THE STRANGER

Not every fight is one worth picking, babe.

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CHAPTER LXVI

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“Hello! This is Morgan speaking!”

I froze.

What should I say? What should I do? Something was actually going right for me for the first time and I had no idea how to handle the situation.

“Hello?”

I didn't notice that I was falling until a nurse had caught me in his arms mid fall and helped me back to my feet. Another nurse quickly took over the call and started speaking on my behalf while the male nurse walked me to the nearest sofa to take a seat.

“Hello! Sorry to bother you, we've got a patient in our care requesting to see you. Her name is Araceli Cruz and she has no one else to come for her.” The nurse was quiet and wrapped the cord of the phone around her finger as she tapped her foot against the floor. “Yes, of course. She's fine. She's at Bridgend Hospital, East Street... Yes, of course. We'll inform her. Bye.”

The nurse turned back to look at me and with a wide smile told me something that made my heart pound with joy in my chest. “Ms. Smith will be here to see you in an hour.”

My face broke into a large smile. “Really?”

“Really! How about we get you cleaned up and get some food into you before she arrives?”

I nodded enthusiastically, quickly getting to my feet before realising why exactly I was sitting again. The male nurse, who was sitting beside me, caught me before I could fall and helped me walk to my room as the other nurse held my other hand.

I took a bath after insisting that I was strong enough to wash myself. They still watched me from the hospital room just to make sure I didn't hurt myself. After my shower and brushing my teeth, I pulled on a fresh hospital gown before stepping out.

Waiting for me on the table beside my bed was a steaming plate of breaded chicken, potatoes, asparagus and carrots along with a tub of vanilla ice cream and strawberry jello.

I dug in immediately, feeling my stomach growl inside me as the smell of the food wafted into my nose. The nurse left a bunch of papers on the bed and left me alone to eat my food, making me glance around the room.

I didn't really like being alone.

I got halfway through the meal before I decided that I couldn't have another spoon. I still forced myself to eat the ice cream and the jelly because... Well because it was ice cream and jelly.

There was never a reason to not eat ice cream and jelly.

The nurse had come back a few minutes after I had put down the empty ice cream tub with a slightly smaller tray in her hands. She shifted the one with my half eaten food out of the way and put it down, letting me see the different cup sizes with different pills in them.

“I know they're a lot,” she said, smiling sympathetically at me. “But it's to make sure you recover as soon as you can. Plus, most of them are just supplements.” She pointed to one cup with red and white pills in them. “That's some antibiotics to help clear your chest infection. It's nothing too serious, but it's best to be at your top health in your condition.”

I nodded, understanding her and let her continue.

“These ones are just plain painkillers. When you were brought here, you had a high fever and at some point, you complained about pain so we put it in your IV.” She then gestured to three other cups with colourful pills in them. “These are vitamin supplements because you're deficient. That can make you easily susceptible to many diseases.”

I sighed and decided to start we those ones first, throwing them in my mouth and chewing them one by one. They mostly tasted nice, so it wasn't too much of a task.

“This is an iron tablet,” she said, handing me the cup and a glass of water so I could down it. “Your red blood cell levels are low. And this one,” she pointed to the last cup before looking at me. “These ones are prenatal pills.”

My hand froze mid-grasp and I stared at her in confusion.

“Why are you giving me it then?” I asked, bringing my hand back to my thigh. “I'm not pregnant.”

“Our tests say you are,” she said, not believing me.

“Well, your tests are wrong. The last time I went to the hospital, they had told me I lost my baby and showed me a picture of the empty sonogram.” I shrugged my shoulders and turned away. “Maybe the hormone levels were still high and that's what your test picked up on.”

She frowned, but didn't deny my words which made me a bit happy. I wasn't sure how entirely possible my theory was.

“Well, there's nothing that an ultrasound can't answer,” she said as she stood up. “You take the rest of the pills and I'll call for the nearest obstetrician to check you out.”

I only nodded, not having a problem with it. I knew what I was saying and the ultrasound was only going to prove me right. I swallowed the antibiotics down with a gulp of water, but pushed the pain killers away because I didn't feel I needed it just yet.

I saved the prenatal vitamins for last because the supplements always tasted delicious, but as soon as I chucked the pills into my mouth, I ended up almost spitting it out from the foul tasted.

I picked up the glass and chugged whatever of the water was remaining down along with broken prenatal pills.

And then after that, I waited.

I didn't know how long I sat there waiting for the nurse to come back, but I remember the door swinging open the second I decided to close my eyes for a much deserved nap.

A head of copper red wavy hair came into view and I felt relief fall over me once familiar green eyes met me.

“Araceli?”

Her voice was low, timid even as she stepped into the room and closed the door behind her.

“Hi. How are you doing?” I asked awkwardly, sitting up.

“W-What happened to you? Are you okay?”

I raised a brow at her and rolled my eyes. “I'm in the hospital attached to live wires. Do the math, sweetheart.”

The frown slipped from her lips and she let out a giggle as she rolled her eyes. The roles had been reversed and now I was the rude stranger - except I wasn't a stranger.

I was an old time friend that needed her help.

“What happened to you?” Morgan asked, cautiously stepping closer to me.

I rolled my eyes at her over caution and reached my hand out for her to take which she did reluctantly.

