Neither of us moved. I wasn’t sure I was even breathing at this point, and I didn’t know how much time had passed.
“It’s negative,” she said after a while.
I looked up at her. She was holding the test with both hands. Her face was unreadable. Blank.
But her eyes.
They looked tired, almost a little discouraged.
Before I could ask her, she looked at me and said, “I know I shouldn’t be disappointed. I just...”
I held out my arms, and she rushed over to me.
“There’s nothing wrong with the way you feel,” I said in a calm voice. I placed my hands on her hips and pulled her close, resting my face against her soft belly.
“Rowen?”
I looked up at her.
“I’m sorry I ran.” Her eyes were glassy. A long silence stretched between us. “I keep thinking I’ll stop wanting you,” she whispered. “That one day, I’ll wake up, and all of this will feel wrong. But it never does. It just gets deeper. Scarier.”
I nodded slowly. “That’s love, baby.”
She snorted. “That’s not love. That’s obsession.”
“I don’t see a difference.”
“I love you.”
For a second, I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right, that I’d imagined the thing I wanted more than anything in the world, but then she said it again.
“Rowen, I love you. I do.” She was crying. “I am hopelessly, madly in love with you, and I can’t stop.”
I sank to the floor and pulled her into my lap, wrapping my arms around her, never wanting to let her go.
“Fuck, Av.” My eyes stung with tears. “I love you so fucking much.”
I grabbed her face, kissing her with everything I had, holding nothing back, giving her all of me, promising to be better for her, for us, for our future.
“You tracked me down in the woods like a psycho,” she whispered, but her words weren’t laced with shame or regret. They were almost playful, curious.
I chuckled. “And you liked it.”
“Maybe I did.” Her voice was trembling again.
I brushed her lips with mine. “Nothing about us is right, baby, but fuck, is it the rightest thing I’ve ever felt.”
She smiled softly and bit her lip. I rubbed my thumb along her cheek.
“I love you, Rowen Blake Thompson.”
I fucking melted.
No more fake pills. No more hidden supplements. No more secrets.
Rowen had been reluctant but understanding when I told him I didn’t want the fertility vitamins anymore. It made me feel like I had a choice—even if some part of me wanted the same ending he did. That was probably why I didn’t pursue getting real birth control pills, but Rowen didn’t bring it up either.
After he tossed everything into the trash outside, he said, “We’ll just be careful,” and kissed me like it didn’t kill him to say those words.
