Ashes to Ashes (Experiment in Terror #8)

I let out a huge breath of relief. “It’s me,” I said.

 

“Oh.” And then she started crying again.

 

I raced over to the stall she was in and knocked on it. “Can I come in, or are you, um…” What was the polite way to say “taking a dump?”

 

The stall door slowly swung open and Rebecca was sitting in her silk pajamas on top of the toilet, dabbing at her tear-soaked face with rolled up tissue paper.

 

“What’s wrong?” I asked her, my voice softening.

 

“Oh, it’s…I can’t even say,” she said with a sniff. “You’ll judge me.”

 

“Me?” I exclaimed. “Judge you? Rebecca, come on. It’s Perry. I have no right to judge anyone and I’d never judge you. Believe me, I’ve been there, done that.”

 

She gave me a sad look. “I guess you’re right.” She sighed.

 

“Well? What’s wrong? Did something happen to you?”

 

“Something did happen. Recently. Before we got here.”

 

I cocked my head, having no idea what she was going to say. “Well? You can tell me. I’m here to listen. I’m your friend.”

 

“I know you are,” she said quietly. “I haven’t told anyone yet.”

 

“Not even Dex?” I asked, knowing she was closer to him than she was to me.

 

She shook her head and a teardrop fell on her pants. She quickly wiped it off with her hand. “No. I can’t tell him.”

 

“Well, I won’t tell. What is it?”

 

She took in a long breath and held it for a moment before she exhaled. Then she looked at me with regretful eyes and said, “I’m pregnant.”

 

Whoa.

 

Whoa.

 

I was absolutely floored. “Pregnant? How could you be pregnant?”

 

She stared at the tissue in her hands. “It was almost a month ago. I went out to a club with Dean and Seb. You know, the night you guys took that cooking class. I got drunk…I didn’t want to be alone. One thing led to another,” she trailed off. “I had sex with a guy.”

 

“I don’t know what to say,” I said, still flabbergasted. “I mean, how?”

 

She gave me a wry look with her red eyes. “You want a demo?”

 

“But I mean, why? You’re a lesbian. Why are you sleeping with men?” Maybe it was a stupid question on my behalf, I don’t know.

 

She let out a long, tired sigh. “It wasn’t the first time for me. It’s happened before. Similar circumstances. Too much booze, just got out of a relationship…”

 

“Wow,” I said slowly, letting it all sink in. “I had no idea. So do you have a type of man you sleep with? Ones that look like girls or…?”

 

I half-expected her to give me a snippy remark over that but she just stared at me, her forehead creasing with worry. “No, not at all,” she stated gravely. “Perry, there’s something that’s been weighing on me…promise you won’t get mad.”

 

My eyes widened defensively. “If you’re starting something off like that, I can probably promise I will get mad.”

 

She nodded a few times, licking her lips. “All right. But please don’t get mad at Dex.”

 

This conversation was definitely heading in the wrong direction. A direction that was making me feel sick to my stomach, considering what we had just been talking about. I shook my head. “Please don’t tell me what I think you’re going to tell me.”

 

She gave me a crooked smile. “I still can’t read your mind.”

 

“Then just stop talking,” I pleaded.

 

“You really want me to?” she asked but the damage was already done. She put forth the bait and I was biting. I couldn’t be left dangling like that over something I wasn’t allowed to get mad at Dex over. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything though, so I just stared at her.

 

She dabbed her tissue at her nose before taking a deep breath and looking me straight in the eye. “Remember when we first met? When we first had lunch together?”

 

I barely nodded.

 

“I had told you that when Dex first joined Wine Babes, before he was with Jenn, that he asked me out and I turned him down?”

 

Oh dear lord. No. No. No.

 

She continued, “And I’d said that he wasn’t my type, that we were just flirting together but it didn’t mean anything, because, hello, lesbian here.”

 

I couldn’t even breathe.

 

“Well, that was all true. But…” She looked away, eyes drifting to the ceiling as if there was something interesting there. “One night, around the time that all of this was happening, maybe the first week of filming the show…erm….stuff kind of happened.”

 

This was not happening. I was not here. It was not the middle of the night in a haunted sanatorium and I wasn’t in the bathroom with one of my best friends hearing her say what I feared she was going to say.

 

“What kind of stuff?” I asked, my breath hitching.

 

She looked back at me, chagrined. “Well, at least that time I didn’t get pregnant from it.”

 

My hand flew to my mouth and I gasped. “What the actual fuck?”

 

“Sorry,” she said, swallowing hard. “We never told you because we’d pretty much forgotten about it.”

 

“You slept with Dex!” I yelled, my voice surprising me.

 

She winced. “Ugh, yes, please don’t be mad. It’s really not what you think at all.”

 

“How do you know what I think?” I cried out, my fists clenching at my sides. “I’m thinking about hitting you right in your face, did you know that?”

 

She looked uneasy. “I figured. But seriously, Perry, it was nothing. It was my fault. I got really drunk and Dex was there and I knew he was into me and it just happened.” I gasped again, I couldn’t help it. Now I felt like I was going to be sick. “It meant nothing, which is why we never spoke of it again. It was just…a bad time all around, even though I’m sure Dex thought he was brilliant.”

 

I pressed the palm of my hand to my forehead and closed my eyes, trying to stave off the coming headache. “Oh god, please shut up.”

 

“No, you have to know,” she said, getting off the toilet seat. “You have to know that it was something we put past us as a stupid silly thing. I like *, not dick. And Dex, well I knew he could tell.”

 

“Oh god,” I mumbled. “Why are you still talking?”

 

“We were better off as friends, both of us knew that. A few days later he started shagging Jenn. This was so long ago.”

 

Finally I snapped my head up and looked at her. “Will you please just shut up? Why the hell are you telling me this now if it didn’t mean anything? Look, I get that the past is the past and I have no control over it but…Jesus Christ, Rebecca, you’ve made everything really fucking weird for us now.”

 

“I know!” she exclaimed in a shaky voice. “I know I have, but that’s why it was weighing on me. Because you didn’t know. And it probably should have stayed buried but I just thought…”

 

“You just thought what?” I asked, folding my arms. “That because you’re having a shitty time now that you’re pregnant, you thought I should have a shitty time too? And Dex? Because believe me, if you think I’m not going to have it out with him over this, you have another thing coming!”

 

“Perry, please listen to me.”

 

“I did listen to you. I’ve had enough.”