When I Ran Away by Ilona Bannister (best books under 200 pages .TXT) 📕

operating-room ceiling tiles. You’re not supposed to be able to see yourself die in a dream, but I have. And I want Frankie back.

Got all that, Harry?

I know I’m ranting. That I seem ungrateful. I can’t explain the anger. How exhaustion and anger are the same feeling. I’m angry about being so tired, and the more tired I get, the more enraged. I wonder if I would’ve been different if things had gone right. If Rocky had been born the regular way and I could have pushed all of this out of me. Pushed out the hormones and the blood and the water. Instead I carry it all with me, swirling around inside, trapped. Liquid rage pushing against my organs, covering my heart, filling my ears. I hear the rush of the blood in my veins. All the extra blood I made for him, displaced, unneeded now that he lives outside me.

Harry, do you remember when we found out about him? When I ran out of the cab and into the house and pushed you out of the way of the door so hard that the tea in your hand went flying against the wall and the cup broke? But despite my speed I didn’t make it to the bathroom in time and in the space of fifteen seconds we had a pool of vomit on the antique floor tiles, a huge tea stain on the wall, shattered ceramics everywhere and you said, “Gigi, my God, how much have you had to drink?” and you got all pissy because it was Saturday and you thought I had been out getting wasted when I told you I was working on a case with Charlie but I just sat down and cried and cried and cried. “I’m not drunk, I’m not drunk,” I kept wailing.

“Then what is this?” you said, and you pulled a half-drunk bottle of white wine from my bag.

“It’s Charlie’s, it was Charlie’s,” and I couldn’t explain through my tears that I couldn’t drink my half at dinner so she insisted I take it home.

And you started laughing, “And you expect me to believe that? It’s alright if you’ve had a few, Gigi, let’s get you to bed.”

And I said, “I’m pregnant. I’mpregnantI’mpregnantI’mpregnantI’mpregnant.”

And you stopped and looked at me, and left me there, with the vomit and the broken mug and the tea dripping down the wall and you ran out of the house and you came back ten minutes later with three kinds of tests and every ginger product you could find in the store. And we did the tests and you read them and you were so happy. And I was too. And you took care of me that whole night. And in the morning, you and Johnny made me breakfast in bed which was so sweet but impossible for me to eat and when I asked you to go to the gas station and get me some Cheetos instead you said, “Anything you want,” and you kissed me on the forehead. And you made sure there were always Cheetos in the snack cabinet, and then Cool Ranch Doritos when I switched to those at twelve weeks.

Anything you want. I scroll through the rest of the emails: the PTA president about next term’s events; invoice for soccer camp; PizzaExpress voucher; refunds from Gap and H&M for all the cheap clothes I bought that didn’t fit; British Airways autumn offers. Fly to New York for £200.

I put out my cigarette and hit reply, stare at the blinking cursor for a while. Tears want to come. I consider another half-bath. I consider a slice of pizza. I consider another cigarette. I consider my boy, how I miss being the kind of mother I was when it was just him and me. I consider my baby, his blue eyes and dark curls, how his knuckles are still only dimples in his hands, how he reaches out to be held…but I consider him only for a second, because…because…trigger warning.

London, January 2016; Baby, 8 days old

I hold my stomach with both hands. It’s huge and round, as if the baby’s still in there. A big skin-bag stuffed with rubber-fat and flesh and water and blood. My post-baby body. Quick, take a picture and post it. Show everyone my baby bliss, how blessed I am, my Kardashian curves, my Blake Lively breastfeeding-in-a-bikini body, my Jessica Alba after-the-baby abs in People…

Oh, wait. Not me. That’s not me.

The midwives told me that luckily the doctors make the incision on the bikini line. So the good news is that I don’t have to worry about a scar adding to the post-partum, post-natal, post-apocalyptic, post-modern, post-war, post-all-my-hopes-and-dreams stretched-out wasteland of stomach that’s sitting on top of where my body used to be.

Everyone loves a pregnant woman. “Oh, you’re glowing,” they say, until that shit comes out and you’re left like this. And then everyone’s like, “Whoa, dude, well, at least the baby’s cute. Did you always have that beard?”

Ding. A text from home, Sharon:

G you OK? You can’t call people? What happened? How’s the baby?

Me:

Sorry, I’m a f’ing wreck. I’m out of the hospital. This shit is like Afghanistan right now. I’ll call you later. Baby’s OK

Sharon:

OK well luv u. You’ll be OK. Send a picture soon

Me:

OK

But OK is far away.

Where’s Johnny? I can’t remember.

I can’t see my feet if I look down, my stomach’s in the way, so I shuffle over to the mirror to look for the incision. I open my robe and hold my stomach up with one hand, peel off the bandages with the other and there it is, my flesh sewn together with black thread, a freaky smile stitched between my hips.

I catch my eyes in the mirror. Brown and bloodshot. My hair is black with grease. Neglected and unwashed for days, it looks like I cut it myself with a steak knife. Like the heroine always does in movies about crazy women. Then the beautiful actress walks the red carpet with