Angelica sat up on the bed when Adele walked in with a tray in hand. From the hospital, they had come to Adele's apartment on Angelica's request. She had a really hard time convincing Adele not to take her home nor call Sebastian.
"Here. Drink this soup, it will help." Adele calmly said, lowering the tray onto Angelica's laps. Her eyes darted to the side table. "You didn't finish the fruits."
"I tried," Angelica murmured. "Can we save the soup for later?" She just didn't think she could hold anything else in her stomach for now. Her appetite flew out the window. Slowly picking up the tray, she set it on the side table.
Adele wanted to protest, but the tired look on Angelica's face stopped her. With a weary sigh, she plopped down beside Angelica, her eyes silently and carefully regarding her.
"So, are you going to tell me what happened?" She asked, breaking the short silence. She did not miss the flicker of apprehension in Angelica's eyes, and that had her more focused and curious.
"Angelica, why did you have a heart attack? What did he do?" She questioned tersely.
"Nothing." Angie answered, her tone carrying some terseness of her own.
"Don't tell me it's nothing, Angelica. You called me after two long years of not seeing or talking, crying your eyes out. I rushed over to see you in a miserable shape, and you say it's nothing?" Her brow squeezed together to a furrow. "I need not spell it out for you, Angelica, but a heart attack is not what you call nothing!"
Sighing beneath her breath, Angelica darted her gaze to her. "It was a silent heart attack." She corrected, even though she'd rather just be left alone for now. She was too tired, both physically and mentally to engage in any form of conversation or interrogation.
Adele felt peeved by her response and attitude. "Silent or loud, you had a heart attack, and I'm not letting this go. So you're either telling me or I'm calling Catherine. Or better still, I'll call Sebastian and ask him myself." Ready to bring her threat to pass, she picked up her phone, but Angelica snatched it away before she dial a number.
"No." Angelica muttered. "You can't call him."
"Then tell me." She prodded.
"I.." Her lips hung open. She had no idea how to say to it. There was no way to say it. She couldn't bring herself to...
"You were right, Adele." Angelica's eyes misted over, but she swallowed, trying hard to fight the tears back. "You were..." The tears choked out the words, and she paused, taking few deep breaths. She shouldn't cry now.
"It's okay." Adele scooted closer and gently patted her back, still unsure of what she had been right about.
Angelica sniffed and pulled away, and she let her. There was a myriad of depressing emotions in Angelica's eyes. Sadness, weariness, exhaustion.
Adele waited for her as that was all she could do. And when she was ready she spoke up.
"Have you ever wondered if you'd ever be enough? If anything you do would ever matter? If you'd be seen and given some space to let out your wings and maybe...fly?" She tilted her head to Adele, who couldn't understand what she was saying. She could only stare and wait.
"I feel like I'm kept in a box. A little short box," she sketched out the box with her fingers. "A dirty, unbefitting, unobtrusive shoe box that will never be seen, never be heard no matter how hard you try." She tilted her chin again, her eyes turning misty with tears.
"All my life, I've lived right. Followed all the rules. I never strayed from the straight and narrow. I did all I was told. Got married. I fell in love, and...and I just wanted—" Her chest was squeezing tightly again. "I just wanted to be loved by the man I love. I wanted him to see me." A tear slipped past her guard and before Adele could reach for it, she wiped it away.
"I get he didn't want the marriage. But I was willing to try. I was willing to make it work, but what I did not expect was that—"
"It'd be this exhausting and lonely."
"The exhaustion." She affirmed, the word itself evident in her voice. "That it would eat away at my self-esteem, and I'd be this hurt."
Her voice quavered as tears rolled down her cheeks, but this time she did nothing to stop them. All these she had endured with hopes that someday, Sebastian would take a pause and look her way, that he'd know how she feels about him and reciprocate it.
But all those had just been her mind wishing, even though somewhere in her heart she had always known...known that he'd never accept her.
"He has a child." She blurted out.
Adele froze. Her lashes flitted and her eyes stilled. "He what now?" She wasn't sure what she had heard, but she hoped it wasn't what she was assuming she did.
Struggling with the tears and the tremors, Angelica repeated. "Sebastian has a child. A son."
Adele's hand stilled at her side. There were so many things she had expected from Sebastian, but she had not seen this coming.
"How did you... How did you know? Did he tell you?" She was certain Sebastian wouldn't. He was too self-absorbed, too frozen and unbothered.
With a slow shake of her head, she answered, "I found out this morning. There was a photo of a boy tucked in his pocket and there was note."
"What did it say?"
"It was from the woman. What was her name?" She muttered the last question to herself? "Telling him that they were both fine, and he shouldn't worry about them, and he should visit when he could."
"Where are they?"
"I don't know." She tearfully answered, her head shaking in rhythm with her voice. She covered her face with her palms, too ashamed and too betrayed to control herself.
"Hey, don't cry anymore." Adele pushed her hair back and drew her into her arms, but she was unconsolable. "Angie, Please." She pleaded.
"I...I can't. I—" she sucked in a shaky breath. "I keep thinking where I've gone wrong. I did all they asked. And...and it isn't just the fact that he has a child, but that he had kept them away, and that means I could have kept trying, and I would have remained a fool. And now," she trailed off and circled an arm around her stomach. "Now there's a baby. What do I do, Adele?" She looked at Adele with a desperation for advice, but Adele could only stare.
"I don't know too, Angie. Even if I do know, I can't help you, and right now, you can't help yourself either."
Wasn't that the problem? She had been helpless for too long, and again she had been rendered helpless.
She glanced at the sonogram lying at her side. She stared at the small formless image that was growing inside her.
She still couldn't believe how it had eluded her. The missed periods, the weakness. And to think it had gone by for two whole months!
She couldn't stop staring at the sonogram, and the hand on her stomach wouldn't leave. Somehow beneath all the pain and hurt, there was the incredulity that she was growing a life in her. There was a baby. Her baby.
"I'm having a baby, Adele." She voice carried a trace of disbelief.
Lowering her eyes to her still very flat tommy, Adele nodded, allowing the ghost of a smile to touch her face. "Yes, you are. And that's why you should stop crying for the baby's sake."
For the baby's sake, Angelica muttered. Of course, she knew that, but despite knowing she couldn't stop.
The joy and happiness she had envisioned coming with this news was lacking, and all there was, was a bittersweet feeling, a deep curl of anxiety, and maybe a little bit of resentment. Not for the baby of course, but towards Sebastian.
"What are you thinking about?" Adele asked after a moment of silence had elapsed.
Looking at her, "My life," Angelica replied, "and what I am supposed to do from now."