Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 63638 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63638 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 318(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Fuck.
How could I be so stupid?
Mia clears her throat.
“So…” she starts.
I blink, dragging my gaze away from the test to look at her. She’s watching me carefully. Measuring my reaction. Waiting for me to process what just happened. But I can’t. Because I have no idea what to do next.
Mia softens.
“Nicole…”
I take a sharp breath.
“I—”
And then I laugh.
It’s not a happy laugh. It’s a holy-shit-my-life-is-imploding laugh.
Mia tilts her head, concerned. “You okay?”
“No.” I shake my head. “Not even a little bit.”
She nods slowly. “Yeah. That tracks.”
I press my palms against my face. This isn’t real. It can’t be real. But the test is still sitting on the sink. The two pink lines haven’t disappeared and reality is closing in fast.
Mia stands and guides me to sit on the toilet lid. She crouches in front of me, placing her hands on my knees.
“Hey. Look at me.”
I do. My eyes burn. I don’t know if I’m about to cry or pass out. Maybe both.
Mia squeezes my knees gently. “Breathe.”
I inhale, but it’s shaky.
She nods. “Good. Again.”
I do. It doesn’t help.
“Mia,” I cry, swallowing hard. “What do I do?”
She doesn’t answer right away, which is for the best. I know she doesn’t really have the answer to this problem. Even if she did, nothing she could say would feel right.
“Well first, you process. You take a second to freak out. You let yourself feel whatever you need to feel.”
I press my fingers to my temple. “I don’t even know what I’m feeling.”
“That’s fine.” She shrugs, her voice irritatingly calm. “Let it be messy.”
Messy? This whole situation is a fucking mess. I texted one wrong number and now I’m pregnant with that stranger’s baby. This isn’t who I am.
“Seriously, take the rest of the day off. You’ve got to make some big decisions, and you can’t make them under duress,” she says sympathetically.
“I can’t take the day off, Mia—I have patients,” I protest, hearing the petulance in my own voice. “Besides, I need to work. It will keep me from having a complete meltdown.”
“Fine. Get back to work and try to compartmentalize for now,” she says, unfazed by my foul mood.
I press a hand to my chest, feeling the weight of it all sink in. This is really happening to me. This isn’t a problem I can outthink or outwork. Somehow, some way I have to make a decision that will impact the rest of my life. Mia watches me closely.
“Hey. No matter what happens, I’m here, okay? Whatever you decide, we’ll figure it out together.”
I exhale slowly, allowing myself to believe her.
“Our lunch is almost over,” she says, glancing at her phone. “Since you refuse to play hooky, we’d better get to it.”
I nod because she’s right. I can’t stay in this bathroom hiding from all of my responsibilities. I need to face them all head-on.
She loops her arm through mine and we walk out of the bathroom together.
6
NICOLE
Another entire week slips by, and I either face the news or pretend it doesn’t exist. For the most part, I ignore it. When stress hits, I fall back on old habits: I overwork and pretend nothing’s wrong.
Unfortunately, the baby growing inside me doesn’t care about my coping mechanisms. It’s intent on wrecking my body, leaving me with all day nausea. Screw whoever called it morning sickness. One foul whiff and I’m sprinting for a basin, and a hospital supplies plenty of those whiffs.
I’ve been on a solid diet of saltines, yogurt, and applesauce for the last seven days. I can’t keep down much else. If I pretend hard enough, it feels like a simple, noncontagious stomach bug. But it isn’t just the physical symptoms that have made this week hard.
The weight of this presses against my chest every second of the day. Even when I try to ignore it, I can’t outrun the truth. Sometimes I burst into tears without warning, just thinking about what’s happening. None of this feels fair.
The nights are the absolute worst. They’re too quiet and too empty. I should be exhausted after work, especially on days I pull a double, but I just can’t shut my mind off long enough to fall asleep.
The moment my eyes close, my mind races with a thousand questions I can’t answer. Am I going to keep this baby? If I don’t keep it, can I live with that decision? If I do keep it, will I actually be a good mother? Should I bother telling Sergei about this?
I still don’t know what to do about him or if I should even do anything at all. He has my number, but he hasn’t reached out in six weeks. He’s obviously not thinking about me. Even after the casual way he left, some stupid part of me hoped he would want to see me again. He doesn’t, and our time together clearly meant more to me than to him.