That realization doesn’t arrive gently.It arrives like a door swinging open inside me, letting in air I didn’t know I was starving for.
And maybe I should be terrified.Maybe I should be sobbing, bargaining with the ceiling, rewriting every mistake I’ve ever made.
But the fear only lives around the edges, whispering its bullshit list:You’ll screw this up.You’ll fail.You’ll be alone.
It doesn’t change anything.
Then my brain catches up to Monty’s phrasing and my chest does that awful thing where it forgets how to expand.
Are we keeping the baby?
We as in ...us.
We as in ...him.
We as in ...Cally too?
My lungs seize, and of course—because I’m me—I look at Callaway like he’s my emotional translator.
Cally is watching me like he’s bracing for impact.Like he already knows I’m about to bolt.
And Monty ...Monty looks calm, which is infuriating because he’s never calm.Not really.He’s contained.There’s a difference.His suit is immaculate, jacket smooth, collar crisp, like he stepped into this conversation dressed for war and decided the armor should be expensive.
He doesn’t look away.
It’s too much.Him looking at me like that.Like I’m not a temporary crisis.Like I’m a decision.
My stomach rolls.My palms go slick.
And because I always do, I panic.
I swallow, hard, and my voice scratches out like it’s been dragged over gravel.“Monty?—”
I push off the stool so fast it squeaks, and I start pacing toward the window like moving will stop the spiral in my head.My fingers press to my forehead, as if I can physically shove the terror back where it came from.
“This isn’t—” I suck in a breath that won’t settle.“You guys can leave me to deal with this, okay?It’s too complicated.”
The silence that follows is brutal.
Then Cally says, very calmly, “What’s complicated?”
I spin, exasperated, because sometimes he plays dumb like it’s a love language.
“This.”I wave a hand down at my middle, the gesture useless and too big, like I’m trying to point at a disaster I can’t name.“You don’t have to—step in.Fix things.Rearrange your lives because I didn’t have time to get my shot and a condom didn’t do its job.I’m the one who fucked up.”
Monty blinks once.Slow.Controlled.Like he’s forcing patience into his body.
“Who said anything about fucking up?”
I bark out a laugh that doesn’t sound like me.It sounds like a woman trying to pretend she’s fine when she’s not fine at all.
“Come on.”
Something changes in his face.Not softness.Not mercy.Something deeper.Something that makes me want to step back and step closer at the same time.
“You really think that’s what I see when I look at you?”he asks.
The words slip under my skin, and my body betrays me anyway—eyes burning, breath catching, every answer I’ve ever practiced dissolving before it reaches my mouth.
