Chapter 27

I sat at the kitchen table, staring at the burrito in front of me. Walker had just left for weights, and I was still trying to convince myself that I was indeed not pregnant.

If I could eat Mrs. Bentley’s burrito, I wasn’t pregnant.

Or at least I was trying to convince myself of that.

The problem was, I couldn’t even pick the damn thing up. My stomach was churning at the smell, and wave after wave of nausea was hitting me.

And when I really thought about it…I’d been having weird food aversions for a while.

Like the eggs the other morning.

Denial, your name is Olivia.

Setting down my fork, I pushed my plate away and took a deep breath, willing the queasiness to pass. But it only intensified, twisting and turning in the pit of my stomach until I couldn’t ignore it.

I threw back my chair and hurried towards the bathroom, barely making it in time.

I doubled over the toilet, my body convulsing as I retched violently. Tears stung my eyes as I clung to the porcelain bowl, the bitter taste of bile lingering on my tongue.

As I sat there, trying to catch my breath, I was still trying to figure out any other reason for my sickness…and my sensitive breasts…and the headaches I’d been getting.

It was just a stomach bug, I tried to reason. Or maybe all those cookies I ate yesterday.

And the eggs the other day had been bad. I was sure of it.

But as I stumbled back into the kitchen, my hand pressed against my queasy stomach, I finally let myself admit the truth.

I needed a pregnancy test.

With trembling hands, I fumbled for my phone, searching frantically for the nearest pharmacy. I needed answers, and I needed them now.

The drive to the pharmacy felt like an eternity. I only remembered it was a bad idea for me to make unplanned public appearances when I’d pulled into the parking lot of the CVS.

But it was too late to go back now. I wasn’t leaving without that test.

I got out of the car, keeping my head down as I made my way into the store, my heart pounding in my chest.

I glanced around the store, ducking behind a nail polish display when I heard a teenage girl’s voice—they’d been particularly excitable since the news had come out I was dating Walker. Once her voice had faded away, I made a beeline for the family planning aisle, my hands shaking as I reached for a box of pregnancy tests.

Thank fuck for self checkout stands.

I quickly paid for the tests, my mind racing with a thousand different thoughts and fears.

I’d almost made it to the automatic doors when my luck ran out.

“Holy crap. Is that Olivia Darling?” someone commented from nearby.

Leave it to me to get recognized at a CVS when I’d escaped notice in a ton of more public places.

“Is it really?” another voice asked, and I scurried out the doors before they got the nerve to try and talk to me.

Back at home, I locked myself in the bathroom, trying to keep myself semi-together as I tore open the box and unwrapped one of the tests. Taking a deep breath, I followed the instructions carefully before I set the stick on the counter and I waited.

Turns out three to seven minutes can actually feel like an hour.

The timer on my phone went off and I stared at the stick for a second longer, knowing that I could never go past this moment. The before of knowing. I was just going to live in the before for a second longer.

Finally, I picked up the stick.

Two pink lines. Two freaking pink lines.

The proof stared back at me from the small plastic window. My heart skipped a beat as tears welled up in my eyes, a mixture of joy and fear singing through my veins.

I was pregnant.

I collapsed onto the bathroom floor. My mind was complete chaos, a thousand worst case scenarios hitting me hard—the fact that I didn’t even have control over my body under the conservatorship top of mind.

What was I going to do? I should have been smarter than this. What was Walker going to think? He’d joked about getting me pregnant before, but that’s all it had been…a joke, right? I reached for self-loathing, something that had always come so easily to me…but it didn’t come.

Because amidst the fear…a word was burrowing its way into my psyche.

Mommy.

I was going to be a mommy.

I’d always wanted to be one. I’d never admitted that exact thing before now, but when I’d been traveling from city to city, alone in hotel rooms or on a bus, I’d dreamed about what it would be like to have a real family, of what I would be like as a mom—how I would be the opposite of Jolette and be the best mom I could be.

A weird thing for a teenager to think for sure—but loneliness made you think about things like what it would be like to have someone that loved you. And really loved you, not just the idea of you.

There was that thing again, the one thing I hadn’t dared to have all these years. The one thing that kept popping up ever since Walker and I had locked eyes at that first game.

Hope.