Page 10 of Twisted Fate

Keily wiped at her eyeliner when she noticed some of it was smudged under her right eye, and put on more lipstick. Her bladder protested at having so much weight pressed against it and she waddled towards the first toilet. She sat there, almost at peace for a moment as she hid from the world outside the bathroom door. Logan couldn’t come in here and Joe wouldn’t bother if he knew what was good for him. She was safe from them both in here.

As she struggled to grab hold of her panties and pull them up, along with the support hose, she reminded herself that she was well on her way to a degree, she was supporting herself, and she’d changed over the last year and a half. She wasn’t the same woman that left Joe, though she didn’t regret that at all. That was probably her first step to becoming an actual human being with kindness and thoughtfulness in her heart.

“Why do they make these cubicles so fucking small?” Keily muttered as she tried to stand up without letting go of her underwear and hose. She had to turn against the cheaply painted white wall of the cubicle and push herself up because she was afraid the door wouldn’t hold if she put her weight against it. Not that the flimsy privacy wall was much better, but she wouldn’t have so far to fall if it collapsed under her weight.

She felt like an overinflated balloon, stretched and too big to be handled with anything but extreme care or it would pop. Tears stung at her eyes, humiliation washing over her again as she lost her grip on the hose. This really fucking sucked.

She allowed self-pity to wash over her for a moment before she lifted her head again and sighed. “There’s no use in crying, girl, get your panties up and stop being a baby.”

There was nobody else in the bathroom, she could talk to herself all she wanted to. She looked up at the ceiling while she got her emotions under control and saw plain tiles painted with the same cheap white paint as on the cubicle walls. The floor sported those utilitarian gray tiles that seemed to be in almost every government building she’d ever been in. For a moment, as she wiggled until the hose finally came up over her bump, she wondered if they’d started out white too and had dulled to gray over time.

“You okay in there?” Rosa called out as she walked into the bathroom.

Keily heard the door close and smiled. “Yeah, just being your average roly-poly, trying to get her pantyhose to stay up.”

“Need some help?” Rosa asked, always helpful.

“Nah, I’ve got it now,” Keily answered as she smoothed down her dress and opened the door. “It takes getting used to, being this big.”

“I can imagine,” Rosa said, even though her face said she couldn’t imagine how Keily was coping at all. “I think I’d go without the support hose and underwear, altogether, if I was you.”

“I would if the hose didn’t help ease some of the pain in my back.” Keily sighed and washed her hands. “As for panties, it’s just habit, isn’t it?”

“I guess,” Rosa answered and twisted her face around into a frown. “Logan’s outside.”

“I know,” Keily replied, not sure why Rosa was mentioning him again.

“No, I mean outside the bathroom. He’s waiting for you.” Rosa said, punctuating her statement with a nod of her head towards the door.

“Shit,” Keily muttered and dried her hands with the brown paper towels from the dispenser on the wall. “He’s figured it out then, I guess.”

“Well, he would be kind of stupid if he hadn’t figured it out.” Rosa laughed a little. “I mean, you look like you’re about to give birth, so it has to be his, right?”

“I hadn’t thought about that. He can’t know it’s triplets though.” Keily sank back against the wall, staring at her friend with helplessness. “What do I say?”

“Just tell him you’re doing fine and don’t need him. Or tell him that you’re not fine, that you need help, they’re his babies too and he should be here for them. Tell him what you think best, Keily. That’s what you do.”

Keily frowned and nodded. Rosa didn’t know the whole story, so she didn’t know Logan wasn’t just a dick that had left her at the worst possible moment. She didn’t know that Keily felt that she’d got exactly what she deserved, she just knew her friend was hurt and alone when she shouldn’t be. Keily put a hand on Rosa’s arm and smiled over at her. “Thanks. I’ll figure it out, I guess.”

“I hope so, I hate seeing you so torn up over it. I’d kick him if I could.” Rosa even growled a little there at the end.

“It’s not all his fault, Rosa.” Keily reminded the other woman.

“I know, you keep telling me that, but I can’t help how I feel.”

“I know.” Keily smiled to reassure her friend and nodded at the door. “You go on ahead, I’ll be in when I’ve finished this little confrontation with Logan.”

“Alright but promise me you’ll just walk away and come sit with me if he’s too much of a dick to you.” Rosa’s eyes pleaded with Keily, so she nodded again.

“I will, promise.”

Rosa walked out at last and Keily took one last breath, straightened her spine as much as she could with her babies bowing her back, and tried to take a step. Fear made that impossible. Not fear of physical harm, but fear of crying in front of him, or that she’d make a fool of herself in some other way.

Yeah, she’d approached her relationship with Logan coldly in the beginning but somewhere along the way, she’d fallen in love with the broody asshole that made her smile. He’d made her cry too, she knew that, but he’d made her laugh, feel secure, cared about, and cared for. Then he left her.

That hurt, it stung worse than that time she’d gotten into a wasp nest when she was a kid, but there wasn’t anything she could do to make any of it better. She’d deserved what he did to her and she couldn’t change that. The only reason he was out there now, waiting to confront her, was because she was so obviously pregnant.

She hadn’t thought about the fact that she’d have to go to court when he’d first left her. She’d hidden from him when Rosa let her know he was in town, but then she got the subpoena and knew he’d find out she was pregnant. There was no denying it when she was this big. She’d tried to get out of coming, but the prosecuting attorney’s office wouldn’t hear of it.