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SIENNA RAPPED ON THE screen door, then stepped back to get another view of Lexie’s car in the driveway. This must be the right house.
She knocked one last time, and after several minutes and no answer, she threw her hands up in the air and growled. Lexie had finally called her that morning, ready to talk, so where was she?
She walked across the wraparound porch, down the steps, and into the lawn. Her wedge sandals sunk into the plush grass, which tickled her ankles, and the sun blazed in a bright blue sky above. Squinting, she shielded her eyes, shifting her gaze to the windows on the second floor, but saw no sign of life inside.
Frustrated, Sienna turned and peered out into the endless fields in front of her. Maybe she should try searching for Lexie somewhere on the farm? After all, she was late, thanks to traffic in the city. Lex may have gotten tired of waiting.
She shifted her weight, scanning the empty field in front of her, the gleaming red tractor, and the barn behind the house. Without a clue as to what a farmer’s routine may be, or where to start looking, she sighed and pulled her loose hair back into a ponytail, then headed toward the direction of the barn, determined to find her sooner rather than later. But with each step, her anxiety grew as she recalled the troubled sound of Lex’s voice on the phone. Whatever was going on must be serious, life-changing, for her to abandon her apartment, job, and her friends—all the things she cherished most.
But Sienna promised she would be there for her. Not just out of friendship, but because she owed her more than words. Lex had been her rock these past years. Scores of doctor’s appointments, pregnancy tests, fertility drugs, and injections, all of it with Lexie by her side, a kaleidoscope of trials and tribulations. Countless times Sienna cried on her shoulder as she mourned her barren womb.
Brent didn’t handle the stress of trying to conceive well. He claimed his stomach was too weak to watch his wife go through so much just so he could have a child. And so it was Lexie who had been her source of comfort through it all.
A squeaky hinge on a barn door creaked in the loft high above Sienna’s head, grabbing her attention as she approached the old dinosaur, all aged wood and peeling paint. Muffled voices trickled out of the open door, and her ears pricked at the sound.
She rounded the corner and entered the doorway when out of nowhere Lexie nearly collided with her. With a yelp, Sienna’s hands flew to her chest in an effort to slow her racing heart. “You scared the crap out of me,” she said, then reached and pulled Lexie into a hug, squeezing her tight.
Releasing her, Sienna took her in, suddenly unsure of this visit, and the reason behind it.
“Who’d you think I was?” Lexie said, her tone light, teasing.
A soft smile touched Sienna’s lips. “I don’t know. Children of the Corn.”
And that’s when it struck her—Lexie’s body, more specifically, her stomach.
Sienna’s gaze widened, her smile fading at the sight of the very distinct bulge around Lexie’s midsection, hidden beneath a baggy t-shirt.
A myriad of emotions and a million questions exploded inside of her like firecrackers. Why had she not told her sooner? Didn’t she trust her? And, yeah, she’d be lying if she said a part of her wasn’t green with envy, but she would never begrudge her friend this miracle.
“We need to talk,” Lexie whispered.
Sienna swallowed, meeting Lexie’s eyes as more questions emerged. When did this happen? How long had she known? Who was the father?
When Lexie reached for her, Sienna didn’t pull away, but instead, let Lexie grip her cold hand in the warmth of her own. Heading towards the house, Lexie pulled her along, while Sienna concentrated on the rhythm of their silent steps, trying to quell the hurt inside.
“Let’s sit on the porch, and I’ll get us something to drink,” Lexie said.
Sienna nodded and followed back through the lawn and onto the porch, where Lexie disappeared inside, leaving Sienna alone and out of sorts. On rubbery legs, she settled herself on one of the wooden rockers as her mind raced, trying desperately to make sense of the situation at hand.
Lexie had only been with a couple of men over the years, and she didn’t date much. Any attempts at setting her up always resulted in disaster. As the years trickled by, Sienna sensed something more at play in Lexie’s botched relationships. Eventually, she concluded Lexie had never gotten over the man she left behind. The one from her hometown, which she only ever mentioned during snippets of conversation over the years.
Sienna closed her eyes, pressing her fingers to her forehead, trying to recall a man from Pittsburgh she might’ve been with in recent months and drew a blank. Even if there had been someone, why would Lexie leave everything—the life she built and loved—just because of an unexpected pregnancy?
She wouldn’t. It made zero sense.
