“Yeah, see you, Jay.” She couldn’t meet his eyes. She climbed into the passenger seat, clutching the bag in her lap. Would the next time she saw Jay be when she told him he was going to be a father?
No, don’t go there. Just do the test, and then you’ll see that you’re not pregnant.
The internal dialogue going on inside her head was making it hurt.
“So what’s really going on with you?”
“Mrs. C. just asked me to design her a dress and sew it.”
“Okay, that has to unsettle anyone, but that’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it.”
She burst into tears.
“What the fuck, Blue,” Finch said as they drove out off the main street.
Blue covered her face with her hands.
“Hey, you can talk to me. Big brother, remember. What’s going on, Blue Jay?”
That made her want to cry harder. Instead, she sniffed loudly and attempted to get herself under control. “N-nothing.”
Finch snorted. “Right, you crying is nothing. You almost never cry, and when you do, it’s always serious, unlike Birdie, who I used to be able to make cry by just looking at her the wrong way.”
She rested her head back on the seat and sighed. Blue had never felt this tired before. Had the signs been there for a few weeks? The need to sleep and being cranky. Did pregnant women get cranky? Birdie would know?—
I am not pregnant.
The thought that she and Jay had made a baby made her feel a mix of emotions, but the primary one was absolute fear.
“Blue,” Finch said, touching her hand gently. “What’s going on? Maybe I can help.”
“Y-you can’t,” she whispered.
“How do you know?”
She shot him a look and noted that his jaw was clenched. “Because I do,” she whispered.
They pulled into the drive minutes later, and Blue got out. She carried the pharmacy supplies inside with her brother silently following, then headed for the bathroom.
“Blue—”
“I’m showering,” she called through the door. “You make the coffee.”
Finch grunted something and left. Blue then opened the kit with fingers that shook, and read the instructions carefully.
“Please, please, don’t let me be pregnant,” she whispered to any higher power who may, on the off chance, be listening.
She then performed each step of the instructions and set the stick on the countertop. Rather than staring at it, Blue took a shower. After drying and pulling on her clothes, she then applied face cream and brushed her hair. If her life was about to implode, she wanted to at least be clothed for it.
“You can do this,” Blue whispered, shaking her hands a few times. She then stepped closer and looked at the stick.
There was no doubting the result. She was pregnant. She stepped to the wall, braced her back against it, and slid down, wrapping her arms around her legs.
She was pregnant and carrying Jay Haddon’s baby.
A fist pounding on the door was followed by “Coffee’s ready.”
“Coming,” Blue managed to wheeze out, climbing to her feet. She put the test back in the box and took it to her room, where she hid it in the bedside table, to be disposed of later.
