Page 37 of Fierce
“What? She never—“
“Yeh. She never told you that. Don’t you think, if you’ve got a teenage sister who’s sick in the mornings, you might want to find out why?”
“No,” I whispered. “No. She isn’t.”
“Could be you’re right. Could be it’s something else. That’s what you need to find out.”
“I’ll get a…kit or something.” Pregnant? Oh, no. No. I knew I wasn’t able to supervise Karen the way she should have been, but surely not. “She would have told me if she’d been…”
Some guys like girls who are, you know, kind of…small. At least, they don’t mind. Necessarily. That’s what my friend Sean says.
I’d told myself to check out what she’d meant by that, and I hadn’t. I’d been wrapped up in my own problems, my own desires, and had failed my sister. Again.
Hemi wasn’t making it any easier. “Would she?” he asked. “Would she really, knowing how you feel about it? Don’t you know that’s how it happens? That it’s the girls like her it happens to, the ones who don’t have enough care?”
I stepped back as if he’d slapped me. But this wasn’t about me. “I’ll get a kit,” I said again. “I’ll make her check.”
“No,” Hemi said. “The doctor will check. Whether it’s that, or something else. We’re here to do it. Fill out the forms.”
“I can’t…” I said again, and then I put my head back, took a breath, and looked him in the eye. It was nothing to be ashamed of. “I can’t afford it. Not unless it’s absolutely necessary. It’ll be a hundred fifty dollars just for the visit, and if they do blood tests…I can’t, not unless we have to. If she’s not better tomorrow, I’ll take her. But I can’t do it now.”
“Don’t you have insurance?”
I closed my eyes, then opened them again. “Yes. But not through the company yet, and it’s the highest-deductible policy. I’d have to pay all of this, and I can’t.”
“Ah.” He walked away, and I sat down beside Karen and put an arm around her. “How are you doing?” I asked her.
“Not too bad,” she said, but that wasn’t how she looked. She’d leaned back into the chair with an arm over her eyes against the light.
I hesitated. “OK if we go home?” I asked, battling the guilt. “See if this passes?” It was a reasonable decision. It had to be.
“Yeah,” she said. “Sure. I just want to lie down. I’m so embarrassed. I’m sorry I wrecked your day.”
I didn’t have a chance to answer that, because Hemi was back. “That’s sorted,” he said. “Fill out the form.”
“What’ssorted?” I asked.
“You won’t pay the bill. Fill out the form.”
“I can’t let you—”
“No?” His voice was suddenly furious. “You’re going to let your sister be this ill for your pride? Because you don’t want to be obligated to me? A couple hundred dollars doesn’t matter to me one way or the other. I spend it on a tie. Fill out the bloody form.”
I filled out the form. He was right. Obligation or no. Pride or no. He was right.
I cursed myself, during the hour that followed, for not following my first impulse and calling my own doctor. I hadn’t done it because I’d thought Hope wouldn’t want to be under that kind of obligation to me, and I’d been right. But in the end, it hadn’t mattered. I’d had to help her anyway, and she’d hated it as much as I’d known she would.
I stood up when they came out from the back at last. Hope looked a bit less fraught, but Karen just looked exhausted.
“Migraines,” Hope said. “That’s what he says. She’s got a prescription.” She lifted a weary hand with the bit of white paper. “And a shot for the nausea, and a prescription for some pills for that, too.”
I already had my phone out to ring Charles. “One moment,” I said, and went to the counter to take care of the bill. Hope had been right, I saw. Over three hundred dollars.
Hope went next door and got the prescriptions filled while I sat with a silent Karen, and at last, we could leave.
Both of them were quiet on the drive back to the apartment, and when the car pulled to a stop, I got out to give Karen a hand. She stumbled a bit along the way, and I asked, “What floor are you on?”
“Fifth,” Hope said, and I nodded and picked Karen up again.