Surprise Delivery(34)

I pull on the ends of my hair, doing my best to keep my cool and not snap at her. I know she’s being practical and that she’s not judging me, but still, her diatribe is making me feel like a stupid little kid, not a grown woman who is capable of thinking for myself and understanding the ramifications of my actions.

“I haven’t gotten that far yet, to be honest,” I say. “Right now, I’m just trying to stop freaking out about all of it.”

“There’s also the living situation, Lex,” she goes on as if she didn’t hear me. “I don’t know that I want to be living in the same apartment as a screaming child.”

“Believe me, I understand,” I say. “I really do.”

“I don’t want to sound like a bitch, Lex. You know how much I love you,” she tells me.

“I know you do. And you don’t sound like a bitch,” I assure her. “Not at all.”

She sighs again. “How did you get yourself into this, Lex?”

“If I need to explain how, maybe you need to go back and take some more classes,” I say.

I’m trying to lighten the mood just a bit and given the wan smile on Bri’s face, I succeeded – at least, somewhat.

“You know what I mean,” she says.

It’s my turn to sigh. “It just – happened,” I say. “I wasn’t expecting it – neither of us were, I don’t think. Everything just kind of fell into place and it just happened.”

“And you have no way to reach Duncan, do you?” she asks. “I mean, I’m assuming it’s Duncan.”

“Who else would it be? And I’m hoping I don’t have to,” I reply. “Like I said, it’s a precaution. Nothing more.”

“What makes you think you might be?”

I tell her about the extreme nausea over the past few weeks and she just listens, her face tight, her expression grim. She’s obviously not very happy with me right now. Which, I guess, is fair. It occurs to me that what I do and the choices I make have a direct impact on her, and I suddenly start to feel like crap.

Not that I can live my life or make my life decisions based on Sabrina, but when it comes to something as life-altering as this, maybe I should be a little more – careful.

I know that even though she makes good money at the hospital, she can’t afford this place on her own any more than I can. So, me getting pregnant would be less than ideal for both of us for quite a few different reasons.

“God, Lex,” she sighs. “This could be bad. Really, really bad.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” I mutter. “Do you actually think I want a kid right now? I can barely support myself, how in the hell am I going to support a kid?”

“It’s a good question and something worth thinking about,” she says. “I mean, if it turns out that you are, what are you going to do?”

I shake my head. It’s something I’ve thought a lot about. If I’m pregnant, the idea of putting my child up for adoption has already gone through my mind. More than a few times. It would be the practical and humane thing to do. It would give this child more of a fighting chance at a better life than I’ll ever be able to provide for him or her.

On the other side of that coin, the thought of my child – a piece of my flesh and blood – being left to grow up in the system, a ward of the state, fills my heart with the blackest, deepest of dreads. The idea of strangers raising my baby, of not loving it like I know I would, tears my heart into ten thousand little pieces.

I know how screwed they would be if they didn’t get adopted right away. But I have to think an infant would be snapped up super-fast. At least, I hope they would. At the moment, I just don’t know what I’m going to do if that test turns out to be positive. I don’t want to think about it right now.

But I know that I’m going to have to. Bri isn’t going to let me not think about it.

“These tests are garbage,” Bri sigh, suddenly sounding tired. “Tomorrow, we’re going down to the hospital. One of the docs owes me, so we’re going to get you tested properly.”

“I’m sure it’s going to be fine,” I tell her. “I mean, the odds are really small, Bri.”

“But, unless it’s absolute zero, there’s always a chance,” she says. “Which is why we’re going to have the test done right. And figure out what to do after that.”

I sigh, tugging on the ends of my hair again and nod. What the hell else can I do?





Except that everything isn’t fine. Though the chances were infinitesimal, the blood test confirmed that I am in fact pregnant. The moment the doctor read the results, I burst into tears. I couldn’t help it. It felt like my entire world came crumbling down around me. It feels like my entire life ended and is nothing more than a fiery heap right now.

Through it all though, Sabrina has been with me. She held me in the doctor’s office, soothing and stroking my hair. She knows all the right things to say and how to talk me down off practically any ledge – though, this ledge is quite a bit higher than anything we’ve dealt with before.

After she got me calmed down, we left the hospital and she took me to lunch. We’re sitting at a table outside a small burger joint in our neighborhood. Normally, I tear through the food here – the burgers are great, and the fries are even better. Today, though, I’m just picking at my food, my taste for anything suddenly dulled to the point of non-existence.