FORGIVE OR FURY

It was cold, and I mean cold is just one of those things  it is not even cold in terms of something that will make you shiver, know what I mean? It is just cold to a degree where it is just one of those things where it is just seeping into your bones so when you breathe in, it is like breathing in a handful of glass.

I woke up with cold sweats or at least professed to have done just that. At any rate, I certainly woke up with colds unrelated to the temperature of the room.

The pain in my head was such that it felt as if it had actually caved in due to the pressure building up inside my head. Darkness enveloped me completely from all sides while interrupted by faint lights from the car's dashboard that were still functional. The car had overturned onto its side with half of it submerged in the water as it smashed into the windshield as if trying to damage it further.

I was unable to move my legs initially. There was a sense of panic in my throat. The baby. oh God!

Pressing my hand down, it vibrated as I used it to press the back against my belly. There was no sharp pain, only a dull throbbing as if punched from the inside. “Please. please be okay," I breathed into the darkness.

A low groan escaped my lips as I struggled to turn around. I was hindered by my ankles, which had the crushed door. “The seat belt had saved my life and was now striving to strangle me.” I struggled as I tried to unbuckle it with my numb fingers. The buckle popped open. I fell sideways on the cold water that had accumulated on my previous passenger window.

"The pain in my ankle was as if someone was pressing a hot flame onto my ankle. I clamped my teeth together so that the metallic flavor combined with copper wouldn’t prevent me from screaming aloud. No saviors were coming to save me from that pain. No Adrian. No Isabel."

As I climbed in through the cracked-out driver-side window, the glass scraped against my palms, forearms, and the back of my knees. The embankment was steep, mud-covered, treacherous ground. I was certain each time I slid across the ground, I was supposed to slide all the way into the water and drown. What was in the region of my chest or maybe in my mind snapped me back up.

I threw myself onto the wet grass at the top finally, rain pounding against my face, and just lay there. Hacking breaths heaved my chest. I was sobbing, hard; my whole body shook. Not elegant crying. Ugly, snotty, animal crying. The kind you do when your whole life has just been ripped out through your chest.

I wouldn't move until the rain started to turn into a soft patter, and Taillights swept across the highway above me.

A pickup truck: An older man with a gray beard, a flannel shirt, and his eyes wide in horror leaped out.

“Jesus Christ, lady are you okay?!”

He half-carried, half-dragged me to his truck. I was shaking so violently my teeth chattered. He wrapped me in a scratchy blanket that smelled like motor oil and dog. I clutched it like a lifeline.

"Hospital," I managed to say. "Please." He didn't ask any questions. He just drove.

The emergency room was too bright. Too loud. Nurses swarmed the room. Someone had taken the wet dress off me. Cold gel on my belly. A wand pressed against me hard.

I looked at the ceiling tiles, focusing on the small black specks, not daring look at the screen.

Then the sound.

Thump-thump

Fast. Strong. Alive.

The doctor’s voice was gentle. “Heartbeat’s good. Strong. You’re about nine weeks along. The baby’s okay.”

I broke again. This time the sobs were different relief so sharp it hurt worse than the betrayal. I curled around myself on the gurney, one hand cradling the tiny life that hadn’t given up on me even when I’d almost given up on everything.

They kept me in for monitoring. Concussion. Sprain. Lacerations. Bruised ribs. Not fatal. Not fatal in the sense that they would deprive my child of his or her father.

During the time that the nurses were absent, the hours seemed to tick by as I looked at the dripper, trying to make sense of events that had transpired.

The face of Adrian as he hits me not with anger, as one would suppose, but with panic as if he suddenly realized what his act entailed and regretted it with no chance to turn back.

Isabel's smile was cold and victorious. Same smile I received from her the day I opened my own gallery. Same smile she helped me select my own wedding dress with.

How long? How long has she been laughing at me behind my back?

I didn’t sleep. When I closed my eyes, I saw them together again: Heard her say "The Real Heir." Heard him say "My father killed his."

My father. Dead five years now. Heart attack, they said. I’d never questioned it. He’d been stressed, sure big merger gone bad but murder? No. That wasn’t him.

Or was it?

The next morning was gray and heavy. A social worker visited to see if I had anywhere to go. I laughed- again, the sound wasn’t quite right- and answered, "No."

She didn’t push.

They gave me my dismissal in a pair of scrubs, which I didn’t own, and one tennis shoe, which I’ve already misplaced in a river somewhere, while I didn’t have anything - a phone, a wallet, a place

I mean, I was sitting on the curb outside the ER as the rain began again, feeling the smallest I had ever felt in my life.

A taxi pulled up. The driver rolled down his window.

“You need a ride, miss?”

I looked up. “I don’t have any money.”

He eyed me a long second. “Get in. Pay me when you can.”

I said nothing.

I gave him the only address I could think of that wasn't the penthouse.

The old apartment building on the east side of town where I’d lived before Adrian. Before glamour and before lies. The super recognized my name-Mrs. Delgado, tiny, fierce, and with a perpetually pungent fragrance of garlic and roses.

She took one look at my face and invited me in with a mere look.

She never asked me to tell her what had occurred. She just drew me a hot bath, made me a cup of chamomile tea (this time using actual chamomile tea rather than chamomile tea essence], and then wrapped me in an old quilt and just sort of…sat with me on that old couch that looked as though it