Page 65 of The Dragon's Perfect Omega
Zim
My phone was ringing. It was always ringing these days, but today, it was rousing me from my nap. I groaned. I thought I'd put it in silent mode. Blindly, unwilling to open my eyes and face the reality that I was awake, I reached for it, my fingers searching the dark wood bedside table until they landed on my phone.
Then I hesitated.
I wanted the ringing to stop, but I had to make sure of who was on the other end of the line before I could decide whether to answer the phone or reject the call.
My parents had been trying to call a lot lately, at all times of the day. I hadn't answered a single one of their calls. If it was them again...
Cracking an eye open, I looked at the display.
It wasn't my parents. It was Derick. Okay then. I lifted the phone to my ear and answered the call. "Hi?"
"Zim! I thought you were never gonna pick up!"
"I was sleeping," I said, unable to hide all my disgruntlement at being woken from my voice.
"It's the middle of the day," Derick responded. As if I didn't know. I glanced in the direction of the window. The sun stood high in the sky, beating down on the island. Summer was coming to an end, and yet the heat wave of the recent days wouldn't pass. At least Lowen had arranged for A/C to be installed in his bedroom.
Our bedroom.
"I'm pregnant," I told Derick. "I'm allowed to nap." In fact, I'd gotten really good at sleeping the day away. If it was a sport, I'd be crowned champion for sure. Not that it was anything to be proud of.
"Oh, yeah, I heard about that."
He had? Trying to shake the sleep from my mind, I thought back. Had I even talked to Derick since first coming to the island?
"Your parents mentioned it," he informed me before I could come to my own conclusions. That statement woke me right up.
"You talked to my parents?"
"It wasn't a very pleasant conversation, but yeah. I think they've probably calledallyour friends by now, trying to find you. I'm only surprised they haven't gone to the police yet, as agitated as they are."
"They don't have to go to the police. They know where I am."
"Yeah? Whereareyou? Because I have no idea. Your parents made it sound as if Lowen sort of knocked you up and kidnapped you."
"He didn't kidnap me," I said, indignant. The very idea was ridiculous. As if Lowen would ever force me to do anything I didn't want. He wasn't my parents, after all.
"How are you pregnant?" Derick just kept talking. "How is that possible?"
"Oh, didn't my parents tell you about how they hid the fact that I was omega from me and everyone for all my life? Well, guess what, the cat's out of the bag." My words sounded bitter. Iwasbitter. Whenever this topic came up. I still couldn't believe what my parents had done.
On the other end of the line, Derick was silent. Maybe he couldn't believe it either. Was he still going to be my friend after this? Now that he knew I was omega? I'd never known Derick to be a bigot, but people could surprise you. Sometimes, in the worst ways.
"So you're really pregnant," he said after a moment, as if he still couldn't quite believe it. I didn't blame him. It had been hard for me to believe too, in the beginning. Now that I was huge, I had no trouble believing it at all. I was pregnant. Very pregnant. So much so that I was exhausted all the time and my back hurt and I constantly had to pee.
It was the worst.
I couldn't wait for these kids to be born. Even if that meant I had to learn to be a father.
"Super pregnant," I told Derick. "I'm having twins. Two babies at once. Try to wrap your head aroundthat." Not wanting to worry him, I didn't tell him about the part where this could potentially kill me. It was enough if Lowen and I worried about that.
"Cool," Derick said.
I exhaled, feeling some tension seep out of my muscles. Derick wasn't going to judge me. I would have been fine, even if he had, but it was nice to know that I wasn't going to lose all of my old friends just because the truth about me was revealed.
"Are you on the island with Lowen?" he asked.
