She closed the door to the bathroom as quietly as she could, and turned the light on, and when she looked in the mirror she saw that everything from her waist down was covered in blood. She was hemorrhaging, and knew what was happening. She was losing Joe's baby. But she was afraid that if she called someone, she might get kicked out of school, or they might call her parents. She didn't know what the consequences would be if the administration found out she was pregnant. She assumed she'd be asked to leave.

This wasn't the way she had wanted things to happen. She had no idea what to do, or who to call, or what was about to happen. But she had no time to think about it, the pains that had awakened her were suddenly so severe that she could hardly breathe. She was being hit by wave after wave of powerful contractions. She was on her knees on the floor, gasping for air, with blood everywhere, when Diana, the southern girl, wandered in for a drink of water and found her on the floor.

“Oh my God… Kate… what happened?” She looked like the victim of an ax murder, and all Diana could think of was that they had to call a doctor, an ambulance, someone, but as she said as much to Kate, she begged her not to.

“Don't… please… I can't… Diana…” She couldn't even finish her sentence, but the girl from New Orleans suddenly suspected what had happened to her.

“Are you pregnant? Tell me the truth, Kate.” She wanted to help her, but had to know what was happening to her. Her mother was a nurse, and her father a doctor, and she had good experience with first aid. But she had never seen as much blood as the pool rapidly spreading around Kate. She was afraid she'd bleed to death if they didn't call someone to help them. Not getting Kate to the hospital seemed like a big chance to take.

“Yes, I am…” Kate choked and admitted she was pregnant, as Diana helped her roll over onto a stack of towels. Kate was crying at each pain now, and biting a towel to stay silent and not make any noise. “Almost three months….”

“Shit. I had an abortion once. My daddy nearly killed me. I was seventeen, and I was afraid to tell him … so I went to someone outside town…. I was as bad as you are… poor baby,” she said, putting a damp cloth on Kate's head, and holding her hand now with each contraction. She had locked the door so no one could walk in on them, but what she feared most was that she would cost Kate her life if she didn't get help for her. The bleeding was horrific. But it seemed to slow a little as the pains got worse. Neither of them was sure what was happening, but it was easy to figure out that Kate was going to expel the baby. There was no way it was still alive with all that bleeding.

It was another hour of excruciating pain before Kate's entire body writhed in agony, and within seconds, she lost the baby. She lost more blood, but as soon as it was out, she seemed to be losing less. Diana was mopping up what she could with towels, and she had wrapped the fetus in a towel and put it where Kate couldn't see it. She was too weak to even be hysterical, and when she tried to sit up, she almost fainted. Diana had her lie down again.

It was nearly seven o'clock, and they had been in the bathroom for three hours, before Diana could help Kate back to bed. Everything had been cleaned up, and once she was sure that Kate was safely tucked into bed, she ran downstairs to the garbage room, to dispose of the towel that held the evidence of what had happened to Kate.

The bleeding was less out of control, and she was still in pain, but it was tolerable. Diana explained that it was her uterus contracting to stop the bleeding, which was a good thing. The earlier pains had been to expel the baby. And if she didn't bleed too much more, Diana hoped that she would be all right. She had already told Kate that if it got any worse she was calling an ambulance and sending her to the hospital, no matter how much Kate objected. And Kate had agreed, she was terrified and too weak to argue, and in shock from losing so much blood. She was shaking violently, as Diana put three more blankets on her bed, and the other girls began stirring.

“Are you okay?” one of them asked as she got up. They had class that morning. “You look kind of pale, Kate. Maybe you got a concussion when that guy knocked you off your bike last night.” She was yawning as she headed for the bathroom, and Kate said she had a terrible headache, and was still visibly shaking as she lay tucked into her bed.

Diana continued to hover over her, and a girl from another room came in to borrow some towels, and looked worried when she saw Kate's ashen lips, and her face, she was the color of chalk.

“What happened to you last night?” the girl asked, and came over to take Kate's pulse.

“She fell off her bike and hit her head,” Diana covered for her, but the other girl knew better. Like Diana, she came from a medical family, in New York, and she knew enough to understand that Kate had more than a headache or a concussion. She was so gray, she looked like she'd lost a lot of blood, and was possibly even in shock.