The soft squeak of the screen door broke Sienna from her thoughts. She opened her eyes and removed her hands from her forehead. “Trying to butter me up with chocolate, are you?” she asked, keeping her tone light as she eyed the tray of brownies.
Lexie smiled, but there was no warmth behind it. “I thought they might break the ice.”
Sienna nodded. “Since when do we need to break the ice?” she asked quietly.
Clearing her throat, she added, “I’m sorry about my initial reaction. You surprised me. Let me tell you, the last thing I expected to find was you pregnant.” Needing to busy herself, Sienna took a brownie from the tray, leaving behind a trail of crumbs on her lap. She swept them off and looked Lexie in the eye. “You could have told me. You should have told me.”
Lexie bit her lip, then said, “I know. I’m sorry; my situation is more complicated than just being pregnant. I couldn’t tell you before I left. I wasn’t ready. I was too ashamed.”
“To tell me you were pregnant? Honey, I know this isn’t the way you wanted to do things, getting pregnant by accident, but this is the twenty-first century. You’re not exactly the first single woman to get pregnant in the world, and I’m sure you won’t be the last.”
Lexie set her glass of milk on the table in front of her and crossed her arms, rubbing her hands up and down her bare flesh. “It’s not the pregnancy I was ashamed of. I didn’t even know I was pregnant until after you left my apartment the last time I saw you. I used your tests...” she trailed off, scrubbing her eyes with her hands. “I’m sorry. This is hard for me, and I’m not sure how to do this, how to talk about it. The only people who know are my parents—well, and Elliot, though not that I told him.” Lexie glanced away, swallowing.
Exasperated, Sienna sighed and threw her hands up in the air, the brownie on her lap forgotten. “You’re confusing me, Lex. Just tell me. What are you talking about?”
Lexie turned her gaze back to Sienna, her eyes clear and piercing. “I was raped. Several months ago.”
Sienna froze. Several seconds passed in silence before she could speak. “What?”
Her gaze searched Lexie’s body as if she might find some evidence, other than her baby bump, confirming the truth because this couldn’t have happened. Not to her Lex. But the sadness in Lexie’s eyes confirmed the truth.
She leaned forward and reached out, taking Lexie’s face into her hands, cradling her like a child, like she could somehow heal her. “My God, Lex. Tell me what I can do?” But she didn’t wait for a reply. Instead, she stood up and moved to where Lexie sat and wrapped her arms around her, wishing she could wipe this awful thing away, feeling like all the words in her vocabulary were totally inadequate.
She enclosed Lexie in her arms, one hand wrapped around her, while the other remained on her head as she ran her fingers through the soft strands of Lexie’s hair while she cried. Tears soaked through the thin cotton of her blouse, and Sienna had never felt more helpless than in that moment. How could she console her? How could she find the words?
She couldn’t, and she knew it.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you sooner,” Lexie said, her voice muffled against Sienna’s body.
With a gentle touch, Sienna ran her hands through Lexie’s hair. “No, don’t. It’s not your fault. I knew something was wrong. I should have tried harder to get you to talk to me. I should’ve done something. I never imagined...”
Lexie pulled away, wiping the moisture from her eyes. Anguish clouded the once vibrant brown, and Sienna forced herself not to look away from the pain etched in the lines of Lexie’s face. She would face this dead on and help her fight. “So that’s why, before you left, you acted so weird. That’s the reason you left,” Sienna said.
“I had totally checked out of life, out of everything. I skipped our lunch dates, our girl’s night out because I couldn’t face myself, let alone what happened. Since the rape, I’ve thought about ending my life at least a dozen times. I didn’t want to deal with this, to live through it. I still don’t. The shame seems like an impossible barrier. But when I found out I was pregnant, I decided to leave town. I couldn’t end my own life, not with a baby inside, not with a part of him growing inside of me.”
Understanding dawned on Sienna. Not only was the life within Lexie unwanted, unplanned, but it was also a burden, a curse, a remnant of the all the ways she was wronged, and the evil inflicted on her.
Swallowing, Sienna’s placed her hand over Lexie’s stomach, to the growing child inside and said, “You can’t keep it.” It was a statement of understanding and not a question.
“No. I can’t keep it,” Lexie confirmed.
Sienna’s hand, subconsciously, drifted to her womb, empty and useless. She nodded and said, “I’m here for you. Tell me how to help you.”
