“That’s what she said. I’m glad you two had fun together.”
“We did.” Chloe scratches behind Nala’s ears, and the cat tilts her head into the touch, eyes half-closed with pleasure, a low purr rumbling in her chest. “I missed Nala though. There was no one to snuggle with at night.” She scoops the cat into her lap, and Nala tolerates it with the air of a queen accepting tribute from a beloved subject. “And I missed you, Daddy.”
My heart squeezes at that, the simple sweetness of it. “I missed you too, bug. This house is way too quiet without you.”
She smiles. “Daddy, I really missed Miss Hayes a lot too. I saw her at school, but it’s not the same. I miss all of us together.” She looks up at me. “Can she come over tomorrow? We could do movie night. Or another board game.”
The question twists in my chest. I keep my expression neutral, not wanting her to pick up on anything being wrong.
“I know she misses you too, but she’s got a lot of work stuff going on right now,” I tell her, which isn’t technically a lie. “Teacher things. So she’s going to be pretty busy for the next few days.”
“Oh.” Chloe’s face falls slightly, but she bounces back quickly the way kids do. “Okay. But soon though, right?”
“Soon,” I say, and I hope it’s not a lie. “Now come on, let’s get you ready for bed. You’ve got school tomorrow and it’s already past your bedtime.”
She sets Nala down gently and scrambles to her feet, already heading toward the bathroom to brush her teeth, the momentary disappointment already forgotten. Nala stretches languidly and hops onto Chloe’s bed, claiming her spot on the pillow.
I watch my daughter disappear down the hall, her purple seaturtle sneakers still on her feet because she refuses to take them off, and the ache in my chest sharpens. She has no idea that anything is wrong. No idea that the woman she’s asking about is sitting alone in her apartment right now, convinced she’s doing the right thing by staying away.
I miss Emma too. More than I know how to say. But right now, my job is bedtime stories and tucking in and being the steady, reliable dad Chloe needs me to be. Everything else, all the longing and the worry and the desperate need to fix what’s broken between Emma and me, will have to wait until tomorrow.
CHAPTER 28
Emma
Thursday morning traffic on I-5 is brutal, the kind of stop-and-go crawl that turns a two-hour drive into three, and my stomach is doing something deeply unpleasant. I grip the steering wheel and breathe through my nose, willing the nausea to pass.
I’ve been feeling off all week. Nothing like the stress of potentially destroying the best relationship of your life to really make your body revolt against you. It’s so unfair when mental pain turns physical, like my anxiety couldn’t stay in its lane and had to drag my digestive system into the mess too. I’ve barely been able to eat, haven’t slept more than a few hours at a time, and now I’m white-knuckling my way through traffic feeling like I might throw up at any moment.
The board meeting isn’t helping. Sophie and I have been texting all morning. Sloane’s been lobbying hard, and our other sisters have always been more likely to side with her than with us. The thought of walking into that conference room, facing all of them, trying to make a case for something they’ve already decided to ignore, makes my stomach clench even harder.
The nausea spikes suddenly, shifting from vaguely queasy to actively urgent, and I realize I need to pull over before something embarrassing happens.
I take the next exit before I can talk myself out of it, following signs to a gas station that looks clean enough from the road. The parking lot is mostly empty, just a pickup truck at one of the pumps and a sedan parked near the entrance. I pull into a spot away from both, cut the engine, and sit there with my eyes closed and my hands still gripping the wheel.
Deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth. The nausea recedes slightly, enough that I don’t think I’m going to be sick in my car, but my whole body still feels wrong.
I need ginger ale, or crackers, or something to settle my stomach before I have to walk into KidStream’s offices and face my sisters with any semblance of composure. I grab my phone to check the time, making sure I still have enough buffer before the meeting, and my period tracking app catches my eye on the home screen.When was my last period?
The thought arrives out of nowhere, unbidden, and suddenly the nausea takes on a different quality entirely. My fingers aren’t quite steady as I open the app, as I scroll through the calendar, as I stare at the dates and the little red dots that mark my cycle. I’m late. Really late. Like, not just a few days of stress-induced delay late, but genuinely, significantly late. I guess I’ve been too stressed to notice.
My period may not be the perfect twenty-eight-day clockwork cycle that health class taught us all women supposedly have, but it’s consistent enough that I know my body’s rhythms. And now that I’m on the pill, it should be even more predictable. That’s literally one of the perks.
Maybe it’s just everything that’s been happening with Theo, the emotional upheaval, the sleepless nights, the constant low-grade anxiety humming through my system. Stress can delay a period.
I pull up Google with shaking hands and type in a search Ireally don’t want to be making in a gas station parking lot. The results load, and I scan through them, looking for reassurance, looking for someone to tell me I’m overreacting.
Instead, I find the words that make my blood run cold:The pill takes 7 days to become fully effective.
I knew that, right? When I started the new prescription, I read all the information. I frantically count backward in my head. When did I start the pill? When was the cabin where we first had unprotected sex?
Five days.I’d only been on the pill for five days before the cabin. Oh fuck.
My legs feel disconnected from my body as I get out of the car and walk past the gas station to a convenience store. The family planning aisle is small, just a few shelves tucked between feminine hygiene products and condoms, but they have what I need. I grab two different brands because if I’m doing this, I need to be absolutely certain.
Ginger ale goes into my basket too, and a sleeve of saltines. Thankfully the bored teenage cashier doesn’t even glance up from her phone as she scans my items. The bathroom is in the back of the store, past the energy drinks and the automotive supplies, and it’s exactly as glamorous as you’d expect from a convenience store off I-5. Fluorescent lighting that makes my already pale face look vaguely corpse-like in the mirror. A sour smell the pine-scented air freshener isn’t quite managing to cover. Someone’s phone number scrawled on the stall door in Sharpie, along with a crude drawing I choose not to examine too closely.
This is where I’m going to find out. Not at my doctor’s office with soft lighting and reassuring nurses who’ve seen this a thousand times. Not in my own apartment, with time to process and privacy to fall apart if I need to. Not with Theo beside me, both of us waiting anxiously, his hand warm in mine, ready to face whatever comes together.
