Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake (A Brush with Love, #2)(23)
While being fired wasn’t a new experience for her, shame and frustration held her down like a leaden weight. She only left her bed to puke a few more times, her hot fudge long neglected when the usually comforting smell of the rich chocolate turned her stomach.
She heard Indira come in but couldn’t find the energy to get up and greet her. She was so damn exhausted and felt poised between the sharp pang of uncontrollable sobs and projectile vomiting, so she stayed put, hoping Indira would come check on her.
A few minutes later, Indira knocked on the door and pushed it open.
“Hey, sweets,” Indira said, leaning her shoulder on the doorjamb.
Lizzie lifted her head an inch and gave a weak wave before collapsing back down into her mattress.
“You okay?” Indira asked, shuffling forward across Lizzie’s messy floor.
“I feel like shit,” Lizzie admitted, as Indira ran a cool hand over her forehead.
“Oh gross, you’re so sweaty,” Indira said, wiping her hand on her pants.
“Throwing up all afternoon has given me that dewy look.”
Indira took a giant step back. “Ew. You think you’ll be better in time for the Family Reunion on Saturday?”
“I’ll strap on a vomit bag if I need to. I wouldn’t miss it.” The Family Reunion was what Lizzie, Indira, Thu, and Harper had started calling their infrequent but always wonderful meetups.
“Atta babe,” Indira said, taking a few more steps back for safety. “Anyway, I’m running to the store to get tampons. I just ran out. Do you need any?”
“You started your period?” Lizzie asked, her brows knitting together. Her and Indira’s bodies were so hormonally in sync that Aunt Flow usually visited them both within a few hours.
“Uh, yeah,” Indira said with a snort. “I’m on day four of asking my body what I did to offend it. You haven’t?”
“No,” Lizzie said slowly, a trickle of uneasiness moving down her spine. This was … odd. To say the least. Her body always worked with an easy consistency month after month, never spurring her to get on birth control to get it regular, her few experiments with it as a teenager leaving her feeling awful, nauseous, and weepy … when she’d remembered to actually take it, that is.
“Lizzie?”
Lizzie’s gaze snapped to Indira’s. “Sorry, what?”
“Do you need anything while I’m out?”
“No,” Lizzie said, balling her hands into fists as a fresh wave of nausea crested through her. A different kind of nausea. A cold, dread-filled kind that had her fingers itching to get ahold of a calendar.
“All right,” Indira said, eyeing Lizzie closely. “Text me if you think of anything.”
Lizzie tried to nod, but her body had gone numb. As soon as she heard the door click shut, she bolted from her bed, scrambling around her room in a directionless tornado as countless, dizzying thoughts scratched and clambered to get out. She lunged for her phone, fingers shaking as she opened the calendar app, then switched over to her texts, thumbing through until she found his name, found the exact date of their nefarious weekend together. She flipped back to the calendar. Counting back days. Looking at weeks.
Two.
Two weeks.
The last time she’d had sex was two weeks and five days ago.
Her brain scrambled to draw up a mental ovulation chart, to remember anything and everything from sex ed. It was all blank. Her brain turned smooth and empty in her sheer panic.
She turned to Google. Her palms sweaty, her vision blurry, as the results she didn’t want to see came up in image after image of a monthly cycle.
She couldn’t be pregnant.
She couldn’t be this stupid.
She bolted for the door, not even bothering to change out of her pajamas as she rushed out of the apartment, racing down the stairs and pushing into the cool May night. She looked left and then right, feeling both frozen and like her body would soon explode if she didn’t move. Indira had likely gone to their usual pharmacy a block away, and Lizzie wanted to avoid her at all costs when she was in a panic like this. She went left, her rapid steps quickly converting into a run as she moved a few blocks to a nearby bodega. She burst into it, small chimes on the door sounding like sirens in her ears. She moved through the store, spinning around and around as she searched frantically for what she needed.
“Can I help you?” the burly owner of the shop asked, his thick brows and mustache almost obscuring his face completely in a way that made Lizzie want to burst into unhinged laughter.
“Do you have—” The words caught in her throat. She tried to swallow past it, her foot stomping down repeatedly as she willed the words out. She started to choke and splutter, as if asking for it would literally kill her. The man’s bushy eyebrows rose, exposing a glint of dark, alarmed eyes. Something about his concerned expression released her, allowed every tense muscle in her body to relax, and threatened to lay her out in the middle of the store.
“Do you have any pregnancy tests?” she asked on a whisper.
His eyebrows dropped, but a soft, comforting smile kept her grounded as he nodded and led her down the aisle.
There were a few options to choose from. The man left her to contemplate, and she stared blankly at the boxes. Pinks and blues and purples seemed to flood her vision, the word pregnancy pulsating on every piece of cardboard. She reached up, then dropped her hand to her side, repeating the movement half a dozen times before finally squaring her shoulders and grabbing one of each option.