I still haven’t said anything.
I don’t know if I can.
The couch is soft, but I’m perched on the edge like I might need to flee. Callie doesn’t speak. She sits beside me, close but not crowding, legs tucked up under her like we’re watching a movie. Her presence hums quietly against my skin, not quite comfort—just a signal that I’m not alone.
The tea is too hot. I wrap both hands around the mug anyway, fingers stiff with tension. The steam stings my eyes.
Neither of us speaks.
I sip. Just once. Then again. Halfway through the mug, I start to shake. It’s not dramatic—not the kind of tremble that comes with sobbing. Just a slow, creeping tremor that moves through my wrists and up my forearms like my body’s trying to reboot but keeps glitching.
I spill. Just a little. A slosh of warmth down one side of the mug, a dark circle blooming on the throw blanket. I flinch like I’ve broken something sacred.
Callie moves without a word. She crosses the room and grabs a dish towel from the kitchen counter. When she returns, she crouches in front of me and blots the blanket like it’s nothing. No fuss, no commentary.
That’s what breaks me.
“I can’t do this,” I whisper.
She doesn’t move. Just presses the towel into the fabric. Waiting.
“I can’t—” My throat tightens. “I don’t want this. I don’t want to be pregnant.”
Callie looks up then, unsurprised but attentive.
“It might be Chris’s,” I add, because some part of me is bracing for her to judge. “And I know what that means. I know she—or he—would be your family.”
She doesn’t react; her expression is the same open, quiet focus she’s carried since I sat down.
“I should be able to do this. Fulfill my—” I stop. The shame is bile in my mouth. “Jesus. I was about to say ‘purpose.’ Like I’m a fucking incubator that failed quality control.”
Callie sits back on her heels, folding the towel in her lap. “That’s not your purpose,” she says. Dry. Sharp. “That’s some patriarchal bullshit that got stuck in your brain when you were too young to throw it out.”
I laugh. Sort of. It cracks on the way out.
She leans forward again, elbows on her knees. “Nina. You don’t owe anyone a reason. Not me. Not Chris. Not Wyatt. Not the universe. You already made a choice years ago. This doesn’t change that.”
“I thought I was safe.”
“I know.”
“I was. Statistically.”
“Fuck statistics,” she says gently.
The silence comes back, but softer now. She doesn’t fill it. Just lets me sit in it with her.
I take another sip of the tea. It’s cooled now. Drinkable.
“I need help,” I say.
“I know.”
“Tonight. I can’t—I can’t wake up tomorrow with this still in me.”
She nods once, no hesitation. “I’ll make a call.”
Callie stands. Moves with the same quiet focus she uses in surgery—every motion efficient, unhurried, certain. She pulls her phone from her pocket as she walks toward the back patio, where the signal is strongest. She doesn’t even ask if I want her to stay inside. Just gives me space. Like she knows the difference between alone and abandoned.