“Daniel.”

That seemed to break the glass of caution around her and her eyes suddenly turned fierce as she sat down beside me. “I warned you about him, Araceli. I warned you.”

I sighed, knowing that I couldn't avoid this. She was right and I was just too blinded by my love for him to see it.

“I know.”

It was at that moment that the nurse had returned, her smile never falling even after taking in the harsh glare Morgan had pinned on me.

“I'm Ethilda. You must be Morgan?” the nurse, Ethilda, said as she extended her hand out for Morgan to shake. “You're here an Araceli's behalf?”

Morgan nodded and accepted her hand, but said nothing. The nurse, not taking it as anything, then turned to me with a smile.

“My colleague will be here in a minute to take you down to the prenatal department for that ultrasound, so if you just wait here, she'll be up.” The nurse turned to Morgan and smiled politely. “Can I talk with you about Araceli's condition?”

Morgan shrugged and walked towards the door and the nurse looked to me for confirmation to which I just nodded. They both left, leaving me alone in the room to take in the four walls.

I was alone again and I wasn't sure if I liked it or not. On one hand, I wasn't being stuffed in one place like a sardine like I was in the truck, but on the other hand, alone was exactly what I was when they first took me.

Thankfully, I wasn't in my own solitude for long. A nurse in blue scrubs and a light-green long-sleeved top underneath it walked into the room with a wheelchair.

She smiled at me politely, displaying to me her pearly white teeth as her blue eyes sparkled. I wondered if that was a practiced thing among them? Were the smiles just fake? Were they exceptionally good actors?

They weren't always this happy all the time, right? Especially when they had to deal with moody patients like myself.

The nurse didn't let my bad mood affect her and chatted with me the whole time she wheeled me to the prenatal department. At first, I hated it, but as soon as we hit an open area where patients and visitors alike roamed, I completely lost focus of it.

Images of being in that truck, being caged like an animal in a cargo container flashed in my head and for a second, I felt like I was there again. To me, every person in that crowd was one of my captors. Tears brimmed my eyes and my heart beat sped up as I started asking myself why.

Why did I let myself believe that I was free? It was dream! I knew it, I knew it! I wasn't in a hospital about to get a scan, I was about to be shipped off. I was watching that ugly bastard violate another girl again!

“Araceli? Are you okay? Do you need me to get you something?”

I felt the nurses hand in mine and in my moment of fear, I had aggressively snatched my hand away before looking at her, thinking that she was one of them. Relief flooded me when I realised that I was wrong.

I was still in the hospital and was just thinking about the past.

Very vividly.

“Tell me what your favourite flower is,” the nurse said, completely ignoring the fact that I was on the midst of having a panic attack in the middle of a crowded area.

Or maybe she wasn't ignoring it. Maybe she was trying to help take my mind of it.

I thought about my answer for a second before speaking. “Lavenders,” I said so quietly, I almost couldn't hear myself speak. “Because they're the only flowers that have a nice smell.”

I thought she wouldn't hear me, but the nurse giggled as she wheeled me into a slightly quieter place. It was a long hallway with different rooms branching out of it, rooms ranging from doctors offices to wards.

It was less crowded and was instead filled with women. Pregnant women more specifically.

“Is that so?”

“Yeah,” I rolled my eyes, leaning back into my seat as my heartbeat slowly started normalising. “All the other flowers either smell the same or smell like shit. Sorry for that.”

“It's fine, Araceli. I'm a big girl.” She laughed and wheeled me in through a wooden door into a small doctors office. “Bad words don't scare me.”

She helped me up onto the bed that was in the middle of the room before turning to talk to the doctor who had just walked in. As she left, I couldn't help but stare after her.

I didn't care if she was being fake, I just wanted to talk to her. Or talk to anybody really.

“Hello, Ms. Cruz,” the doctor said, drawing my attention away from the door and to her instead.

“Please just call me Araceli.” I didn't want to be a 'miss' anything right now.

“Of course,” she smiled softly at me. “Now I'll just pull this blanket up over your legs and raise up your gown so we can see your stomach. Is that okay with you?”

I nodded and sat still so she could do what she had said she wanted to do. I didn't realise why the blanket needed to be there until I realised that I was naked from the waist down.

Looking down at my revealed stomach, I couldn't help but feel confused. It looked... Odd. I knew I had fat more around my stomach, hips and thighs but it looked different this time. Like I had gained more weight.

I couldn't explain it - it was hardly noticeable. Maybe just weight gain from when I was pregnant.

“Now I'm just going to put this gel on your stomach, sweetheart,” the doctor said, never failing to tell me what she was doing before she did it. I appreciated it. “It might feel a little cold.”

It didn't. It wasn't necessarily warm, but it wasn't cold either. It was just uncomfortable. I hated having things on my stomach, especially things that clung to my skin. It made my skin crawl.

She used her device - I had no idea what it was called - and smeared the gel all over my stomach before turning to the large TV looking machine beside us and turning it on.

The screen blurred to life, showing us a black and white picture that moved with her movements.

She turned to me with a large smile as I stared at it in shock and as she pointed to the middle of the screen, she spoke. “And that, Araceli, is your baby.”

*****

Araceli isn't going to suffer much for the rest of this book, I promise