warnings: this chapter contains both rape and referenced past rape. there's also self-harm, dissociation, depiction of an emotionally / verbally / physically abusive relationship, mention of bugs, and mentions of possible pregnancy complications.
Chapter 7: Riley & Lito
In which Riley meets Lito
The chairs at the free women's clinic are hard and the waiting room is crowded and the form that Riley's been given to fill out makes her feel like the shittiest mother on earth.
It asks if she's been attending regular checkups with an OB/GYN, whether she's been gaining noticeable weight, whether she's been taking vitamins and supplements. No, no, no, she thinks, biting on her lip.
It asks for an address. An emergency contact. An employer. She has none of the above.
It asks about drug use, wants to know "Amt. per day - pre-pregnant" and "Amt. per day - pregnant" of tobacco, alcohol, and "illicit/recreational drugs." She imagines writing the truth, imagines the doctor reading the form and knowing what a piece of shit she is.
It asks about her baby's father's medical history, and strangely there's no option for I don't know, he raped me one night at a homeless shelter and I never saw him again.
"I'm sorry, I changed my mind," she tells the lady at the front desk, setting the clipboard down on the counter. It clatters against the linoleum and the woman looks up, startled. "I— I forgot I have to be somewhere," Riley rambles, "I'm sorry, I—"
"Are you alright?" asks the woman, and Riley just shakes her head, fighting back tears.
"Miss?" the woman prompts, but Riley doesn't answer. She rushes out the door, sprints through the parking lot, away, away, away, because no, she's not alright— she's pregnant, and homeless, and so, so fucking scared.
o - o - o
She ends up at the public library and slips inside, breathing in the warm air.
She gets a piece of paper and a pencil from a librarian, ignores her disapproving gaze, and finds a seat at one of the free computers.
"Drug use during pregnancy" she googles. Ecstasy, she specifies. Then LSD, DMT, marijuana. The same words appear in the results again and again: "preterm labor" "small for gestational age" "miscarriage" "stillbirth" "increased risk."
So many increased risks.
She presses the tip of the pencil against her palm until it breaks the skin, then she opens a new Internet window. "how to have a healthy baby," she searches, and begins to make a list.
-folic acid supplements, she writes.
-vitamin d supplements
-prenatal vitamins
-lots of rest
-regular doctor visits
-don't eat raw food
-three meals a day, gain approx 30 lbs
She stares at the last one, wonders what a doctor would say if they knew that the last thing she ate was a McDonald's Happy Meal yesterday morning.
-no alcohol, caffeine, smoking, drugs, she adds at last.
She jabs her hand again with the pencil, and watches as it punctures the skin. She does it once more, and then again, and again, until her entire left palm is smarting in pain and covered in little bleeding pricks.
Then she logs off of the computer and leaves the library, her list tucked in one pocket of her jeans and her bleeding hand in the other.
o - o - o
On the corner outside the library is a boy about her age, his arms crossed, just casual enough to blend in but just sensual enough to stand out, his eyes roving over every man who walks by.
Riley's seen him before, she realizes: He used to hang out on the street across from the corner where she usually busks, but he hasn't been there in a few weeks, now that she thinks of it.
Suddenly, before she can look away, he meets her eye, and his entire face seems to come alive. "You!" he exclaims. "You're the girl who plays music!"
"Oh— I—" Riley shrugs shyly, lifting her guitar case a little as if to prove her identity. "Yeah, that's me."
The boy lets out a laugh and practically skips over to her. "Sorry, you probably don't recognize me," he says, "but I used to—"
"No, no, I do." She smiles a little. "You'd always say hi to me when you passed."
"Yes, you remember! I've missed you!" The boy nods excitedly, and Riley has a strange feeling, like maybe, somehow, she's known him her whole life. "My name is Lito," he says, grinning, and Riley can't help but grin back.
"Mine's Riley."
o - o - o
They walk aimlessly down the sidewalk as night falls, their arms bumping into each other occasionally in a comfortable, familiar way.
"Have you heard of 'neural tube defects'?" she asks as they reach a stoplight.
"No," Lito says, "what are they?"
"I don't know. But I just learned they can happen to the baby if you don't take folic acid when you're pregnant."
"Folic acid?" Lito echoes. "Is that a medicine?"
"I guess. I don't know." Riley laughs hollowly. "To be honest, I don't really know shit about any of this pregnancy stuff." Her voice breaks, and she looks up at Lito.
His face, illuminated red by the stoplight, is etched with concern. "Hey, it's going to be alright," he asserts. "You hear me?" And god, he asks it so gently that it almost makes her cry.
She nods at him.
Lito smiles.
The light changes, and they start across the street.
o - o - o
"Want to sit?" Lito asks as they pass a CVS. "Is there anywhere you need to be, or...?"
Riley thinks of Jacks back at the squat, no doubt waiting up for her. "No," she says. "Nowhere to be."
Lito smiles. "Me neither."
So they sit down under a light outside the CVS, backs against the wall, Riley's "Pregnant, Homeless, Help if you can :)" sign propped against her shins, just in case.
