Better. Anger is better than whatever that other feeling was.
I pick up the test. The display window is still processing, the result not yet visible. I hold it up to the light like that might speed things along.
Just be negative. Just be one line. Just let me go back to my coffee and my pickle-free existence and my carefully constructed life where Carter Crane doesn't exist.
The second line appears.
I blink.
It's faint but it's definitely there. A thin pink stripe next to the control line, clear and unmistakable.
I stare at it for a long moment. Then I set the test down very carefully on the edge of the sink, as if it might explode if I move too quickly.
Two lines. That means...
I can't finish the thought.
I pick up the test again. Look at it from a different angle. I tilt it toward the light, away from the light. The second line is still there, quiet and damning.
"Jamie?" Akari's voice comes through the door. "Everything okay in there?"
No. Everything is not okay. Everything is the opposite of okay.
"Just a minute," I call back. My voice sounds strange. Distant.
I look at the box. There are two tests inside. Maybe the first one was defective. Maybe I did something wrong. People get false positives all the time, don't they?
I drink three glasses of water and wait twenty minutes and take the second test.
Two lines.
I sit down on the closed toilet lid because my legs don't seem to want to hold me anymore. The bathroom floor is cold tile, the walls are painted a cheerful yellow that Akari chose when we moved in, and I am pregnant with Carter Crane's baby.
Carter Crane's baby.
The words keep repeating in my head, but they don't make sense. I'm pregnant. With Carter Crane's baby.
Carter Crane's baby.
I've been actively trying so hard to purge him from my system and instead he left something behind.
I look down at my stomach. Flat. Normal. Completely unchanged. There's no visible evidence that anything is different, and yet everything is different. Everything has been different for weeks and I didn't even know it.
I was taking Severex while pregnant. The thought arrives with a cold jolt of panic. Is that dangerous? It's not FDA approved. I don't know what's in it. I've been swallowing pills twice a day that might have been doing god knows what to...
To what, exactly?
My hand goes to my stomach automatically, which is ridiculous because there's nothing to feel. The thing inside me, if the tests are even accurate, is barely more than a cluster of cells. But my hand stays there anyway, pressed flat against my abdomen like I'm trying to feel a heartbeat that doesn't exist yet.
I should google what Severex does to pregnancies. I should call a doctor. I should do something other than sit here on the toilet with my hand on my belly like a statue.
I don't move.
A knock on the door makes me jump.
"Jamie. You've been in there for almost an hour. I'm starting to get worried."
An hour?I check my phone. She's right. I've been sitting here for nearly sixty minutes, staring at two pink lines on a plastic stick.
