Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 96612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
A few hours later, all that giddiness left me.
* * *
“Nan!” I yelled, pushing her front door open without knocking. My voice was panicked and thin, and I wasn’t even sure how I’d driven to her house, my hands were shaking so badly.
“In here—what the heck is going on?” my nan asked as she rounded the corner into the entryway. “What’s wrong?”
“I think I’m pregnant,” I blurted, my hand flying up to my mouth as if I could catch the words before they reached her.
“Oh, Christ,” another voice rasped as my auntie, Vera, walked out behind her.
“Vera,” Nan hissed.
“Come sit down before you fall over,” Vera snapped, spinning back toward the kitchen.
With my eyes miserably pointed toward the floor, I followed them numbly. They were whispering back and forth, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying and didn’t really care, anyway.
Vera was married to the Aces’ president, Slider, and she’d been a constant in my life growing up. She’d practically raised my mom. She and Slider had known my gramps and nan since they were my age, and when Nan had gotten back together with my gramps, she and Vera had picked up their old friendship as if they hadn’t been apart for thirty years. I should have known Vera would be there.
Where Vera was hard, Nan was soft. Vera spoke without thinking and Nan calculated every word. They were opposites in every way, yet they complimented each other.
“Come on, baby,” Nan murmured, sitting me at a kitchen chair. “What’s going on?”
“I thought I was due this week,” I answered desperately, looking up to meet her eyes. “I thought I was due, so I stopped at the store to get some tampons. But then, as I was driving home, I realized I should’ve started last week, not this week.”
“Hell, you know how many times I’ve been late?” Vera said.
“I’m not,” I argued. “I have thirty days between periods. Always. Not twenty-eight, not thirty-one. Thirty.”
“You haven’t taken a test?” Nan asked kindly.
“No.” That’s when I started to cry.
Vera made a noise in her throat. “Why are you cryin,’ Bellatrix? You’re a grown woman with a good man. This is excitin’ news.”
I dropped my head into my hands and cried harder.
“Well,” Nan said reasonably, “you need to take a test before you know for sure.”
“I’ll go get one,” Vera offered, grabbing her ratty, fringed purse from the counter.
After she’d gone, I sat in silence, my mind spinning. I wasn’t ready. I wanted to get set in my career. I wanted to be married. I wanted to be five years older before I had a baby. I didn’t want a baby now, when Cam and I had just found one another again. I wanted to hop on the bike whenever we wanted and spend the day riding around. I wanted to go to club parties and concerts and vacations, just me and Cam.
Shit. I pulled out my phone and sent him a message, letting him know I was at my nan’s so he wouldn’t worry.
Nan rubbed my back as I tried to calm my breathing.
Then, before I was ready, Vera was back.
“Here,” she said, shoving the pink and white box at me. “Go pee on it and we’ll wait for you out here.”
My heart thumped hard in my chest as I walked toward the bathroom. I could barely pee on the little stick, my hands were shaking so badly, but eventually I finished and sat the test on a little square of toilet paper as I washed my hands.
I hadn’t even had time to dry them before the positive result formed. As I staggered backward, a loud, “Well?” came through the door and I caught myself.
I’m sure I looked shell-shocked as I opened the bathroom door, but Nan just gave me a small smile and pulled me into her arms.
“It’ll all be okay, sweetheart.”
“I’m getting an abortion,” I said flatly, all my tears completely dried up. “I don’t want this.”
Nan’s body stiffened, but she didn’t say a word, just continued to hold me tight as my arms hung limply at my sides. It was as if my whole body had gone hollow, and I couldn’t feel anything.
“It’s not a ‘this’,” Vera snapped, yanking me out of Nan’s arms. “It’s a baby. Cam’s baby.”
“It’s just a cluster of cells.”
Nan made a noise of protest and looked away from me. When she spoke, her voice was the hardest I’d ever heard it. “Go sit down. We’re going to talk.”
I raised my chin and followed her to the kitchen, but feelings were already starting to flood in again. My small reprieve where I’d felt nothing was already ebbing away, and the room suddenly seemed colder.
“When I was younger than you are, I got pregnant with your Uncle Nix,” Nan began, her voice strained but steady. “I didn’t want him, either.”