Chapter 64

*Olga*

When I came to realize I was in a bright white room that smelt of disinfectant. I raised my hand to rub my eyes but a sharp pain made me yelp out.

The door opened and a nurse walked in. She looked at me with a smile on her face.

"Welcome back," she said. I tried to sit up but she stopped me.

"Where am I?" I asked groggily. She poured water in a glass and told me to drink. She took a chart at the foot of my bed and made a few markings on it before placing it on a clipboard by her side.

"You are at Roxane Medical Centre, you came here three days ago after a mugging gone wrong." A male doctor said as he entered the room. "How are you feeling? I am Doctor Evans."

I felt my head pounding in the distance but I just held out the glass for more water. The nurse filled it up and looked at me a strange look on her face.

"You are the doctor, tell me how I am," I said finally.

The doctor sighed and looked at the nurse first. They exchanged a look before he turned back to me.

"What do you remember?"

I cleared my dry throat and then tried to recall what had happened to me.

Doctor Evans nodded and said, "That was three days ago as I had mentioned earlier. The mugger shot you twice, and you would have died except that the alleyway where you two were was the backdoor to one restaurant and a steward walked out to dump trash when he saw what was happening. He managed to cause a scene and the shooter ran away."

"An ambulance was called and you were brought here where we did our best to save you," the nurse took over

"Wait, you said that I was shot twice, but I just remember being shot in the hand," I interrupted.

"I am sorry but I have no gentle way of saying this, one of the bullets tore through your stomach and ruptured your uterus."

Even before she finished that statement my body turned as cold as ice and I dreaded pushing my hand to my lower body. I had tuned out what she was saying and continued my hand went to my stomach. Sure enough I felt a bandage and pain shoot through my body as my hand landed on it.

"I am pregnant," I managed to utter. The two looked at me with concern written on their faces.

"I am sorry but you lost the pregnancy-"

I shut my ears mentally and zoned out. All I could see was the white of the room that seemed to grow brighter with every passing second. I saw the room spin before everything turned black again.

After that I only remembered bits and pieces of what was going around me. I remember the doctor trying to comfort me by stating that hadn't the bullet taken my baby then the smoking certainly had. He showed me a report that showed the baby would have been malformed due to my habits. That did not make it any easier for me and I just shrieked until they sedated me.

I was discharged after two weeks and as I headed to the accounting office to clear the bill I wondered what next for me. I didn't want to return back to Selspur as I was. My bag and belongings had been dropped when the mugger was escaping.

I cleared my bill and then took a taxi to the station where I boarded a train to the capital. There was only one place I would recover away from questions. I plugged in my dead phone to the power outlet and then closed my eyes.

The trip to the city took over ten hours due to stops made along the line. I had booked a first-class carriage so I spent most of my time in my head or sleeping. When I managed to switch on my phone I received messages from Mark, Jayden and Frankie. I didn't bother responding to any of them and instead called Betty.

After letting her know I was coming I put my phone on silent and put it away. It started vibrating and I saw it was Frankie calling. I ignored it and put it back in my bag. After she had finished calling I switched it off again.

I had already given Betty the relevant information and she would be waiting for me when the train pulled up.

*****

It was now the second week of staying in the capital with Betty. She would go to work in the morning and then come back in the evening to find me seated in the same spot everyday. On the first day I had tried to smoke to try and get some sense of normalcy and ground myself but I started coughing badly and stopped.

Later on I tried to light another stick but I also got a violent reaction to it. At first I had thought it was smoke that was affecting me so I tried to light a paper and inhale the smoke and surprisingly I didn't cough my lungs out. It looks like I was now traumatized by cigarettes.

Every day I felt a crushing pain in my chest, as if my heart has been ripped out of my body. I felt hollow and numb, as if I Had lost a part of my soul.

I was betrayed and violated by the universe, having not just my life, but my unborn baby's life stolen from me. Waves of resentment and anger constantly washed over me, reminding me how the world is unfair and cruel. Other times the feelings were replaced by despair and a sense of being useless, pushing me to the brink and wondering if there is any point in living anymore.

I couldn't stop thinking about my baby. Every morning I wondered what he or she would have looked like, what cute baby noises would be made, their personality and character, would she be a noisy baby, or maybe he would be silent.

I imagined holding the baby in my arms, kissing its forehead, singing a lullaby. I had wanted to feel its kick inside my womb, seeing its heartbeat on the ultrasound. I wanted to go shopping for clothes and toys two months later. But now I have lost my baby.

If I ever see that man I will make him suffer. Other times I would blame myself for the mugging, for walking alone that rainy night, for not letting Mark escort me back to the station. But again, Mark should have insisted and escorted me to the station, he was just as much in fault as I was. Who lets a lady walk all alone in a new place especially at night?

Or maybe if I had done something differently, I could have saved my child. The guilt for surviving was there at the back of my mind, for being alive when my child is not.

Did I really deserve to be happy, to be a mother, to be a woman?

I felt isolated and alone drifting in my thoughts. Shame and embarrassment, were my constant friends during this dark period. I barely left the house as I felt like people would judge and pity me, which was funny because no one in the apartment even knew me. But I felt like on my forehead was a stamp to show that I had killed my baby.

Depression and anxiety started to creep in slowly into my life. I now even stopped coming out of the bedroom except to go to the bathroom.

During my lapses, I think I remember Betty having someone like a doctor over. The lady had introduced herself to me but my mind was not focused on her. I remember her trying to talk to me to open up but I just stared at her blankly for that hour.

There was nothing she could do to help me. I saw her give Betty some pills before she left. That night Betty made me some food and fruit juice. That night as I went to bed, I felt lightheaded and instantly dozed off the moment my head touched the pillow.

For the next few days, I felt less depressed and in an ironic sense of fate, I knew that Betty was giving me antidepressants. That day as she went to work, I searched the house and found where she had hidden the pills. I looked at the tablets and then flushed them down the toilet.

I wanted to feel pain, to feel sad, anxious. I wanted to cry out in peace without some medicine trying to control my moods. I left the apartment and went walking for a long time, with no thought of my safety. I reached a point on the road and I debated whether I should just jump in front of the traffic.

Now as I stood at the pavement watching the cars rush by, I felt my world slow down. In the distance I saw a large truck speeding on the road heading my direction. All I had to do was to jump in front of it, feel the instant pain and then fade into oblivion.