* * *
THE DOOR UNLOCKED AND opened with an ominous creak. Sienna put one foot inside the threshold, then paused as if waiting for some elusive creature to come out of hiding and attack her. Since nothing lobbed off her right foot, and she remained unscathed, she stepped the rest of the way into Lexie’s apartment, closing the door behind her.
Her gaze drifted throughout the room, lingering over the white sofa, cream carpeting, and oak tables, bypassing them to Lexie’s cheery kitchen. This was where it happened, where she was raped.
She shuddered and wrapped her arms around her body to ward off the sudden chill. This apartment had been Lexie’s haven, her home. To think that in one moment, a single night, that all had changed.
Lexie shared fragments of the night she was raped. Editing out details, Sienna assumed, too painful for her to speak of, and when Sienna asked her if she knew him, she had said “no.” But something about the way she had glanced away, refusing to meet her eyes, told Sienna otherwise, that maybe she did know the man that did this to her.
Though Sienna was thankful she had finally confided in her, she hated that Lexie felt like she had to censor herself. Still, even if she couldn’t tell her everything, Sienna could be there for her in the most basic of ways. So if Lex needed help packing up and moving her apartment, so be it.
It pained Sienna to see her close this chapter of her life, but she understood it. She doubted she could return there either. She knew nothing about being a victim of assault, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t try to understand it.
Sienna knew Lexie’s meager savings wouldn’t last long without returning to work, not with the expense of rent in the city, among her other bills, and because Sienna wanted to help her in any way possible, she decided on saving her the expense of paying packers by doing it herself. Then she would hire movers to haul her stuff away.
She trailed a finger along the granite of the breakfast counter, thinking of all the time spent in this apartment. Already, she missed Lexie desperately. Even though Sienna understood her need to stay with her family, it still hurt. Even when Sienna offered she live with her and Brent until she was back on her feet was not well received. The sheer terror in her eyes would probably stick with Sienna for a long time. The way she blanched, trying to explain all the reasons why she couldn’t, still fresh in her mind. Of course, Sienna didn’t want to pressure her, so she let it drop. She wasn’t one to push, and though her reaction seemed strange, Sienna concluded that her apartment wasn’t the only thing tainted by the hand of her rapist, maybe the whole city was as well.
Sienna moved through the living room, down the hall, and to the bathroom, figuring it’d be easiest to pack. Although she should be tired after the long day, she needed something to busy herself with, and the opportunity to work off her nerves was perfect. A reprieve was exactly what she needed—from her worry for her friend, from her own selfishness that hated the injustice that she was not the one pregnant.
She stepped into the bathroom and opened the door to the linen closet in search of cosmetic cases to store Lexie’s toiletries. Once she found some, she began rummaging through the sink cabinet, filling containers when her gaze snagged on the trash can next to her. Inside, were over a dozen pregnancy tests, her pregnancy tests.
Unable to stop herself, she picked one up and held the plastic stick gingerly between her fingers. Double pink lines—something she had never seen in any of the multitudes of tests she took over the years. They stared at her from the tiny window, judging, mocking.
Swallowing over the ache in her throat, she gripped the test in her palm, curling her fingers around it until her hand screamed from the pain of her nails biting into her flesh. The image of Lexie’s stomach, swelling with life, flickered through her mind. Though she understood the decision to give the baby up, a sick part of her wished she had been the one violated, the one suddenly faced with an unexpected pregnancy.
Disgusted with herself, she dropped the test back into the can with a grunt.
She shook her head, clearing away the parasitic thoughts. It was insane to be jealous. No one deserves what happened to Lex. But still, she couldn’t deny in this moment that she would trade places...save them both the heartache.
Abruptly, she set the container on the floor, rose, and walked back down the hall to the living room, and toward the door. Maybe it had been too long a day after all. Maybe she needed time and rest to process everything, so she could think clearly without a cloud of fatigue hovering over her like a storm cloud.
Sienna took one last look around Lexie’s apartment, remembering the last time she sat in this room with her. Visions of her and Lexie laughing and talking danced like haunted ghosts.
Even as she opened the door, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right. Deep down, she felt like Lexie was still hiding something. But why?
Sienna glanced over her shoulder. Whatever Lex had hidden from her, she felt like it was there with her in this room.
With one last glance around her, she felt its presence, like a living breathing thing, as though the secret had been weaved among the fabric of her things.