Lorna's eyes darted quickly around the room; trying to avoid any contact with her sister, who sat quietly in front of her, observing. The silence was awkward between the two, especially coming from a pair of Morellos, who practically thrived in constant uproar.
"Alright, what's your problem, huh?" Franny finally spoke up, no longer able to stand how weird her sister was acting. "You haven't said nothing to me since I got here. I drove all the way up here to see you, you could at least say somethin'."
Lorna leaned forward so as to get as close to the other as possible.
"Franny, I gotta tell ya somethin', but you can't tell no one else, okay?"
"Alright, whatever. Can't be no worse than when you told me you got hitched to some stranger. And I wasn't even invited."
Morello sucked in a sharp breath. It always felt pointless, at first, when she would talk to her sister about these sorts of things. But she knew in the end, her sister was the only person she had that she could confess anything to. Well, one of the only people.
"That's why I'm tellin' ya now." Suddenly, her voice lowered and she tried to lean in even further, "I'm pregnant."
"What? Seriously?"
Lorna nodded, tiny tear droplets formed in the corners of her eyes.
"How? I mean…. when?"
"With Vinny! After we got married!" her whispers grew fiercer as she tried to drill the idea through Franny's skull. "They- they let us have some… y'know, time together."
Franny couldn't help a small, very unnoticeable smile twitch at her lips as she listened to her sister describe the after party with her new hubby. Only her sister could get married and knocked up in prison. And at the same time too.
"You tell him yet?"
Lorna shook her head as the tears burned savagely now. Her fingers curled around the cross on her necklace. "I don't want to. I'm so scared. What if he don't want kids? What am I gonna do?"
"See, this is what happens when you shack up with some guy you don't even know. If you'd been datin' him for longer than three days, you might know the answer to that. You better tell him quick, so you know what kinda guy you're dealing with here."
Lorna nodded as a tear dropped from her cheek. Franny looked away for a split second, not able to watch her baby sister like this. It was bad enough having to witness Lorna's descent into madness as all was revealed about Christopher. Then to have her carted away to prison and now this.
"Hey, who's the doe eyes with the hair?" Franny asked, nodding in the direction of the window that faced into the visitor's room.
When Lorna saw Nicky pressed up against the glass, she sucked in a sharp, painful breath. It took everything in her power to not fall on the floor in a puddle of tears. She and Nicky had been so distant since she'd confessed about her marriage; making those quick seconds of eye contact (more than they'd had in days) made her feel sick to her stomach. And guilty. Oh so guilty.
And Nicky, noticing that she'd been spotted, had left.
"Th-that.. that's Nicky," Lorna choked out.
"What, like, the Nicky? I thought you said she went under the hill or whatever?"
"Yeah… she did…"
Nicky sat, quietly, alone, on the bottom bunk of her temporary room. She was desperately awaiting the day she'd get a dorm assignment, although with the sea of newbies and the bunk beds recently installed in the cubes, she didn't imagine it'd be any more comfortable at this point. It was weird not having Miss Rosa snoring away. That was just another incentive to no longer call this place home.
A light knock at the doorway and Nicky looked up from her feeble attempts to unmangle the mess of a knot her headphones had become while she was gone. She was forever grateful to Red for saving them, however.
Her eyes locked with Lorna's for a brief second before looking back down to her shaking hands. She said nothing.
"Hey, Nichols. I saw ya at the window earlier today."
"Yeah, well, don't flatter yourself, kid. I was spying on Chapman. Needed my fill of snobbish, rich people melodrama, y'know?"
Naturally, that was a total lie. She had gone to see if she'd finally get a glimpse of this so-called husband Lorna had told her about. It was Lorna's glum mannerisms and tears that struck a chord in Nicky and caused her to stay; desperately trying to pick up what they were mouthing to each other.
But Lorna nodded, not wanting to pick at the situation. She didn't want to make Nicky anymore upset than Lorna already suspected she was.
