Extenuating Circumstances by Ramona Gore
The first people to visit Amanda in the hospital after she wakes up, besides her parents, are Michelle and Cierra. With their baby.
Their baby.
It takes a while for her to process that. To her, it was just yesterday that they were a bunch of teens fooling around in the back of the classroom and driving around town with the radio turned up. But now Michelle has laugh lines around her eyes and Cierra’s hair is natural instead of straightened. Meanwhile, Amanda’s freckles have faded after being out of the sun for so long.
She often wonders when, where, and why they got together, which is easier to dwell on compared to other things she’d rather not think about right now.
“Would you like to hold him?” Cierra asks, bouncing the child in her arms.
Amanda blinks, breaking off her staring contest with the baby. “What?”
In one swift motion Michelle takes him from her wife’s arms and deposits him into Amanda’s. She positions her arms so that he is cradled in the crook of her elbow, the head and neck supported. Amanda sits rigidly, afraid of moving in case she does something to upset or hurt the baby.
Michelle snorts. “Relax, Finn’s made of sturdy stuff.”
“That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be careful,” Cierra sighs.
As the two begin to bicker, the sound transports her back to simpler times. Amanda starts to rock Finn, softly laughing at the spit bubble he makes.
Despite the fact that all of these things should make her feel less overwhelmed, anxiety continues to thrum beneath her skin. She doesn’t know why she’s like this—they’re including her, trying to make up for the years apart. But Amanda can’t shake the nagging thought that she is a girl out of time, and doesn’t belong anymore.
Ramona Gore is currently a Cinema and History major at Binghamton University, minoring in Asian and Asian American Studies. Her work has been published in Idle Ink, coalitionworks, Roi Fainéant Press, Haunted Words Press, All Existing Literary Magazine, and many others.
Photo – by Stephen Andrews on Unsplash
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