Coma Girl: part 3 (Kindle Single) Read Free Page A

we left off, it was a great evening and neither one of us mentioned his fiancée. He was too drunk to drive, so he crashed at my apartment, and sometime during the night, had migrated from the sagging couch in the living room to my bed. Shame on me, I knew he was in love with Trina, but I reasoned she would have him for the rest of their lives, so having him for one little night didn’t seem so wrong. After all, I’d seen him first.
    But if you’re thinking the encounter was a drunken grabfest, you’d be wrong. Duncan’s lovemaking was sweet, but surprisingly intense and purposeful. It was such an emotional experience for me, I convinced myself he felt the same way about me and the engagement would be unwound. We fell asleep with our hands intertwined… and I woke up alone. While I was wiping the sleep from my eyes, I’d gotten a text from Duncan.
    Last night was my mistake. I value your friendship, but I’m marrying Trina. Please don’t hate me.
    I was crushed. And mortified that something that had meant so much to me, he considered to be a mistake. By the time I brushed my teeth, I realized how sadly unoriginal the whole story was and resolved to act as if it hadn’t happened. I deleted his text without responding, and I didn’t tell a soul, not even Roberta. When she found his San Antonio Spurs cap in the living room and demanded to know who it belonged to, I convinced her one of her sniffing admirers had left it behind. She had hung it on a peg in the entryway with a plethora of other hats and coats and umbrellas. Every morning before I left the apartment I touched the cap.
    The morning-after text was the last time I’d heard from Duncan until he visited my room. I wonder if he’d stood there and congratulated himself for not ending his engagement and getting involved with me because then he’d feel obligated to the vegetable in bed 3.
    Anyway, the bottom line is I’m fourteen weeks pregnant, and I have a laundry list of problems. The only person who knows who the father is can’t talk or move. The medicine Dr. Jarvis gave me might have harmed the baby. If I don’t wake up, who will raise the child? And if I do wake up, how well will I be, and what kind of mother would I make on my own?
    I’m scared to death my family is going to take my baby. And I’m scared to death they won’t.
     
     
     

September 5, Monday
     
     
    “I’VE ALWAYS FELT GUILTY for having Labor Day off,” my dad said. “I know my job contributes to the economy, but it’s not like I’m working a jackhammer every day.”
    From his footsteps, I deduced he was pacing.
    “But I do keep a mallet in my trunk in case I see a road sign that’s fallen over. Did I ever tell you that’s how I got the business for a country club in Peachtree City?”
    Only a dozen times… but I’m happy to hear it again. And picture him acting it out.
    “I was driving down the road and noticed a school sign was leaning way back. Those are reflective signs so they need to be standing straight or headlights can’t catch them, and then what’s the point? So I pulled over to straighten it, and a guy in a pickup truck stopped to help me. Looked like he didn’t have a hundred dollars to his name. Turns out, he was developing a big country club down the road—the guy was a millionaire. He said he drove by that crooked sign every day and had been meaning to fix it. When he found out I was in the sign business, he gave me the account for the project without so much as a quote, just on a handshake. Said I was the kind of man he wanted to do business with.”
    He gave a happy little laugh at the memory, then he sighed. “I know most people don’t give signs a second thought, but signs are critical to everyday life… and to law and order. Without signs, how would people know where they are or what to do?”
    It’s true when you think about it. Without signs, there would be total anarchy.
    He walked back toward my bed and from the scrape of the chair, I