She slowly trailed her way deeper into the room, looking down at her feet as they heavily dragged along the tiles.
"Are ya mad at me?"
Nicky didn't respond. She just kept fussing with her headphones; fearing they would never come undone and she would be forced to listen to the idiotic chattering of her fellow inmates.
"Please, Nicky, don't be mad at me. I can't handle it if you're mad. I gotta talk to you. I gotta-"
Lorna's stoic disposition had quickly evaporated as she fell to her knees in front of Nicky's bunk. Nicky didn't want to hear it. She didn't want to see this.
"Look," Nicky'd cut her off, "this is the first time I've got a little peace and quiet to myself since I got back. I mean, Red's been on me like a fly on shit since I stepped through those doors. So I'm not really in the mood to hear about your little Housewives of Litchfield roleplay, okay? Go find someone else to gush to about your new mail order hubby, because I'm done with this shit!" she exclaimed as she frantically threw the tangled headset down on her pillow.
Nicky was half expecting Lorna to flip her off, spit out a curse word or two and storm out the room like she'd done on many occasions before. But the way Morello had submissively crunched up her body before slowly getting on her feet and slumping her shoulders to the door had set alarms off in Nicky's head. Lorna was actually upset. Wholeheartedly so. And while Nicky half suspected it was all her fault with her crass way of putting her off, she knew there was something genuinely bothering her. It had to do with whatever she was talking to her sister about.
She sighed and before she even knew why she'd said it, Nicky sputtered out a quick apology. The sound of Nicky's crackling voice as she said she was sorry had caused Lorna to stop dead in her tracks. Her back stayed facing to her and Nicky was unsure if it was because Lorna was mad or ashamed.
"Seriously, kid, I didn't mean it. Max just fucks with a person, y'know?"
Lorna spun around, sharply and forcefully nodding her head. She knew. Maybe not to the extent that Nicky did, but she knew. She knew how crazy it had made her (how more crazy it had made her) just watching Nicky leave. How she'd spent days in nothing but tears. No makeup. She hardly made it out of bed on some days. She couldn't imagine what it was like for Nicky, but she knew how fucked up it had made her. And now she was married and pregnant, in prison, and the only person who Lorna ever cared about in here hated her.
Nicky was still upset about the whole thing. She still secretly wanted to punch this Vinny guy in the face and endlessly question Morello about why. Nicky Nichols had been in love with Lorna Morello since the day they met and one day, she admitted it and another day Lorna had told her she loved her too. So what the fuck was this husband about?
But that was a conversation for later, if at all (she'd play it through her head a thousand times but never bring it up). There was something else brewing in Lorna's veins and Nicky had to help her solve whatever this was before she could allow herself to be mad again.
Instinctively, Nicky moved her legs to allow Lorna room on the bed before Lorna had even started to move in that direction. But sure enough, Morello took the hint and sat down.
Nicky leaned toward her and rubbed her shoulder with her hand. "C'mon, kid, what's bothering you? I'm being a colossal ass and you haven't cussed me out once this whole time. Something's up."
Tears that had already begun to form now swelled up even more. Nicky looked down at her confused and sorrowful. Fuck, she hated seeing Lorna cry.
"I'm pregnant," and then she broke out into sobs.
Nicky wasn't sure what to say. She sat there with Lorna in her arms and thrust herself deep into frantic thoughts. 'Holy fuck' was all she could really put together of the jumbled mess, however.
"Nicky," Lorna turned to her and quickly grabbed onto Nicky's shirt. Were it any other person in any other situation, Nicky would've flinched at how fast the motion was. But with Morello, she was used to it. She knew Lorna needed the durability of her body to cling to in times when everything else was falling apart.
"Nicky," Lorna repeated, more desperate than ever, "What am I gonna do?"
Nicky had no idea. But she knew this changed everything. This fucked everything up even more than it already was.
"Hey," she said, tucking her finger under Morello's chin and tilting it up so their eyes met. "We'll figure it out, okay? You and me, kid."