Page 45 of Mara
I wasn’t an OBGYN by any means, but I knew the basics of prenatal care. I couldn't feel any movement, but that was not uncommon. The baby was still small, and the movements were not as pronounced. Gianna could have had an anterior placenta—so many possibilities.
“Gigi, have you felt the baby move at all since you…got hurt?”
Gianna nodded her head yes.
“Are you bleeding vaginally? Did you fall on your stomach? What happened? I need to know how to assess you properly.”
Gianna hesitated, fear spiking in her eyes for the briefest second before she turned away and rubbed her stomach lovingly. “I…fell.”
I waited for her to elaborate. She didn’t, and I wondered why my sister, who never shut the fuck up from the second she had been born, was so quiet now.
“Gigi,” I said, reaching to hold her chin.
She wouldn’t look at me and flinched at my hand. Alarm bells rang in my ears, and the abuse from our father’s hands flashed before my eyes.
All my broken bones, bruises, and pain.
Gianna had never been struck even once. I took every single cut, every slap, every bottle slammed into my head. I nearly died so many times to protect the woman in front of me.
Had someone hurt her? Did that man find her?
Fear spiked in my blood, and I moved to sit on the bed beside her, reaching my arms around her to pull her into a hug.
“Gianna, can you tell me anything. I will always trust you. You should know I will never turn my back on you. Please, tell me what happened to you. I am here, baby sister. I love you.” I whispered in her ear.
Gianna returned my hug, her body wracking in sobs as she broke. I knew what it was like to break, knew how it felt to feel that weight break and feel all the emotion you tried so hard to hide free. It felt like a dam bursting, unable to withstand the immense pressure.
“Mare…I…”
I let her cry, not letting go and only holding tighter. It felt like minutes of just letting her cry, being there to hold her up as she felt like falling. I needed to know what happened.
Did I fail to protect my sister from that man?
The scenarios wrapped around in my mind, a tormented slideshow of horror. My sister was chased, gagged, and raped. Every kind of horror that I could picture replayed in my head.
“Jinx…”
I pulled myself from the horrors of my own imagination and focused on her words. She took a deep breath, as if to speak freely, finally, then Jinx came into the room. Her expression changed, her eyes hardening and becoming cold.
She always did this, pretending to be okay when her world was crashing around her. It made sense she wouldn’t let Jinx inside, and because he was standing there, I would never know what exactly happened.
I looked over at the man and fired my questions at him rapidly, while grabbing my stethoscope, which I always kept with me. I had taken a break at work to come here, and I was still dressed in my scrubs.
“What happened? Did Gigi fall? Where? Did anyone see this? Did you? Where were you? Why is the blood dried? When did this happen? Did you have her looked at by a medical professional? Why is she home? Did you drive her here in this condition? Are you as stupid as you look to have a pregnant woman with a broken nose and concussion and just tuck her in bed like she has a head cold?”
My voice rose with every question until I was screaming at him by the end. He was backed into the wall, and I hadn’t realized I got off the bed and walked him backward until I watched him bump his ass into the far corner of the room. I turned around to look back at Gianna on the bed.
“My sister needs medical treatment, and you can’t just say, ‘Me caveman. Me make woman better with my massive cock.’ It doesn’t work that way.”
Gianna cleared her throat, and I backed off Jinx enough to look back at her. “What?”
“Mare, I didn’t want to go to the hospital. I won’t go. I’m fine, I just asked you here to check on my baby.”
I looked at my sister, settling with the fact that she obviously knocked herself fucking stupid.
“Gianna Maria Abara. You are going to the hospital. If not for yourself, then for your baby?”
Her eyes flashed with pain and fear, and I knew that was a low blow, but I needed her to understand how dangerous it was if she was left untreated.
