ATLANTA GEORGIA
6th May 1981

JAE

Jae was couch-potatoing. That is what her mother would say if she could see what Jae was doing right now.

She lay on a sofa in the living room, her body half submerged by a dozen throw pillows, her legs splayed wide open like a woman giving birth, her socked feet peeking out from under one of the pillows. She was cold and hot at the same time, her face clammy to the touch, her teeth chattering. She was exhausted. Exhausted not because she’d been hard at work all day long, but because she’d woken up that way.

It didn’t take a genius to tell that she was coming down with something. Though whether it was a common cold or something more serious, a doctor would decide. But that would only happen if Jae decided to stop being stubborn and see one.

Three weeks had gone by since the Closing Night and she was still as angry now as she’d been when she’d discovered that she’d been raped. You know that psychobabble about the five stages of grief; denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance? Yeah, that was just bullshit. Jae was convinced that she would remain at the anger stage for the rest of her life.

Lying on the sofa had become Jae’s life. Her coping mechanism. In Jae’s opinion, couch-potatoing was better than resorting to drinking or doing drugs to cope with what Tyler and Loise had done to her. Though it would be a lie if Jae said she hadn’t thought about dousing her sorrows in some alcohol or shooting some speed up her veins.

Or just simply offing herself.

Offing herself would be so easy. There was an endless amount of pills in her mother’s medicine cabinet. A result of her mother’s hypochondria. That woman took pills for everything. Even for pins and needles in her feet. The only reason Jae was still breathing today was that she was too cowardly, too squeamish to go through with it. Suicide was way more scary when you were the one attempting it than when you were watching others doing it.

“Sugar or honey?” Rowan yelled from the kitchen, distracting her from her self-deprecating thoughts. He was making her some ginger tea that he’d claimed would make her feel good as new. It was his mother’s secret recipe. What was with mothers and secret recipes?

“Honey, I think,” Jae yelled back, covering her head with a pillow. Her head was pulsing like a bar in Vegas.

You are probably wondering if Rowan knows about what Tyler and Loise did. The simple answer is no. Though, he had suspected that something had happened. He’d asked her where she’d been the whole Closing Night party and she’d come up with some excuse about how she’d felt sick and gone home to rest.

If only that had been true . . .

It wasn’t like Jae was actively trying to keep Tyler’s transgressions a secret. She had tried numerous times to tell Rowan what Tyler and Loise had done to her. But every time she opened her mouth to speak, her courage would disappear like water down a sinkhole. Just like that, she would end up watching as Rowan told one of his horrible dad jokes or as he told some story about his sister while she choked on her words.

A therapist would say that the real reason Jae had not yet told Rowan what had happened was that she did not want to taint the Goddess-like image Rowan had of her. But fuck therapists, right?

“Done!” Rowan chanted, coming out of the kitchen with a tray in his hands.

Jae sat upright, ignoring the little buzz in her head. She took the brown mug from the tray and brought it to her lips intending to drink the ginger tea Rowan had made with so much love, but the minute she saw the little flecks of brown (probably the ginger) swirling around in the tea in slow motion and the layer of cream curdling on top of the tea, vomit surged up her gullet, pushing its way like magma up the vent of a volcano. She slammed the mug on the coffee table, the liquid sloshing onto the table, clenched her mouth shut and ran to the bathroom.

In the bathroom, Jae puked her guts out until she dry heaved. She didn’t even know what she was puking, considering she had not eaten anything since morning. She rinsed her mouth, gurgled some mouthwash and returned to the living room to find Rowan clearing the tray. She felt bad.

“Are you okay?” Rose, who had been sitting on the couch opposite Jae with her sleeping baby, Violet, asked.

“I’m fine. Just a bit of nausea.” Jae answered, sitting on the couch. She turned to Rowan. “What was in that tea?”

“Hot water, cinnamon, cloves, a splash of milk and ginger obviously,” Rowan said, ticking off the items on his fingers.

The splash of milk. That explained the layer of cream. God, that ginger tea had been disgusting.

Rose stood up, patting Violet on the back to ensure that she remained sleeping. There was a weird look on her face that Jae had never quite seen on her elder sister. It was a mix of worry and panic, which was odd. Rose was usually the serene one in the family, the calm elder sister, the one who took charge of everything. “I think you should go home, Rowan.”

“Why?”

“I’m going to the hospital,” Rose said. “Violet has to get vaccinated. I think I will take Jasmine along with me. She is looking quite green around the gills.”

