Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 52357 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 262(@200wpm)___ 209(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52357 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 262(@200wpm)___ 209(@250wpm)___ 175(@300wpm)
Then I text:
Back in town. Don’t need anything. Just wanted you to know I meant it—before the rest, I was your friend. Still am. Always will be.
I hit send, kill the engine, and sit in the silence that follows.
The reply comes a minute later. Just one word.
Always.
EIGHT
DIA
“Be like the bear, fierce, protective, and unapologetically you.” - Unknown
Maritza shows up without warning. Skye alerts me first, thinking it’s another delivery from Justin, I push her into my bedroom and shut the door. She still barks but at least I don’t have to hold her back from biting someone. When I order deliveries, I put in the notes leave at the door and don’t knock. For all the work I’ve done with this dog, the training I’ve paid for even, there is something in her spirit I can’t soothe. I fear the time before I got her has permanently left this distrust etched into her. It kills me I can’t take her pain away.
It's probably how my family feels about me. Unable to help is the worst.
I hear her before I see her—Maritza that is, knocking like the building’s on fire, keys jingling, and her voice sharp through the door. “Open up! Dia, I swear to God, if you’re ignoring me again, I might just lose my shit and tear the door down!”
I pull the door open mid-rant, still in pajama shorts and a tank top, hair a mess, eyes gritty from sleep I didn’t actually feel like I got.
“Jesus, I’m here, no need to wake the neighbors.”
She marches in like she owns the place, arms crossed, eyes sweeping over me. Her face shifts from irritation to concern in half a heartbeat.
“You look like hell.”
“Thanks,” I mutter, closing the door behind her. “Why are you here?”
She pauses in the middle of my living room, scanning the half-empty coffee cup on the table, the soup container from two nights ago still sitting on the counter, my dog barking like the crazy shit she is from behind my bedroom door.
“You’ve been off,” she says simply. “More than usual. And now you’re not answering texts. I get it, you lost Clutch and this shit is hard. But I can’t do the freeze out. I can’t handle not being able to get you through the depression. Because the way you shut down, as your bestie for the restie, I have to tell you is depression. So here I am. Hoping to be a little bit of light in your darkest time.
I wave a hand. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You’re pale. You’re clammy.” She waves over to the soup container, “and you only eat soup when you can’t keep food down. You need to take a flu test, sister!”
“It’s not flu season and I don’t have sinus issues. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
Maritza studies me for a moment. “Dia, brace yourself. But could you be pregnant?”
The words hit me like a slap to the face or a cold water bath in the midst of a good sleep. I think about my cycle. When was my last period? Before Benji died. I thought the stress made me skip the first month. But thinking on it now, the period never came. Not a single cycle since he passed away. A lump swells in my throat and I swallow hard, arms wrapping around myself.
“I don’t know. I haven’t had a cycle, Maritza. What do I do? I didn’t even think about it.”
Maritza doesn’t say anything for a second. Then, soft but firm: “Let’s go find out.”
We drive in silence. The kind that isn’t awkward, but charged. My hands won’t stop trembling, and I catch Maritza glancing at them more than once. She doesn’t ask questions. Just parks in front of the CVS like we’re grabbing gum, and walks in with me.
We don’t talk as we head to the aisle. She picks out three different brands. Just in case, like I guess one isn’t good enough. Are false negatives or false positives that common? I’m in over my head here for sure.
At the register, I feel like I’m screaming look at me just by being there. I’m the girl who might be pregnant with a dead man’s baby or because I’m a lustful whore and slept with my ex it could be his. Either way I might be having a baby by a man who shattered my heart. The cashier doesn’t blink, she doesn’t seem the least bit rattled that my world is crumbling. She bags them, takes the cash, and hands me my receipt like it’s nothing.
Maritza takes the bag, “we’re not doing this here in some drug store bathroom. You want to do it at your place or mine?”
I feel the heat flush my cheeks, “no way Karma needs to be in on this.” Karma is her man. They have a great life together now and I don’t need him first thinking she’s pregnant. And I really don’t need him to know the test is mine and saying anything to my family or Toon about me potentially being pregnant. If it’s Benji’s baby, it will be this lasting gift from him. My family will overwhelm me during a time I want to embrace this little piece from the man who loved me. If Toon finds out and it turns out to be his … well, where does that leave us?