He opened the door wider. Annabelle walked in, and he walked out. I was right about the timing of the moon cycle. Not that I had much else to do while I was in here. She came in and smiled at me.
“Good afternoon, Zalayuh!” she said cheerfully.
I glared at her, raising my right eyebrow. I turned back toward the window and peered out. Quinnlyn’s truck pulled into the driveway, and Benji got out of the driver’s seat. A few minutes later, Quinnlyn got in the driver’s seat, and the female who had come to the cell to bandage me up got in the passenger seat. I turned my head to the side. Interesting. I remembered him kissing her forehead before she left, but Annabelle had also been asking questions about him.
“How have you been?” she asked.
“Mmkay,” I said.
Quinnlyn turned the truck around and headed down the driveway along with a couple of other vehicles. Everyone who had been outside was now gone. I started walking back to my room when Annabelle started walking toward me quickly. I stopped, jerking my head back slightly.
“Can I help you?” I asked her.
“I wanted to chat,” she said.
“Funny. Just as Quinnlyn doesn’t want to chat with me, I don't have the least bit of interest in chatting with you,” I told her.
She pushed her lower lip out and crossed her arms.
“Yeah… I have a baby sister… that shit doesn’t work on me,” I said, before sidestepping around her and walking to my room.
I shut the door behind me before she followed me in. Not that I could lock it from the inside, but she could certainly lock me in from the outside. Probably not the worst thing that had happenedto me since I’d been here. I had turned seventeen weeks the day before. My stomach was still mostly flat, but I was pretty sure I'd felt little flutters in my lower stomach the last few days. I laid on my side and picked up the pregnancy book and read through the fourth month chapter again. At seventeen weeks, the baby was about palm-sized, and body fat was starting to form.
The five-thirty knock came. This time, I wasn't accepting supper from her. I could hear the door open and close, then footsteps got closer to my door, before it opened.
“I’m not hungry,” I said, before she ever got a word out.
“You have to eat,” she said.
“No, I don’t. I’ll be fine,” I said, eyes on the TV.
“It’s not about you. It’s about the baby,” she said.
“The baby will be fine,” I said.
“Eating is important, and it's my duty to make sure you eat,” she pleaded.
“So you can drug me again, because that’s what you did last time, right?” I said, finally turning my head toward her, giving her direct eye contact.
“It’s um… not… um… yeah, it’s not like that.”
“Then what’s it like, do tell me?”
“We all have orders here, and mine is to make sure you eat.”
“Are you planning to hold me down and shove the food into my mouth?”
“What? No.”
“Then listen to the words that are coming out of my mouth: I. Am. Not. Eating. That.”
“Why are you being so fucking difficult?”
“What’s this really about? Me? The baby? Quinnlyn? Don’t think I didn’t notice you asking about him last time,” I said.
“What?” she shouted.
“I don’t think I stuttered, now did I?”