Adriel
Caleb shouldn’t have been pregnant. We took all the necessary precautions. That was what I kept telling myself, hoping that focusing on that point would make it a reality.
Still, that didn’t stop me from mulling over it. It was a fact that his heat ended strangely early. Whether that was because he came pregnant - which was unlikely, given our condom use - or the heat suppressant pills began to work.
Did he want a child?
DidIeven want a child?
The thought never occurred to me before now. We’d barely just begun a relationship. Could we really have a child so soon?
Conflict stormed inside me. I was neither drawn to or pushed away by the idea. All I felt was a strange, awkward curiosity.
It doesn’t matter,I told myself firmly.He’s not pregnant, so there’s nothing to dwell on.
But as I settled down beside him, ready to re-enter my sleep-like trance, the tiniest voice in the back of my mind asked if that was really true, or if I was just lying to myself again.
* * *
Caleb’s shifthad ended a few hours earlier, when we arrived home before dawn. The shift had been normal, if a bit awkward. Caleb’s friend and coworker Jess had questioned him about the incident with the robber. Although she came from a good place, I could tell her well-meaning interrogation was wearing Caleb down, so I intervened. Caleb told me afterwards that he was thankful for that.
Now Caleb collapsed onto the couch to play videogames and wind down.
Outside, the sun broke out over the land, coating the estates in golden light. Of course, I was viewing it from inside black-out curtains and heavily tinted windows, so as not to spontaneously combust.
A curious tension hung in the air, like something important was about to happen. I placed my hand on the window.
“Hey, do you wanna sit with me?” Caleb asked behind me. “You don’t have to play, but it’s nice just to be with you.”
My heart sang at his words. Ever since I allowed myself to feel something for Caleb, I felt flashes of joy at things he said or did. They were like brand new pockets of color in a sea of grey.
“Yes, I’d like that,” I replied.
With my work notes in hand, I took a seat next to him and propped up my work on a side table.
“I’ll be here writing, if you don’t mind,” I said.
“No, why would I?” He blinked and curiously glanced at my notes. Biting his lip, he asked, “Is that the draft for book four?”
I shook my pen and tested it out on the page to make sure the ink ran smoothly. “Yes.”
“Can I… read it?”
I shot him a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry, but no. It’s still barely a story. I wouldn’t even want to read this myself, let alone show it to anyone else.”
I thought Caleb might take it personally, now that we were dating, but instead he shrugged and said with a smile, “That’s okay. I understand.”
“Thank you,” I said.
He returned to his game, poking his tongue out in concentration. I turned my focus to my notes. I didn’t want to admit it to Caleb, but I was battling a fierce writer’s block. The threads of my story refused to weave together no matter what angle I attacked them from.
“Hey, Adriel,” Caleb said, not taking his eyes off the screen. “Can I ask you one little thing about the book?”
“Sure.”
He risked a glance to me, then snapped back to the screen. “Well, I know things ended on a cliffhanger between Mew and Hayden in the third book, but… theyaregonna get together in the end, right?”
I smirked. “Would you be upset if they didn’t?”
