When Caitlyn came home much later, Leila stirred from her sleep to find that Jackson had slipped out most likely a few hours after she slipped into her slumber. She wasn't upset; he had to be gone before bed checks. She looked around the room with hazy eyes. The sonogram was facedown on her bedside table with a sticky note stuck to the back. Caitlyn looked over and mouthed an apology for waking her up. Leila picked up the note, 'I didn't want to wake you. I'll see you tomorrow, Jax.'
CHAPTER THREE
At the front of the lecture hall, Leila's economy professor drone on, hands on either side of the podium every so often he would turn and write a point he felt was very important on the whiteboard. The class was only half way through and she was already dozing off, her head in her hand, eyelids heavy from the mundaneness of it all. Economics already a boring subject to her but the monotone discussion added to the boredom that she felt. Her head dropped off of her palm and she jerked back up alert once more.
Her classmate to her left wrote notes furiously on his open notebook. Leila looked down at her own pad, she'd written the date of the lecture and some key phrases that had made it to the dry erase board. To the side, she'd doodled different names. All feminine names, since Jackson confessed his hope that the baby was a girl it had became her wish as well. She drew hearts and flowers coming off the names and stars next to her favorites which included Kayden and Kylie. Leila leaned over the names beginning to write another one when the first drop of blood hit the paper. She gasped looking over her fingers and arms. Everything looked okay but more splatters appeared on the lined sheet.
"Your nose." Her classmate said staring at her. Fingers came away completely wet with the red substance. She held her hand to nose as she frantically searched her backpack for anything she could use coming up empty, she stretched out the sleeve of her cardigan and pressed the cotton roughly to her face. Leila stood messily grabbing her belongs; she rushed out of the hall. Eyes followed her all the way out the door. The blood continued to gush as she made it to the bathroom. Balling up toilet paper, she replaced it with her sleeve. Her face was straight out of a horror movie.
She leaned against the sink waiting for the blood to clot and stop flowing, but it only soaked through the firs ball of paper. She went into the stall and created another one. Leila sat on the toilet seat and waited, but she went through two more wads. There didn't seem to be an end coming. She dialed quickly and pressed the phone to her ear.
"Hey sweetheart." Jackson said after three rings. "What's going on? Aren't you supposed to be in class?"
"I am, I got this nightmare of a noise bleed and it isn't stopping. I don't know what to do! I'm worried that I need to go to the hospital." She started to cry.
"Where are you?" There was a shuffling sound and a door slamming behind him.
"I'm at Jones Hall in the ladies room." She balanced the phone between her ear and her shoulder. "It's been ten minutes. This cannot be healthy."
"Stay on the phone, I'll be there as soon as I can." He replied.
"Okay." She continued to cry softly to herself. The bathroom door opened and women stopped at the sinks.
"Did you see her running out?" One said to the other. "That was a lot of blood."
"I bet she's a coke head." The other one laughed.
"Leila are you there?" Jackson said through her phone. "What's going on? Did you faint again?"
"No, I'm here." She whispered into the receiver.
"Oh, shit." The first girl said peeking under the stall to seeing Leila's bag and discarded notebook. The women rushed out of the bathroom.
"There were some girls in here talking about me just now." She said in a normal voice again.
"What?" He almost yelled. "I'm almost there." She nodded to her self and rested again the wall of the cubicle. Leila exchanged the wad of paper for a fresh one. "Leila you're going to be okay. His voice echoed and she knew that she was hearing him outside the bathroom and through the phone now. He came into the bathroom and opened her stall. She dropped her phone into her lap. Jackson wordlessly took the paper from her hand kneeling in front of her. He dapped at her nose and frowned.
"Thank you for coming." She told him taking in a deep calming breath. His reply came with the shake of his head.
"I told you that I would be here for you. This is normal at nine weeks." Jackson remarked. She raised her brow in surprise. "Don't look at me that way. I've been reading that book your parents recommended and doing research online. You have a lot of excess blood right now because it's going to the baby now, too."