Slow Agony (Assassins, #2)(56)

Maybe the test would be negative. Maybe I wouldn’t have to worry about it, after all.

Was that what I wanted?

I picked the magazine back up again. I liked the idea of babies. I thought having my own would be nice, actually. It was the pregnant part that scared me. And the labor part. All the pain.

But having a baby? A baby that was partly Griffin and partly me? That sounded wonderful. And I thought we were responsible enough and financially secure enough to be able to take care of a baby.

So...

I wanted a baby, but I was afraid of being pregnant.

I paged through the magazine. I didn’t want to think about this anymore. I engrossed myself in an article about a celebrity’s new television show and why she found the role so expansive. And when thoughts of the pregnancy test Griffin was going to get surfaced, I squished them down to the bottom of my brain. I didn’t want to think about them. At all.

“Hey,” said Griffin’s voice, and I jumped. He was standing next to me, holding a plastic grocery bag. “You were really into that article, huh?”

I closed the magazine. “Did you find it?” I almost hoped he would say that he hadn’t.

He handed me the bag. “Yeah.”

I stood up. My mouth felt dry. “I, um, guess I should find a bathroom.”

“I’ll come with you,” he said. “I mean, not in the bathroom, but... to the bathroom.”

“I knew what you meant.” I started to move, but the muscles in my legs felt stiff, like I was forcing myself forward.

Griffin came with me, but we didn’t touch each other. We didn’t speak.

The hospital hallway looked bland. The tile floor was white with flecks of blue and green in it. The windows were letting in streams of bright Texas light. But inside here, everything was solemn and austere.

We turned the corner to another similar hallway. There was a set of elevators on the left. A sign on the wall marked them for staff use only.

We turned to the right.

There was the bathroom.

It was a one-room unisex bathroom. Handicap accessible.

I turned to Griffin. “I’ll go in now.”

“Do you, um, need something to keep time with?” he asked.

I dug out my phone from my pocket.

“Oh. Good.” He nodded. He looked at his shoes.

“I’ll just, you know, do my business on it, and then I’ll open the door, and we can time it together,” I said. “I mean, if you want.”

He looked at me. He was nervous. “Yeah, that would be good.”

“Okay.” I shut the door after myself.

I fumbled with the packaging of the pregnancy test. I remembered the last time I’d taken one of these, all alone in the apartment in Thomas. I remembered looking at the two pink lines and sobbing my eyes out. I remembered wishing that Griffin had been there.

I read the directions on the test. I did my best to follow them.

Then I recapped the wick on the plastic container, checked the time on my phone, and let Griffin into the bathroom with me.

He wouldn’t look at me. He looked down at the test. “Is it working?”

“It’s moving up the wick, see,” I said, showing him. “When it gets to this part, it will either be one line or two.”

“Which is which?”

“One line is negative,” I said. “Two is positive.”

“Okay.” He jammed his hands in his pockets and glared down at the test.

We were quiet. We were waiting.

I hugged myself. “Griffin, if you don’t want me to have a baby—”

“Shh, the line’s coming in.”

I bit my lip. I looked down at the test. My heart stuttered.





Chapter Twelve


I covered my mouth with one hand. “Oh God.”

“What did two lines mean?” Griffin asked me.

I tried to swallow, but I didn’t seem to have enough saliva in my mouth. “It’s positive,” I said hoarsely. “I’m pregnant.”

“But that line’s not as dark as the other one.”

“Doesn’t matter.” I leaned back against the wall of the bathroom. “Geez. If I’m not a Nazi with my birth control, I’m apparently ridiculously fertile.”

Griffin picked up the test. “Should we wait longer? Will it change?”

“No,” I said. “I’m pregnant.” Oh God. I bit down on my lower lip as hard as I could.

He set it back down on the sink.

I wished he would say something. Or look at me. Or both.

“Okay,” he said quietly. “Okay.”

Okay? What did that mean?

And then he turned to me, and gathered me into his arms, and kissed me hard.

I melted into his embrace, only Griffin and the wall behind me holding me up. My legs had given out beneath me. I couldn’t hold up my own weight.

His mouth left my lips. He kissed the tip of my nose. Then my forehead. “This is good, doll. It’s good news.”

“Do you really think that?”

“Yes.”

I kissed him again.

He pulled back. “Do you?”

“Yes,” I said. “But... I’m afraid.”

“That’s okay,” he said, brushing my hair away from my face. “I’m afraid too.” He clutched me tighter.