That is the most bold thing he has said while I’ve been living here.
And the fact that he said it is making me nauseous. I lie in bed for a few more minutes, waiting for the sickly feeling to disappear. But it doesn’t.
I sit up in bed, consumed by a wave of heat that has me running to the bathroom in a panic. I make it there just in time, open the toilet lid, and the vomit sprays right out into the bowl before my mind has chance to register what’s going on.
“Jesus. Hart?”
I screw up my eyes. If Caleb dares to walk into the bathroom now and sees me hunched over the toilet, vomit dripping from my mouth and all, I’ll be punching him in the eye like he did to the stalker last night.
“I’m fine,” I call, tearing off a piece of toilet tissue—or five, to wipe my mouth. “I’m all good, no stress.” I scamper over to the door and close it properly, locking myself in.
Now, breathe.
I stare at the vomit in the toilet, waiting for it to tell me the reason why I’m sick.
It’s stress. It has to be. I haven’t been feeling like myself recently, and there’s a lot of shit going on. I could be facing conviction. A few nights ago, I dreamed of the authorities prying my son from my arms, and there was nothing I could do about it but shout to Caleb at the last second before they shoved me into the police car, to let him know that Sonny was his.
That’s not how I want the both of them to find out.
I remain in the bathroom for a while longer, hoping that if I leave it long enough, Caleb will have forgotten.
But he’s at the door perking an eyebrow up at me as soon as I unlock the bathroom door.
“So I threw up. Big deal. I’ve never been good at handling stress.”
What the fuck am I saying?
I haven’t even gone through that much stress in my life, and the stress Ihaveencountered previously with my father was easy enough to ride out without making myself ill.
Caleb continues to watch me from the wall, still leaning into it. He scans my body and gets caught up looking at my breasts.
“What? Did I miss a spot?”
“Your boobs are bigger. I noticed them the other day under your barista uniform.”
I don’t know whether to smile or grimace. “You really need to work on your compliments.”
“You could be pregnant.”
That’s not what I want to hear first thing in the morning. Or never. It was bad enough with Sonny. The heartbreak of Caleb leaving was enough to deal with, let alone me finding out that I was pregnant with his kid.
He must have strong swimmers.
Or, we just had sex enough times for this to be a very real, very scary possibility.
“Ah, shit.”
“Take a test,” he nonchalantly suggests, like it’s no biggie that I could be pregnant with his child a second time. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“What if the test comes back positive?”
“Then we talk about what to do next.”
We?
“I’ll go grab you one now from the store. But you know that whatever the outcome is, I’ll support you.”
Yes. Idoknow that. Because when it all came out about me starting that fire, Caleb still protected me publicly even though he didn’t agree with my actions.
