Cara MIA - By Book One of the Immortyl Revolution - By Denise Verrico Page 0,24
held for fifteen minutes. When we finally went up, I had difficulty concentrating. It was everything I could do to keep from running off stage to vomit again. I struggled to finish the show. As I sat removing my make-up afterward, there was a knock at my dressing room door.
“Mia, your friend is here,” called the ASM. “In the green room.”
Ethan! I was overjoyed, until I remembered the new twist in the plot. I had to see him, even if it might be for the last time. Tears welled up, as I ran to the green room.
A vision glittered before me, dressed in impeccable evening clothes. As he held his arms out the floor gave way. He stepped forward to catch me, carrying me to the small beat-up leather sofa against the wall. Laying me down tenderly on it, Ethan felt my pulse and laid his hand against my abdomen. Voices buzzed and someone went to fetch a glass of water. Ethan waved them all away. “Leave us,” he growled. Naked despair swam in Ethan’s eyes when I looked up at him. “How long have you been in this condition?”
“A few weeks maybe.”
“Anything I can do to assist you?”
I cried into his crisp white shirt. “You promised nothing would keep you from me.”
“Best I let you go now. I’m sorry but I must.” He caressed my hair.
I pulled away and rubbed at my eyes, sniffling. “I understand. It isn’t your responsibility. It’s Richard’s kid.”
Ethan frowned. “Have you told him?”
“Not yet.”
He reached into his coat, pulling out a black leather card case. He took out a card. “You can reach me here should you need assistance. I deeply regret things didn’t work out as we planned. Please— call if you need me.” Kissing my forehead, he rose, leaving me desperate.
Richard met me outside in his car with an amused expression on his face, enjoying my dilemma too much. He wrapped himself around me, exhaling a solution mixed with cigarette smoke into my face. “Get rid of it.”
My Catholic conscience recoiled in horror. “It’s murder!”
He went on smoking as I stared out the window at the passing traffic on the narrow street. “Fine, go to some home and give it up. You can kiss your career and your southerner goodbye, or you tell him it was a false alarm. I go on living on Katherine’s money. Everyone’s happy. What you wouldn’t do to feed your ambition— a role on Broadway and a rich pretty boy on the side. I’ll even pay for it, as long as you promise to keep your big Italian mouth shut.”
I couldn’t carry to term the child of a man I hated. No tender maternal instincts for this tiny monster feeding on my blood. I had to be free to join my Ethan. Demons howled at the windows calling me to dance with them. I let them in and opened my arms wide.
I lay there in misery, raw and bleeding afterward. I hated Richard for doing this to me, and how I hated myself. This was punishment for my sins. I was in hell. Selena was right again. They took Richard’s money and pushed me out the door. Richard walked me to the car and helped me inside. I couldn’t lift my legs, slabs of dead meat. He lifted my feet into the car. I must’ve passed out, because next thing I knew we were pulling up outside my building.
The cramps were worse. I couldn’t rid myself of the feeling something had gone horribly wrong. He came around to my door and opened it. His eyes were cold gray disks. One of us had successfully distanced himself from the act. He got me to my feet. I stood on the sidewalk, blinking, disoriented. It was late afternoon. That mood of that long-ago Greenwich Village street was relatively serene. Waning spring sun bathed stone buildings in rosy gold light. Branches of still bare trees trembled gently in the breeze. The cerulean sky was dotted with fluffy white pompons of cumulous clouds. At the corner store, buckets of multi-colored blooms burned brilliant as a Van Gogh. I’ve fixed that moment firmly into my memory. I wish I’d stayed there for just a moment longer.
The climb to my third floor walk-up nearly did me in. Cursing, Richard finally lifted and carried me the rest of the way. Depositing me on my twin bed, he tucked a pillow under my feet and covered me with a blanket. “Try to sleep.”