Brutal Game by Cara McKenna Page A

weeks pregnant backache bleeding” just now.
    Heather nodded. “Sorry, baby.” She’d never addressed Laurel by anything other than her name, now three times in five minutes she’d called her “baby”. It was weird. Weird and comforting. “Does Mike know?”
    Laurel nodded. “Yeah. It wasn’t planned or anything…”
    “How’s that towel?”
    She eased it gingerly from her body, folded it, pressed a clean section to the spot. It came away red, but the gush had eased. “I think it’s slowing down.”
    “Good. I brought you some of Kim’s undies. I know that’s not your idea of a party but hey, there’ll be a pad, right?” As she said it, she stripped the waxed-papery strips off a maxi pad’s adhesive and pressed it into the underwear, careful and meticulous as though she were wrapping a present. “You keep the rest—we’re a tampon house.”
    Laurel cracked a tiny, frightened smile at that.
    “I can’t give you a lift, but I could call you a cab.”
    “Do you think I need to go to a hospital?” she asked.
    Heather shook her head. “I doubt it. Call your doctor’s nurse line, if they have one, but this looks pretty textbook, speakin’ from experience. If I were you, I’d go home and take it easy.”
    She nodded. “Yeah, you’re probably right. And a cab would be good, thanks.” No way she was taking the T, that much was clear.
    “You got it. Here.” Heather handed her the underwear and set the pajamas on the tub’s edge. She picked up the maxi-pad package and studied it, sparing Laurel an audience as she got dressed.
    “Like I said, I had three. I’m happy to talk about it, if you ever need to.”
    “When?” Laurel asked, tugging the fleece up her legs. It felt odd, dry and clean and cozy , even as the rest of the world seemed to be falling down around her.
    “One was after Kim,” Heather said, “when Robbie and I were trying for another kid. Two were before Kim. With those, it was like my body knew what was best for me, since my heart or my religion would never let me get rid of a baby. I prayed for those ones, even if I never came out and spoke the words for real. I felt real guilty both times, like I’d made it happen, but I was relieved. They were a couple years apart, a couple different guys, neither of them up to the challenge—and I wasn’t, either. They were blessings. I can say that now.” Though she crossed herself as she did.
    To Laurel, this didn’t feel like a blessing, or an answered prayer. This felt like robbery. Not robbery of a child, necessarily, but the theft of her will, her choice. Flynn’s as well.
    “I’m not saying that’s what this is for you, though,” Heather said. “You’re different than I was when I was younger. You’ll make a great mom, if you go there. It wasn’t meant to be, this time, and who can say why.”
    Who, indeed? And how the hell was she going to tell Flynn?
    “Don’t say anything to your brother, please.”
    “Of course not.”
    “Tell him I had a migraine or something, and that I’m sorry. Let him enjoy the party, and I’ll tell him when I’m calmer.” And once she’d stopped crying, which she sensed she’d start doing the second she made it to her place, her room. Or maybe just the backseat of the cab.
    “Don’t worry about Mike. You just worry about yourself. You have a hot water bottle at home?”
    “No.”
    “Borrow ours. It’ll help. And that Vicodin’s yours, just say the word.”
    “No, thanks.” She stepped out of the tub, feeling no less naked for the borrowed pajamas clashing with her garnet-colored sweater. Garnet. Christ, that color looked so garish now. So cruel.
    Heather left for a minute and returned with a tote bag. Inside were the pads, Laurel’s jeans in a plastic sack, a hot water bottle, and another bottle—red wine.
    She smiled. “Not as good as Vicodin, but it can’t hurt.”
    “Thanks.”
    “Cab’s on its way.”
    “Cool.” So not cool in any way imaginable, that any of this