She leaned her face down close to Kate's ear, and gently touched her shoulder. “Kate … tell me the truth… are you bleeding?…” All Kate could do was nod her head and shake. Her teeth were chattering so hard she couldn't even speak. “I think you're in shock…. Did you have an abortion?” she whispered. Kate had always liked her, and was willing to trust her with the information. She knew she was in trouble. She was feeling dizzy and her body had been so traumatized that she was freezing and couldn't stop shaking, in spite of the stack of blankets Diana had put on her. Both girls were standing next to her bed looking worried sick.

“No,” Kate whispered to the girl, whose name was Beverly. “I lost it.”

“Are you hemorrhaging?” She didn't think so, the bed didn't feel damp around her. She was afraid to look.

“I don't think so.”

“I'm going to cut class today and stay with you. You shouldn't be alone here. Do you want to go to the hospital?” Kate shook her head no in answer. It was the last thing she wanted.

“I'll stay too,” Diana volunteered, and went to get her a cup of tea. Half an hour later, all the other girls had gone to their classes, and the two caretakers sat on either side of Kate's bed. She was wide awake, and crying intermittently. The entire experience had terrified and depressed her.

“You'll be okay, Kate,” Beverly said quietly. “I had an abortion last year. It was awful. Just try to sleep, you'll feel better in a day or two. You'll be surprised how fast you get better.” And then she thought of something. “Is there anyone you want me to call?” Obviously, there was another person involved in this, and she didn't know Kate's situation. But Kate shook her head.

“He's in England,” she whispered, through teeth that were beginning to clench. She had never felt as awful in her life, the loss of blood had shaken her entire system to the core.

“Does he know?” Diana asked, as she patted Kate's shoulder and Kate looked at her gratefully. She couldn't have gotten through it without her. And this way, no one would know, neither Radcliffe nor her parents. Nor Joe.

“I didn't tell him. I was going to have the baby.”

“You can have another one when he comes home.” Beverly didn't add “if he lives,” which was what all three of them were thinking as Kate started to cry again. It was a long, lonely day for her, and it was another two days before she felt even halfway human.

Diana and Beverly went back to class the next day, and Kate just lay in her bed and cried all day long. It was Wednesday before she got out of bed, and when she did, she looked ghostly and had lost ten pounds. She hadn't eaten since Sunday, but the bleeding had almost stopped. She looked and felt terrible, and there were dark circles under her eyes, but all three girls agreed, she was out of danger. She tried to thank them for what they'd done for her, but every time she did, she started crying again.

“It's going to be like that for a while,” Beverly warned. “I cried for a month. It's just hormones.” But it wasn't just hormones, it was their baby. She had lost a part of Joe.

No one knew what had happened to her, and they all thought in the house that she was in bed as a result of her bike accident on Sunday night. And she never told anyone anything different. She felt as though she had been on another planet for several days. Everything seemed unreal and different, and the only thing that cheered her up were Joe's letters. But she cried again when she realized that she couldn't even tell him what had happened, and what they'd lost.

She spent the following weekend in bed, studying. She was quiet and pale, and still didn't look well when Andy dropped by on Saturday afternoon. It had been a week since the miscarriage, but she still looked awful. She made her way gingerly downstairs to see him. Beverly and Diana had been bringing her food from the cafeteria all week. And the first time she left her room was to see Andy, as he waited for her in the living room downstairs.

“Jesus, Kate, you look legally dead. What happened to you?” She looked so fragile and pale that he was frightened for her. She was wraithlike.

“I got hit by a bike last Sunday night. I think I had a concussion.”

“Did you go to the hospital to get it checked out?”

“No, I'm okay,” she said, sitting in a chair next to him, but he was genuinely worried about her.

“I think you should see a doctor. Maybe you're brain dead,” he grinned at her.

“Very funny. I feel better.”

“I'd hate to have seen you on Monday.”

“Yes, you would have,” she said, but seeing him brought her back into the world again and she was less depressed when she went back to her room, although she was bone tired. Diana had warned her that she would be anemic for a while, and told her to eat lots of liver.