own volition.

“Or you could just call me,” Ani said. “You heard what the doctor said. The group just uses the church because it’s convenient. It’s not run by any priests or parishioners.”

Tori grunted and got out of the car. She heard the window roll down and turned back to see what her sister had to say.

“Eight o’clock?”

This was something Tori had learned about Ani. She was obsessed with being on time. Though she knew damn well the meeting was only an hour long, she still had to verify again. Tori blew out a puff of air. “Yeah, dude. One hour. That’s the deal.”

She started walking.

The setup was pretty much what Tori was used to—a bunch of girls milling around, looking like they would rather be anywhere else, tepid water and crappy cookies, a circle of chairs waiting for the sharing to begin.

Already regretting her decision, Tori sat down and crossed her arms. Still, after she freaked out hearing the heartbeat of the living, life-sucking little monster inside her, both the doctor and Ani had talked to Tori about getting some kind of help. They fed her the usual platitudes about how there was no shame in needing to talk to someone. Her life was upside down, and it was okay to feel scared. Tori chafed at the idea of personal counseling but grudgingly agreed to try a support group for pregnant teens.