Because Marco is familiar. Marco is the threat I spent years mapping, predicting, surviving by becoming quieter and smaller and better at not needing.
It would make sense if this was his. A final chain. A permanent tether.
My stomach rolls hard enough that I have to brace a hand on the counter.No, no, no.
I force myself to keep scrolling. Two months. More than two months.
The last time with Marco wasn’t even sex. Not in the way people mean it. It was frustration and impatience and him too high to finish, too distracted to want me for anything other than the control of it.
Protection. Always protection, when he bothered. Like his image mattered more than my body. Like consequences were something he only cared about only if they made him look bad.
I remember it too clearly because I remember the relief afterward. The quiet relief I didn’t speak out loud. That at least one thing couldn’t happen.
My thumb stops. The math is brutal. Clean. Unforgiving. I stare at the dates until my eyes blur.
Then the sentence slips out of me, like my body needs it said aloud.
“It’s not his.”
It should feel like relief. It doesn’t. It feels like stepping off a ledge and realizing the air below is full of something else. Something new. Something I can’t plan for.
My hands shake as I grab my coat. I don’t sit down. Sitting down is dangerous. Sitting down is how you spiral. So I walk. Fast. Purposeful. Down three flights and out into cold air that bites my cheeks and makes me feel awake.
The pharmacy is three blocks away. Close enough to be routine. Far enough to feel like a decision. People pass me without looking. My paranoia hates that. Hates the anonymity because it feels like invisibility, and invisibility feels like I’m being erased. Still, I keep my chin down. Eyes forward. Scanningwindows for reflections the way I used to scan Marco’s face for the shift that meantrun.
No one follows. No one calls my name. No one grabs my wrist. My body doesn’t believe it, but I make myself keep walking.
Inside, the air changes. Bright and clean and chemical. The kind of sterile that pretends nothing bad ever happens in places like this. The pregnancy tests are near the back. There are too many options. Too many cheerful fonts promising certainty, like certainty is supposed to be comforting.
My fingers hover. I pick one. Then another. As if buying two will make me less terrified of the first answer.
At the counter, the cashier doesn’t look up. Scans the boxes. Bags them. Says the price like she’s ringing up gum. Normal.
My throat tightens, anyway. I take the bag and leave like I stole something.
Back home, my apartment feels smaller. Too quiet. Too aware ofme. I set the bag on the counter and stare at it for a long moment, like it might change shape if I wait long enough.
I don’t want to know.
I want to know so badly, it makes me dizzy.
I open the box. Instructions. Plastic. A tiny white stick that holds the potential to ruin or remake my life. My hands shake so much, I almost drop it.
The bathroom is barely big enough to turn around in. The light flickers when I switch it on. The mirror is cheap, slightly warped at the edges, bending my face like it’s trying to make me unfamiliar with myself.
I lock the door. Stupid. There’s no one here to come in. But my body loosens by a fraction, like a part of me still believes a barrier means safety.
I do the test. Carefully. Methodically. Like if I do it right, the universe will reward me with an answer I can survive.
Then I set it on the edge of the sink. The instructions say three minutes. Three minutes isn’t long. Three minutes is nothing. But when you’re waiting for something that can change everything, three minutes is a lifetime.
I set a timer on my phone. 03:00.
I can’t look at the test.
I can’t.
I turn away and press my hands flat against the counter, breathing through my mouth like I’m trying not to throw up or scream or both. My mind fills the silence instantly. Marco’s eyes, blown wide and black. The stranger’s scarred knuckles, steady around mine. His voice in the dark.Breathe with me.His mouth against mine in that suite. Careful at first, like he was listening instead of taking. Like he wanted me, but wanted myyesmore.