"When's the baby due?" Lito asks, gesturing toward Riley's stomach.
"Oh, uh. August, I think. I did the math, and. Yeah." She rests her hand on the bump. "I think it's a girl."
"Really?"
"Yeah. It's just a feeling. But if it is I'm gonna name her Luna."
"That's a beautiful name," says Lito.
"Thank you."
"Are you excited?"
Riley opens her mouth to say yes, but all that comes out is a stifled sort of sob. Lito puts his hand on her knee. "I'm sorry," he says.
Instinctively, she rests her head on his shoulder, somehow knowing he won't mind her tears on his jacket. "No, it's— I am excited," she sniffs. "But I'm just… I don't know. Scared, that I won't be able to take care of her. And— And I've been using," she admits in a whisper. "Like, a lot. And I know that's bad, and I knew it was bad, but— It just didn't seem real, and what if— What if—"
Wordlessly, Lito reaches for her hand, but she pulls it away before he can see how fucked up her palm is. He settles his fingers back down on her knee, frowning. "Shhh," he says softly. "You're okay. You're alright."
"What if I've hurt my baby?"
"I'm sure your baby is fine. All is not lost."
Riley desperately wants to believe him.
o - o - o
They part ways eventually, Lito heading back to the library to work and Riley going into the CVS. Because maybe Lito's right, she thinks. Maybe all's not lost. She'll quit the drugs. She'll buy the prenatal shit the Internet said she needs. Her baby will be okay. It will. It has to be.
She made $13.25 busking this morning before she went to the clinic, which isn't enough to buy prenatal vitamins.
But it is enough to buy a little bottle of folic acid supplements. So she does.
o - o - o
"Where the fuck you been?" Jacks demands the minute she steps foot in the squat they've been staying at. He grabs her by the arm and pulls her in for a kiss.
"Out," she says, wresting her arm from his grip.
Jacks raises an eyebrow. "Oh yeah?" he says, kissing her again. "Well what've you got to show for it?"
Shugs and Bambie are home, but they won't be any use to her if Jacks decides to go postal; they're huddled in the corner high off their asses and gone to the world.
So there's no point in stalling. With trembling fingers, Riley hands him the eight dollars and twenty-nine cents she has left. She looks away as he counts it, stares at the peeling paint on the walls and the cockroaches scuttling along the ground for what feels like an eternity.
"That it?" he says at last, like he can't quite believe it.
She nods, still not daring to look up.
"You fucking spent some, didn't you?"
"I didn't," she says. "I—"
"Fucking look me in the eye and tell me that all you fucking made today was eight fucking dollars, you useless fucking bitch."
Riley lifts her eyes. "I— that's all I made; I—"
The smack across her face is so hard that she's sent stumbling back several feet.
"Jacks!" she cries, "I swear, I just—" But she's cut off as he wraps his hands around her throat.
"What. The fuck. Did you spend it on?" he snarls, shoving her against the wall.
Riley gasps for air, her eyes squeezed shut and her body gone limp.
"ANSWER ME!" roars Jacks.
"Medicine!" Riley whimpers at last, struggling to breathe. "Just some fucking medicine, Jesus, Jacks!"
"Idiot," he snorts. "What the fuck kind of medicine you need?" One hand still pressed against her neck, he shoves his fingers in the left pocket of her jacket, then the right, and pulls out the bottle of folic acid.
"Fo-lic... acid... supplements," he sounds out. "What the fuck, man?"
"It's for the baby," Riley chokes. "Please."
Jacks laughs at her as he lets go of her throat. "Oh fuck that," he says, and before Riley can stop him, he's opened the bottle and dumped the pills on the ground.
"No!" she yelps, lunging forward, but he catches her by the shoulders, holds her at arm's length. He grinds the pills under his shoe.
"Riley, Riley, Riley," he says. "Oh, don't cry, come on. I'm just watching out for you." He trails a thumb down her cheek. "You know that baby's not good for you."
"Jacks, don't say that," she whispers. "It's my baby."
"No it's NOT!" he shouts, slamming her back against the wall. "It's some fucking rapist's baby and you don't owe it fucking shit!"
Roughly, he wipes at the tears streaming down her face. "God, I love you, Riles," he whispers. "I hate that you gotta carry that fucking thing inside you. I hate what it's doing to you. I hate seein' it make you cry all the damn time." He pinches her cheek, so hard it hurts. "And I don't want you spending a fucking cent on it, you hear me, Riley?"
She nods at him.
Jacks smiles.
They kiss.
o - o - o
(And they fuck too, later that night, but Riley isn't there for that, she's just watching, floating, far away from the crying pregnant girl getting fucked against the ground of some shitty squat beside a spilled bottle of folic acid supplements.
Riley isn't there, no, that's not her begging Jacks to stop. That's not her curled beside him, half-dressed and shivering and trying to fall asleep. Riley floats even farther away, away, away, back to Lito, back to the CVS, and his hand is on her knee and and her head is on his shoulder and—
And eventually she manages to sleep.)
