Thrive (Addicted, #4)(102)

“Okay,” I say, regrouping. “Then give me a reason why you don’t like children that has nothing to do with tantrums and dirty diapers.”

She pulls her black panties down from her dress and stares at the stick before taking the test. “Besides the fact that they’ll freakishly look like a hybrid of Connor and me,” she says, “children are reflections of their parents. Anything they say or do is going to be seen as a product of my parenting choices.” She shakes her head and this foreign fear darkens her face. “It’s not like fucking up a math test, Lily.”

She rolls her eyes, her guards rising again. And then she pees on the stick. “What does yours say?” she asks.

“Negative,” I declare before I even pick it up. She flushes the toilet, and I grab my stick. “Two lines that’s…” I snatch the directions, my heart catapulting to my throat. No…

After scrubbing her hands with soap and rinsing, Rose steps forward and leers over my shoulder to read the test. “Lily.” Her brows rise in accusation.

“It’s broken!” I point at the stick like it has betrayed me. I toss it into the sink. There’s absolutely no way I’m pregnant. Right. Right?

Rose grips my shoulders, spinning me towards her. “Stay calm,” she says in her unsympathetic voice.

I breathe out a long breath. Like I’m in a maternity class. Oh my God. I’m already doing pregnant things. I touch my cheeks that roast. “Am I burning up? I think I have seven-degree burns.”

“No such thing,” she says.

“What does yours say?” I ask, about to look over at the counter.

She clutches my shoulders harder. “Concentrate. One issue at a time.”

Okay. But I can’t help but notice her change in demeanor. My morose, panicked sister has put on her problem-solving attitude with a little too much excitement. She’s avoiding her issues by focusing on mine.

“Has Lo been using protection?”

“No,” I say. “Has Connor?”

Her glare ices over. “I’m on birth control. We’ve discussed this already.”

Oh yeah. Okay.

“Breathe,” she tells me.

I blow out a breath. I may be pregnant. “Oh my God.”

“How late are you?” she asks, still quizzing me. My brain is trying to cross five different pathways at the same time.

“Um…” I blink repeatedly. “Oh um.” I shake my head to collect my thoughts. “I skip my period with birth control.” I don’t know how late I am. I’m not Rose. I bet she has alerts in her cellphone for her next cycle.

“And you took all of your birth control? Every day? You didn’t miss once?”

“I’m good about it,” I say. “I always have…” I cringe. Shit. My head hurts as I wrack my brain for answers. When Lo relapsed and when the molestation rumors ignited instead of fizzling out, everything became really confusing and stressful. I must have been distracted and forgot.

The realization knocks me back a couple steps, but Rose holds onto my shoulders still, so I just sway a little like I’ve had too many morning mimosas. This can’t be right. “It’s wrong.” I can’t believe in this outcome.

If I’m pregnant…Lo will be devastated. He has expressed that he doesn’t want children, not when alcoholism is hereditary. And we’re not in a good place to have a baby. I don’t know if we ever will be.

“It has to be wrong,” I say again, this time meeting my fierce sister’s narrowed gaze.

I wait for her to say: it probably is. Or: there’s no way you’re pregnant. But maybe it seems unrealistic. I’m a sex addict. I should’ve had an accident a long time ago, right? “We have anal sex,” I blurt out, even raising my hand like it solves everything.

“So?”

“So we have lots and lots of anal sex, and the sperm can’t go to the right place in that position.” I am shrinking into myself, dodging the word “vagina” and “eggs” in one swoop.

“All it takes is one time vaginally,” she says. “And what are you doing having lots and lots of anal sex? You shouldn’t be having lots and lots of any sex. I thought you two were being more careful.”

We weren’t.

We haven’t been careful since we ditched my therapist’s blacklist. Nooners. Public sex. It has become our new routine. One that has filled us both with a sense of joy and normalcy.

“There’s something that I have to tell you. Please do not scream.” I tuck a piece of my hair behind my ear. “A little before my twenty-first birthday, Lo and I weren’t doing so well. We had a major fight about sex…” I swallow a pebble in my throat. “I felt guilty for keeping him from it, and he was always restraining himself around me.” I pause to gauge her reaction.

Anger has already shaded her face into something kind of demonic, her cheeks concaved and her arms crossed.

Shit. I just keep going. “You see, I didn’t want the guy I’m with to be scared of me. And that’s what it was starting to feel like. So…”

“You’ve been having lots and lots of sex,” she finishes for me, her words crystalizing.

“Yeah, and we ditched my therapist’s suggested rules.”