She went back to her messages.
A little bit worse off than I thought, since I’m vomiting up my coffee, which I need to survive.
There was a long time between that message and a response.
I feel like this is a stupid question, but there’s no chance that you’re pregnant?
Heather stared at the message. And stared and stared.
There had never before in her entire life been a chance that she could be pregnant. Everything that had happened had cast such a haze over her that she hadn’t been thinking clearly. She had been so busy cataloging how fuzzy her brain was that she hadn’t thought at all about her cycle. She also hadn’t thought about…
They hadn’t used a condom.
She had felt so raw, so exposed, so stripped bare by the entire thing that she hadn’t given that enough thought. Hadn’t done anything in the aftermath to prevent pregnancy.
“Oh my God,” she said. Out loud into the silence of the room.
Are you pregnant?
The question flashed up on the screen, and then her phone rang. She picked it up. “I don’t know,” Heather said, because she knew exactly what Catherine was about to do, and that was ask the same question again, but this time verbally.
“You need to get a test.”
“It can’t be… We only did it the one time.”
“Surely you paid better attention in health class than that. Your education was really expensive.”
“I know,” Heather snapped. “But it’s just… That can’t be. I’m never supposed to have to deal with that man again.”
“Did you use a condom when you had sex with that man?”
“No,” she said.
“Heather…”
“I know.”
“You can still… I know it’s not ideal, and I know it’s nothing that you would’ve planned, but you don’t have to be connected to him if you don’t want to be.”
She sat with that, for a very long moment. And Catherine just let her. In the silence, in the reality of it all.
“I can’t not tell him,” she said.
“Why not? He’s awful to you.”
“I know that. I know that, but his father was so wonderful to me. He changed my entire life. And…” She swallowed hard. “My mom was a single mom. It was us against the world, and I’m alone.”
“You’re not alone. You have me.”
“I know that. I’m extraordinarily grateful for it. But the truth is, I was just sitting here feeling so incredibly sad. My mother worked so hard in order to support us, and I don’t even have to worry about that. I’m working because I choose to. My stepfather just…died and made me a multimillionaire, which isn’t even fair. But it’s the way that it is. It’s what happened. I don’t have any excuse for not taking care of the child, and if it wasn’t Romeo it would be straightforward. I would just keep the baby and never tell the father. But he’s going to know.”
“You don’t even know yet,” Catherine said. “Have somebody go get you a pregnancy test. You’re rich.”
“I don’t even have to be rich to do that—there are apps for that.”
“Well. Send somebody.”
So she did. And she waited. And waited. She and Catherine were messaging now instead of talking on the phone, as she paced around waiting for the test. Reality and denial were warring inside of her. It couldn’t be possible. The odds of her getting pregnant after one sexual encounter seemed so…
