“Hey, Kat,” a soft voice says, and I figure I’m dreaming because nobody talks to me anymore. Hands are brushing my hair back from my face and there’s a damp cloth wiping over my jaw too. My eyelids flutter open.
“Joey?”
“You were sick,” she says, her face pulled into a frown.
“Yeah,” I say, my head throbbing as I shuffle into a sitting position. I remember now. It came on so suddenly and violently that I couldn’t even make it to the bathroom. And then I think I passed out.
“How long have you been sick like this?”
“A few days.”
“Are you keeping anything down?”
“No,” I say. I don’t even have the energy to shake my head.
“Is this normal in pregnancy?”
“No. I think it might be… I might have hyperemesis gravidarum. My mom had it with me.”
“What the hell is that?”
“A fancy way of saying extreme morning sickness.” I give a feeble laugh.
I’m pretty sure Joey isn’t really here and I’m hallucinating or something. I wonder why it’s her of all people I’m seeing though. I mean, I thought it would be my mom or my grandma.
My eyes fixate on her face as my brain wakes up a little more. Dream Joey has a huge purple bruise on her cheek.
She covers it with her hand when she sees me staring.
“I’m sorry he did that to you because of me,” I whisper, even though she’s not real.
“It wasn’t Dante,” she says as she places her hand on my forehead. “Kat I’m really worried about you.”
“I think I need to go to hospital, Joey,” I croak. My throat is so dry from lack of fluids that it hurts to even talk.
Dream Joey squeezes my hand. She must be a dream. She’s never this nice to me. “I’ll go speak to Dante.”
