“I’m starving. Go away,” I mutter.

Charlotte rips the sandwich right out of my hands and starts to shake it in front of my face, meat and lettuce falling out of the bread and onto the counter.

“Pregnant women can’t eat lunchmeat. Everyone knows it can cause Listeriosis,” Charlotte complains.

“Isn’t that the stuff you wash your mouth with?” Aunt Jenny asks.

“Sweet mother of pearl…” Aunt Claire mutters.

Charlotte’s face quickly changes from irritation to revulsion as she stares at the parts of the sandwich still clutched in her hand. She swallows thickly, but manages to keep talking. “Lunchmeat is dangerous. And smells. And….smells like…meat.”

She stops mid-sentence, shooting a look of panic at me. “You look sick, Molly. Are you going to throw up?”

I look at her like she’s as insane as I believe her to be and shake my head. “Uh, no. I’m fine.”

“No, you really look sick. You should go to the bathroom right now.”

She’s still holding the sandwich in her hand, but now she’s fisting it into a ball and I can see beads of sweat dotting her forehead.

Awwwww shit.

“You know, now that you mention it, I’m feeling a little pukey,” I announce, quickly pressing my hand to my stomach. “Uuughhh, yeah, definitely gonna throw up.”

Charlotte nods, still holding the mangled mess of a sandwich in one hand while she grabs my hand with the other. “I should go with you and hold your hair back just in case.”

“Yes, yes, wise decision. Wouldn’t want to get puke in my hair,” I laugh awkwardly before realizing I probably wouldn’t be laughing if I really felt like throwing up. I quickly change my laugh to a groan as Charlotte drags me from the kitchen while our mom and aunts stare at us wordlessly.

“Don’t use the Listeriosis on the bathroom sink after you throw up, Molly! I have a mint you can use instead,” Aunt Jenny shouts after us as we race out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom.

As soon as I shut the door behind us, Charlotte drops to her knees in front of the toilet and tosses not only her cookies, but from the looks of it, everything she’s eaten in the past week. I don’t know how one person can have so much bile in their body, and now I really am starting to feel sick listening to the sounds that are coming out of her as well as the smell of vomit that quickly fills the small space.

“Oh, my God, what did you eat?!” I complain, covering my nose with my hand.

“The salami! It smells so bad! Like meat!” she cries in between heaves.

“Then why are you still holding it in your hand?!” I screech.

“I DON’T KNOW!” she cries, leaning her head closer to the bowl as more vomit comes flying out.

A knock at the door makes me jump and Charlotte choke in the middle of a gag.

“Everything okay in there?” mom asks softly.

Charlotte groans loudly and I quickly cover it up with an even louder groan.

“UUUUGGHHHHHHH, so sick!” I yell through the door. “Be out in a minute!”

Moving behind Charlotte, I hold my breath while grabbing onto her hair and hold it away from the toilet while she continues throwing up. “You will be done soon, right? Good God, woman. How does someone so small have that much puke in her?!”

She rests her head on the arm draped over the toilet seat and sighs.

“I’ll just make you some soup to settle your stomach when you’re finished,” mom says through the door.

“Oh, no,” I whisper as I hear her footsteps moving her away from the bathroom.

“SOUP!” Charlotte wails, moving her head back over the bowl and gagging even harder.

“Don’t worry, I’ll eat it in another room or something,” I promise.

Five minutes later, after Charlotte cleaned herself up while I messed up my hair and splashed water all over myself to look like a recent puke victim, we walk back into the kitchen where my mother has wisely hidden all of the sandwiches and bags of lunchmeat.

“So, no one answered me before when I asked if we can be happy about this now. So, can we?” Aunt Jenny asks.

Mom shrugs and gives me a small smile. “Sure, Jenny. I guess we can be happy about this as long as Molly is happy.”

Charlotte wraps her arm around my shoulder and gives me a squeeze. “Molly is very happy. She’s just scared and nervous and worried, but she’s so happy.”

“Thank you for telling us how Molly feels,” Mom laughs. “How about we let Molly tell us?”

I stare at everyone dumbly as they wait for me to say something.

“Um, yeah. What she said,” I reply with a forced smile.

“Sweet! Pound sign, Molly’s pregnant!” Aunt Jenny cheers, holding her fist out for someone to “pound.”

“Don’t you mean hashtag?” Aunt Claire asks.

“No. It’s pound sign. Twitter stole it from math,” Aunt Jenny replies with a roll of her eyes.

“Wow, I actually can’t argue with that,” Aunt Claire says with a shrug, giving in and pounding her fist to Aunt Jenny’s.

“Alright, who wants chicken noodle soup?” Mom asks happily, holding up a can of Campbell’s.

“Oh, God. Molly’s going to be sick again!” Charlotte yells, grabbing my hand and dragging me back out of the kitchen.

Chapter 8

– Bag of Dicks –

Marco

“I can’t believe I missed half-price lap dances,” I hear Drew grumble as I make my way into the house a few minutes after everyone else.

My shoes squeak and squish against the floor as I go, and thankfully, the women seem to be more interested in what Drew is saying than what I look like and I can stand in the doorway of the kitchen unnoticed.

“You guys went to a strip club? Are you kidding me?” Molly’s mom complains.

“Do you see stripper glitter on my face? Do I smell like desperation and bad life choices?” Drew asks, pausing to lift his arm & smell his pits. “Wait, don’t answer that.”

“We didn’t go to a strip club; don’t worry,” Molly’s dad reassures her, walking over to the fridge and opening the door. “Ooooh, you made sandwiches!”

I see Charlotte slide against the wall in my direction, quickly covering her mouth when Jim brings the plate, heaping with sandwiches, out of the fridge and sets them in the middle of the island. Gavin moves to her side and puts his arm around her, quietly asking if she’s okay.

“The meat,” she whispers with a shell-shocked look in her eyes. “Uh, Molly can’t stand the smell of meat and she threw up earlier. Seeing the sandwiches again just made me think of all that puke.”

I feel a hand on my arm and look away from the couple to see Molly staring at me in confusion.

“Why are you all wet?” she asks, taking in my wrinkled, damp t-shirt I wrung out and put back on and my jeans that are now dripping onto the kitchen floor.

I notice her wet, gnarled mess of hair hanging around her face that is also dripping with water and return her own question. “Why are YOU all wet?”

“She had the meat sweats,” Jenny informs me, giving Molly a pat on the back as she walks behind her and over to Drew.

“What the hell are meat sweats?”

Molly winces, pushing a clump of hair out of her eyes. “I really don’t want to talk about the meat sweats.”

I force myself to keep my eyes off of Charlotte even though I can see out of the corner of them that she’s got her back pressed up against a wall next to us, watching her father nervously as he takes a big bite out of a salami sandwich.

“I really like salami, too,” Molly mutters sadly before looking back at me. “But seriously, why are you all wet?”