When the timer goes off, I jump like I’ve been shot.
“I can’t look,” I say, shaking my head. “I literally cannot.”
“I’ve got it,” Maya says, calm as ever. She picks it up.
Her eyes go wide.
“Oh.”
My stomach plummets. “What do you mean ‘oh’? Oh,what, Maya?”
She swallows, glances at me, and says gently, “Josie, it’s positive.”
Time stops.
I blink at her, my brain still buffering. “Positivepositive?”
She nods.
I laugh.
It’s a wild, unhinged, absolutely not okay laugh that quickly turns into something suspiciously close to a sob. “That’s… no. No. I did it wrong.”
“You didn’t do it wrong.”
“It’s faulty. Maybe it expired. Maybe it’s a prank test. Maybe.”
“Jo.”
I stop rambling. Because it’s written right there. Two bold little pink lines. Not subtle. Not vague. Not maybe.
Definitely.
Positively.
Pregnant.
I sit back, dazed. “I was not expecting that.”
Maya hums and hands me the emergency chocolate bar like I’m being awarded for surviving the first round of motherhood Hunger Games.
I stare at the test. “I don’tfeelpregnant. Shouldn’t there be fireworks or an angel chorus or something?”
“You did faint in the middle of a kitchen like a nineteenth-century heiress.”
“Too soon.”
She leans in, voice softer now. “Are you okay?”
No.
Yes.
Maybe?
I press a hand to my stomach and blink, trying to make sense of this new reality. Of this tiny, invisible thing changing the entire course of my life.
“I’m pregnant,” I whisper.
