“Isn’t it?” Charlotte asked. “I’ve seen photos of you before this massive transformation. Why would Carter want the knockoff if he has the real thing?” Charlotte lifted a brow. “I believe you are smart. Is that not the case?”
The edges of Elaina’s lips lifted into a smile. “Oh, Charlotte. There’s so much more to me than meets the eye.”
*****
Elaina woke up to the sharp feeling of cramps. She bit her lower lip and took a deep breath as another sharp pain wracked her body. Elaina felt some dampness between her thighs. She was afraid she might be having a miscarriage.
Elaina waited for the pain to subside before throwing the covers off her body and getting out of bed. She stumbled around in the darkness as she made her way into her bathroom.
Elaina flipped on the light and gasped.
Her white nightgown was soaked in blood. Another sharp pain caused Elaina to double over and accidentally knock a few toiletries off her counter. It made a loud crashing noise.
“I’ve got to get to a hospital.” She whispered to herself.
Elaina was dripping all over her floor. She went into her closet to grab a few towels when another sharp pain brought Elaina to her knees.
There was a knock on her door.
“Elaina? Are you okay?”
It was Charlotte. Elaina gritted her teeth and sucked in a breath. “Y-Yes. I didn’t mean to wake you. I accidentally knocked a few bottles down. I’m alright.” Before she could finish speaking, she was wracked with another round of pain.
Down on all fours, Elaina managed to clean up her mess before crawling out to her bedroom. She took off her soiled nightgown and threw on a t-shirt and sweatpants. Elaina balled up her nightgown, the towels and placed them in a bin in her closet.
Elaina grabbed her purse from off of her dresser to search for her keys. She pulled out a single key. “This one is Harlem’s.” Elaina had taken it when Harlem left her purse behind at the children’s store. She thought it was the key to her condo, but it wasn’t. Elaina wasn’t sure what it went to, but it didn’t work to open the door to Harlem’s condo. “Here they are.” Elaina found her car keys.
She managed to make it out to her car. Before Elaina pulled out of her garage, she typed out a text to Charlotte.
Had to run out. A client needed my help.
If Elaina were losing the baby, she couldn’t go to a local hospital. She typed hospitals into her GPS. After she settled on an acceptable location, one that wasn’t anywhere near her home, Elaina set the device and pulled out of her garage.
She headed in that direction.
Chapter 15
Harlem was tired. “We’ve been walking around this store forever.” She was completely over the experience of being pregnant. “Gawwwd. I still have two more months of this.”
Carter held her hand as they tried to decide which bed to buy for the baby. He could see the fatigue on her face. “We can go.”
She sighed. “No, let’s finish this up. I don’t want to come back.” Her back was starting to ache, and she was feeling heavy.
“We’re almost done. You do realize we could have had someone decorate the baby’s room for us?”
“That’s how rich people do it.”
“Well, yeah.” A smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “We are.”
“You know what I mean. I wasn’t raised with money, but I was rich with love. I guess that’s why I wanted us to design our baby’s nursery.”
Our baby. Harlem had begun to speak about their child the way Carter had been feeling for a while. “I thought it was because your ass is a control freak.”
Her eyes twinkled with laughter. “Maybe a little of that too.”
Carter was curious. “What is that about?”
“What?”
“The OCD tendencies? It can’t be childhood trauma. Your mom and dad are almost too good to be true.”
“I did hit the lottery with my parents.” Harlem caressed a white baby bed with the canopy. “I wondered if you would ever ask me that.” She shrugged a shoulder. “Honestly, I can’t tell you with one hundred percent certainty why lists and planning make me feel more at ease. I’ve never gone to therapy for it. But I think the root cause might simply be because I’ve always felt like the odd girl out.”
“That’s crazy. I saw your middle and high-school pictures. You were an attractive girl who grew up to be a beautiful woman. It sucks but that kind of means something to teens. I’m going to need you to fill in the blanks a little more.”
“I didn’t think I was attractive. I felt awkward. I was always too tall. I was too thin. But, more than anything, I didn’t know how to connect. I quickly figured out that my interests weren’t common back then, and my shyness got me labeled as boujee. I tried to fit in with the cool kids, but it always came across as inauthentic. I was never quite . . . black enough. The harder I tried, the more I got labeled things that I don’t care to repeat.”
“Black enough? I certainly don’t understand that. Black is black, right?”
“Oh, God. No. It’s not. It’s a whole complicated thing within my community. It’s tough to explain. The best picture that I can paint is that while my skin might be medium brown, that places me in the middle of the colorism conversation. My eyes and hair used to sometimes
