Chapter 8: Two in the Morning

Cameron's POV

I was asleep on Trudy Brannigan's couch for the first time in weeks when my phone lit up at two in the morning.

CELIA.

I picked up before the second ring.

"Cam." Her voice was thin and shaking. "I'm bleeding. I think something's wrong. Please come."

"Where are you?"

"Home. I'm on the bathroom floor. I'm so scared."

"I'm coming. Don't move."

I stood up with the blanket still around my shoulders.

Down the hall, behind a closed door, Melanie was asleep with my child inside her.

I stood there for a moment.

I put my hand flat on her door and listened for her breathing.

There was nothing but the clock in the kitchen.

I wanted to knock, and I knew what she would ask me if I did.

Then Trudy was in the hallway in her robe, holding a flashlight.

"I have to go," I said. "Celia's hurt."

Trudy looked at me for a long time.

"Tell her I'll be back by morning," I said.

"Tell her yourself," said Trudy. "Or don't."

I took my keys and went.

The roads were slick, and the drive south took most of the night.

I thought about Melanie the whole way.

I thought about her hand over mine on the porch, lifting it off her coat.

I thought about her door, shut and silent, and how I had walked away from it without a word.

I thought about the kick.

I had never felt anything like it.

Celia's apartment was on the nineteenth floor of a building I had paid the deposit on.

She was on the couch when I came in, wrapped in a blanket with her hair in a braid.

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