Wishing On A Starr Read Online Free Page A

shopping. Of course the ten-hour venture resulted in only two Christmas gifts, but that was another gripe for another day.
    After closing and locking her front door, Gia tossed her keys onto the first end table she passed in the living room and pretended not to notice the flashing light on the answering machine.
    “It’s my day off,” she mumbled under her breath. The first one she’d had in almost four months, three weeks, and two days.
    Not that she was counting.
    Gia wandered into the kitchen and grabbed a Diet Pepsi from the fridge before meandering to her bedroom where she placed her cell phone on its charger. Like most of the day, her thoughts returned to the wickedly handsome man she’d met at Saks. Her lips curled upward at the memory of his dimpled cheeks and Crest-white smile, but they kept turning south whenever she’d replayed the way the man had taken off.
    She sighed as her gaze landed on her little red dress across her bed, still plastic-wrapped from the dry cleaners. The only thing about heading to a private birthday dinner was the meal itself. She was starving.
    On cue, Gia’s stomach released a mighty growl as if seconding the thought. “Just hang in there,” she mumbled under her breath and glanced at her watch. “Two hours until chow time.” Popping the top to her soda, she made a beeline toward the adjoining bathroom and turned on the shower to full blast.
    She took her time peeling out of her clothes and pinning up the back of her hair, but instead of stepping into the shower, Gia froze at the sight of her blurred reflection. Her heart skipped a beat when she caught a glimpse of a younger version of herself with a protruding belly.
    Gia drew a shaky breath and inched a trembling hand along her stomachher flat stomach. Sorrow, her old and faithful friend, swept across her body and squeezed her heart until tears leaked from her eyes.
    Blink, her brain screamed. If she blinked, the image would go away and the pain would ease in her chest. But there was that part of her that was still fixated on the young girl’s belly and it was just a matter of time before a million “what ifs” crammed into her head.
    The phone rang, jarring her daydream and forcing her to blink. She quickly tempered her flash of annoyance with a deep breath before she closed the bathroom door. Let the answering machine pick it up. If she didn’t hurry, she was going to be late. Of course, what she really wanted to do was stay home and rent a movie.
    That was how she spent every December-going in hibernation mode and avoiding people. Sighing, she glanced back at the mirror. It was completely steamed over, but she paid it no mind as she pulled open the medicine cabinet.
    Gia hesitated for a moment, and then grabbed the bottle of Prozac. Only one pill slid around in the bottle. If she was going to survive the holidays, she was definitely going to need to get a refill. Up until a few months ago, Gia was hesitant to seek help for her low energy, irritability, and bouts of prolonged depression. For years she had hated doctors, nurses, and especially hospitals; however, Bernie and Maryann were the ones that practically dragged her to a doctor after she had refused to climb out of bed after two weeks of sobbing uncontrollably.
    Depression, the doctor had announced proudly. Gia was hardly impressed. Hell, she knew she was depressed. She was just in denial on how bad it had gotten. In a way it still didn’t make sense. She had accomplished everything she had set out to do and still...
    Gia shook her head to change the direction of her thoughts. She plopped the pill into her hand and grabbed her soda again. However, when she went to pop the medicine into her mouth, the damn pill slipped through her fingers and hit the sink. She scrambled to catch it before it rolled down to the drain-but no such luck.
    “Damn,” she hissed and immediately felt a wave of panic. For an insane moment, she jabbed her finger down the narrow pipe, but