“About a week,” I murmur. “Nausea. Vomiting. Exhaustion. Headaches.”
She nods. “Any chance you could be pregnant?”
I blink. The room tilts slightly.
“What?”
She glances up. “Have you taken a test?”
“No,” I breathe. “I—I didn’t even think…”
She smiles gently, handing me a plastic cup. “Let’s start there.”
I take it with a shaking hand, moving through the hallway like I’m underwater. The sterile smell of antiseptic, the distant hum of fluorescent lights all blur together.
When I return the sample, I sit on the exam table and wrap my arms around myself.
I think about Sam.
The look in his eyes when he first kissed me. The way he whispered my name in the dark. The sound of his laugh as we mucked out the stalls together.
The way he said "baby, life, all of it."
The door opens and the doctor steps inside, chart in hand.
“Well,” she says gently. “Congratulations, Charlotte. You’re pregnant.”
My breath leaves my lungs in a rush. My whole body stills.
Pregnant.
With Sam’s baby.
She says something about next steps, vitamins, referrals, but it all washes over me like distant waves.
Because there’s only one thing I know for sure.
I have to find him.
26
“You’re pregnant?” Tish practically shrieks once we’re in the car.
I flinch, covering my ears. “Jeez, I’m so glad I waited until we were in here to tell you.”
Her mouth opens, then closes, then opens again like a shocked goldfish, her expression a strange blend of awe and confusion. “I mean—I just…wow. Holy shit, Charlotte.”
“I have to find him,” I say, the words tumbling out with more urgency than I expect. “If nothing else, I have to let him know about the baby.”
Tish’s eyes soften, but the hesitance lingers in her voice. “Babe, I know that’s what you want, but it’s been months. Don’t you think if he wanted to find you, he would’ve by now?”
She doesn’t mean it to be cruel. She says it like someone trying to save me from crashing again.
“Maybe,” I whisper, staring out the windshield. “Or maybe he’s been just as lost as I’ve been. Maybe he never even got my letters.”
She’s quiet for a long beat.
Then she exhales, turns the key in the ignition, and says, “Okay. We need a plan. And lunch. I’d say alcohol,” She side-eyes me, and the corner of her mouth lifts. “But that’s off the table now.”