“I should accompany you then," Rowan said, standing up. "You can escort your daughter for her vaccination and I will accompany Jasmine to the doctor.”

“I would appreciate it if you listened to me,” Rose said, her face suddenly dark as she shifted Violet from one shoulder to another.

“Alright,” Rowan turned to Jae. “I’ll see you tomorrow at the Atlanta Film Festival. I have a small surprise for you.” He said, hugging her. Jae tried her best not to pull away. She was disgusted by all sorts of body contact nowadays.

As soon as Rowan was out of the house, Rose turned on Jae, her face a mask of fury. Jae recoiled on the couch. When Rose was angry, she looked just like their father. Jae didn’t know what Rose was so angry about, though. What had she done?

“Have you and Rowan been having coital interactions of the unprotected kind?” Rose asked.

Despite everything, Jae burst out laughing. “If you want to know whether Rowan and I have been having unprotected sex, you could just come out and ask. You don’t have to start speaking like a King James Bible.”

“Answer. The. Question.” Rose bit out the words.

“No,” Jae answered, though she was now thinking back to the Closing Night. Had Tyler used protection? She didn’t know. She'd been out cold when Tyler had his way with her. Somehow Jae knew that a person who went out of his way to drug a woman so that he could rape her would not bother to use a condom.

And then it hit her. The questions Rose was asking about coital interactions. Rose thought she was pregnant. And now Jae couldn’t unthink that thought. It would make a macabre kind of sense if she was pregnant. She had all the signs: The nausea, the unexplained exhaustion, her sudden night cravings for weird foods, the persistent sour metallic taste in her mouth.

Shit!

When was her last period? Her period usually reared its ugly head in the last week of the month. Today was the 6th of May. Her period hadn’t made an appearance in the last week of April.

Shit, shit, shit!

Rose was giving her a look like she didn’t quite believe her. “Either way, we should go to the hospital. No harm in getting a pregnancy test, right?”

“No!” Jae screamed, standing up. A wave of dizziness hit her and she swayed on her feet. Of course, there was harm in getting a pregnancy test. Violet stirred on Rose’s shoulder. Soon, she was going to release an avalanche of cries. “I’m fine!”

“It’s clear you are not fine.” Rose insisted.

Jae’s heart was beating out of her chest. There was no way in hell she was going to the hospital with Rose because if she was indeed pregnant, Jae did not want anyone in her family to find out about it. Not Rose. Not Lily. And definitely not her parents. Rose would have to drag her kicking and screaming to the hospital. “My well-being is not your business, Rose. Go get Violet vaccinated. I’m sure this is just a common cold. It will be gone soon.”

Rose gave Jae a look that could only be pitying, then she turned on her heels and left, closing the door gently behind her.

Jae dashed up the stairs, skipping two steps at a time. She ran to Lily’s bedroom. She was looking for one of her home pregnancy tests. With a home pregnancy test, Jae could discover whether she was pregnant or not on her own terms. She rifled through the cabinets in Lily’s room, pushing aside some things and throwing others on the floor until she found a pregnancy test. Unable to wait any longer, she ripped the test open with shaking hands, peed, and waited.

She was pregnant.

That’s what the pregnancy test said three minutes later. She couldn’t believe it. She was pregnant at seventeen. It was one of those things that you think can never happen to you. She put her hand to her belly, caressing the little ball of cells that was growing inside her, and burst into tears, her body shaking with sobs.

Why her? What had she done to deserve this? Jae shouldn’t have shared that cigarette with Tyler back in Mr. Valencia’s office. That had been the biggest mistake of her life. She should have kept her relationship with Tyler strictly professional. Rowan was going to be so gutted when he found out about her pregnancy. He would probably break up with her. Jae wouldn’t blame him. She would break up with herself too if she could. Rowan deserved a pure girlfriend to match his pure character.

Then there were her parents.

The jig was up. Jae had tried so hard to keep her family from finding out about Tyler. And now a little Tyler was growing in her belly like a cancerous tumor. She was a goner. Her father was going to kill her. She had to run away. To go someplace where nobody knew her. To disappear like smoke into the ether.

But before she did all that, Jae had a little score to settle.

★★★

This chapter happens the day before Sam goes missing.

Disclaimer: Suicide is a finite way of solving problems, something I do not agree with. So if you are facing suicidal thoughts and you need someone to talk to, just PM me. I'll listen.