Page 32 of Do It Yourself
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
I jump at my alarm, smacking my phone to stop the incessant blaring as I stretch my neck out, doing my best to relieve the tension from sleep. Once I’ve cracked it a few times, I realize I’m not in my room at the Bunk House. It takes another beat to remember last night and that I don’t need to have my fucking alarms going.
Shit, I hope that they didn’t wake up Mabel.
I snatch my phone off the bedside table, quickly turn my alarms off for the rest of the weekend. Assuming yesterday wasn’t all a fever dream, I hope Mabel isn’t too upset with herself. I’d love it if she’d talk to me about what happened but I’m not dumb enough to push the issue.
I lay in bed just long enough to know I’m not going back to sleep. Having basically the same routine for the past ten years makes it so my body is up and ready before the crack of dawn, always. I let out a sigh of slight annoyance but I reason with myself that this will give me a chance to shower before Mabel wakes up.
Maybe make her some breakfast as a peace offering….
It’s decided.
It will probably end in disaster but nobody ever said I was smart. Especially when it comes to Mabel Warren. Hell, I’m a downright idiot nowadays when it comes to her. Being attractedto Mabel as a teen and into my twenties is nothing compared to how I feel about her now. Especially since I’ve spent legitimate time with her, gotten to laugh with her and seen more of her than the scowl she’d shoot whenever we were in the same room.
Infatuation has evolved into something that I don’t know if I’m ready to put into words, even to myself. This weekend just became a lot more difficult.
Chapter Twenty-Three
MABEL
“Shit. Shit. Shit. Fuck, shitballs. Goddamnit.” I’m pacing a hole into the floor of my bedroom, doing my best impression of Elle, and spiraling because what the fuck did I let happen yesterday?! This was a disaster! A complete and utter mess that I’m never going to recover from.
I haven’t had a breakdown like that in YEARS. Not since Henry was a baby. I’d been able to get over myself because Paul had needed me. Sure, I still get sad but never ever like that. No, my family needed me for one thing or another and my familyalwayscame first.
I’d made a promise to myself to be better.
After coming home all those years ago, I barely let myself get loose around others. A year or so back, Paul and I went out and I thought I sawhimand it felt like I was that silly girl all over again. Paul, of course, instantly knew something was wrong and offered to beat the snot out of a random, to him, stranger.
It turned out to not be who I thought it was but my whole world was tilted on its axis going back to that time, Paul took me back to his house and made me spill everything. He’s still the only one in the family who knows. The only one who knowshow excited I was, how ready I was for this new chapter of my life. How I was completely okay with doing it by myself and how much it broke me when I lost the baby.
He just listened, and didn’t try to offer any hollow platitudes to attempt to calm me down. I told him that I felt like I made terrible decisions when I let my ‘Maybe’ persona come out and I blamed those poor decisions—not limited to but including all my fights with Dad—her. I said I hated myself more often than not because I knew Maybe was me, and trying to put blame on a stupid nickname that started in high school was just as dumb as I was.
“Maybe she’ll sleep with him, Maybe she’ll sneak out tonight, Maybe she’ll be able to convince that guy to get us some beers.”
Maybe turned into a dare that I always took. I refused to play the part of the perfect eldest daughter of the family. No, I fell into the much more cliche stereotype of the wild oldest daughter from the town’s most well known family.
God, it was embarrassing. I was embarrassing.
Dad certainly thought so, “Mabel girl. You’re better than that.” His favorite phrase when I disappointed him, again and again. Until I finally broke and told him I’d never been better than any of it, and he could take all his disappointment and his assumptions that just because I was a Warren I was somehow better than everyone else in this fucking town and shove it all where the sun don’t shine. I don’t remember much else from that fight. More words were said, some were yelled, but I do remember packing a bag and leaving the Farm for roughly eighteen months.
Even though I’ve lived in Utah my whole life, I’d never planned to be pregnant at such a young age.
I wasn’t dumb, I was always careful…well, mostly careful.
What I wasn’t super careful about was collecting phone numbers or remembering the names of my conquests. I endedup with no way to contact my future baby daddy and I was, quite honestly, fine with it. I made a doctor’s appointment, gave myself a pep talk in the bathroom mirror and called my mom to tell her I wanted to come home.
No, I didn’t share the sudden change of heart. I wanted to go to my first appointment, get a picture of the ultrasound and surprise my parents with the fact that they were going to be getting a grandchild.
Yeah, that didn’t fucking happen.
No heartbeat.
D&C scheduled but in the end, not needed. I lost my baby that night. Thankfully, I was still living off the farm and didn’t have to open myself up to questions I wasn’t prepared to answer. All my bravado and urge to return to my family became twisted and bitter but it was time to go home.
