Chapter 2 lose of memories

The next time she came to, Grace was covered in a white hospital gown with tubes connected to her hand. Trying to sit upright she felt dizzy and her slight groaning woke Anna who had been beside her bed. “Hey what happened, why am I here? “Anna looked at her sympathetically, tears welling in her eyes. Her best friend had nearly died, if not for her friend saving her contact as an emergency number, she would not be here.

She felt bitter and wondered why her best friend still continued to love that bastard Nicholas when all that he kept bringing her was more harm. She had watched her friend go from high self-esteem to a wretched person. She feared her boyfriend, always felt insufficient and worthless. Many times, she had asked her friend whether she had grown too fat, while in reality, she had remained as slim as a skeleton. In fact, she looked malnourished. Her cheeks had started sinking into her face and her clavicle bones just beneath her neck had two bowl-like spaces.

She could have stood all that, but now her friend lay in hospital, pale after losing too much blood that it had warranted a blood transfusion. It would not take a genius to figure that her ex-boyfriend had a hand to do with her condition. “Are you really sure you do not remember what happened when you went to meet with Nicholas?” Grace searched through the depths of her mind but she could not recall anything, apart from the fact that she had gone to find Nick to settle the issue of pregnancy.

After that thought, she searched through the room quickly, trying to sport her boyfriend but to her dismay, there was no Nick. The only one around had been Anna. When she got healed, she went with Anna to her place and there she stayed, waiting for the day Nick would call and talk about the baby. After a whole month went by without him calling or talking, Grace decided that she was done pinning for him. She was pregnant, but so what? She was going to work herself to the bottom and bring her child up by herself.

She had already grown attached to the baby over the two months that had passed. Every day, she felt the changes that kept occurring to her, some itches at her waist as her stomach expanded. She felt stretched though not too much, at two months, she still did not show, someone would think that she had just eaten too much. Thinking through her life, she realized that she had really led a pathetic life. She a graduate had never applied for a job and instead had lived off her now ex-boyfriend.

In her heart, she no longer held any hope towards Nick taking responsibility for them and so she had cut him off. It had frustrated her that she could not even drink to curb off her pain and heartbreak. Through that month with her best friend, she had gone through fries, pizza, and lemonade like nobody’s business. Her cravings had been getting constant and her nausea had been tamed over that period as well. Thinking about it, she now had to think about herself and her baby going forward. Currently, her savings could not even support her for a month, what about when she had her child how would they survive?

She needed a job urgently, one where they could afford to employ a pregnant woman. As Anna and Grace watched a romance flick during the evening, curled on the sofa each holding a cup of mocha, Grace broached the subject of working to Anna. In as much as she knew that she could depend on Anna, she just could not afford to burden her anymore. Besides, she had already stayed with her for a month.

Anna worked as a manager in a famous hotel, she had taken a course in hotel management while Grace had studied urban planning. She loved geography from the word go, conserving the environment, and making planned development which pictured sustainability intrigued her. In school, the only thing that had held her full attention apart from her friend and boyfriend had been her studies. She had loved every theory they learned, itching to see how it worked in the real world.

Working with Gis and Remote sensing equipment to control the development of cities by mapping them. She had attended every symposium and she had been the head of the geography club. Thinking about it she felt nostalgic. She however knew that attempting to find a job in the government offices while pregnant would really prove troublesome. When she talked with her friend, Anna promised to talk with the human resource manager at Eden Gardens to see whether she could get a chance.

The following day, Grace spent her time thinking and trying to come up with a way forward. She needed to start planning for the baby and her doctor’s appointments. Writing in her diary a thing to-do list, she started out with getting a job, getting her own place to live, doctors’ appointments, and then save for her child. That evening, Grace was ecstatic as she received good news from Anna that she could get a job there.