Chapter 17
April
Angela’s apartment smells like antiseptic wipes and instant coffee.
The dining table is buried under mounds of paperwork.
Insurance forms, appointment letters, printed emails with highlighted lines, a stack of bills so thick it looks like it could qualify as a small novel.
Angela sits in the middle of it all, shoulders hunched, hair thrown into a knot that’s trying to give up.
When she looks up and sees me in the doorway, her face changes instantly.
Relief first, then guilt for feeling it.
“April,” she says, pushing a pile of forms aside like she’s clearing a space for me to just exist. “Oh, my God. I didn’t think you’d make it today.”
“I said I would.” I hang my coat on the back of a chair and step closer, trying to pretend the knot in my stomach isn’t tightening with every sheet of paper I see.
“How bad is it?” Angela laughs once, but there’s no humor in it.
“Bad enough that I’m pretty sure I’m going to start dreaming in medical jargon. ”
I lean over, scanning the form that sits on top. More medical verbiage and that cold, bureaucratic tone that turns a little girl into a “case study.”
“You’ve been paying so much,” she says quietly, eyes looking up at me.
“I don’t know how you’re doing it, but thank you.
I know I say it a lot, but I don’t feel like it’s enough.
” I open my mouth to brush it off, but something stops me.
The gratitude on her face isn’t casual. It’s heavy and desperate.
It’s love. So I just nod and pull out the chair beside her.
“Let’s see what we can do.” Before I can touch a single paper, a small blur barrels out of the hallway like a missile. “Auntie April!”
Ava Swan launches herself at me with so much enthusiasm that I nearly topple backwards.
She’s small, all knees and elbows in an oversized pajama shirt.
Her hair is a messy blonde halo, and her bright blue eyes look too big for her face.
Her arms wrap around my waist like she’s trying to fuse herself to me.
“Hey, bug,” I grin, crouching to hug her properly. She smells like strawberry shampoo and something faintly medicinal. It’s like the hospital never fully washes off her little body.
She pulls back and beams at me. “Mom said you got me that mermaid blanket!”
“I did,” I grin, smoothing her hair back. “Do you like it?”
“I love it.” She says it like it’s the most important truth anyone’s ever spoken. “I sleep in it every night. I’m a mermaid when I sleep. I told Mom you probably bought it because you’re rich.” I laugh at Angela’s strangled little noise that comes from behind me.
“I’m not rich,” I tell Ava, keeping my voice light. “I’m just really good at finding mermaid blankets.”
Ava squints at me suspiciously. “Are you sure?”
I snort. “Very sure.”
She leans in like she’s sharing a secret. “Okay, don’t tell Mom that, though. She thinks you are, and it might make her cry more if you’re not.” My heart trips over itself.
Angela clears her throat behind me. “Ava, honey, go finish coloring, and then you can hang out with Auntie April.”
Ava pouts, but she does as she’s told, shuffling back to the living room.
When she’s gone, Angela’s face crumbles for half a second before she forces it back into place.
“She’s doing better,” she says quickly, as if she has to say it out loud to believe it.
“The treatments… they’re working. The doctor said her levels are improving. ”
Relief rushes through me so hard it makes me dizzy. I grip the edge of the chair, forcing myself to breathe normally. “That’s good. That’s really, really good, Ange,” I say.
“Wouldn’t be possible without you,” she adds.
Something sharp presses behind my ribs. I can’t look at her for too long.
Not with that kind of faith in her eyes.
“Okay,” I say, reaching for the nearest stack of papers.
“Show me what’s got you overwhelmed.” We get twenty minutes into it before the room feels like it’s tilting.
At first, it’s just a strange queasiness, like the air is too warm, and the smell of coffee is suddenly too strong.
I swallow hard and try to pretend I’m fine, but suddenly my stomach rolls in that violent, unmistakable way.
My mouth floods with saliva, and I blurt, “Oh no!” I stand up so quickly that my chair scrapes the floor, startling Angela.
“Bathroom!” I choke out, already rushing to get there in time.
I barely make it to the toilet before I’m heaving.
It’s ugly and immediate. It’s the kind of sickness that takes over your whole body like it owns you.
I grip the porcelain and let it happen, eyes watering, skin going clammy.
When it finally stops, I slump against the counter, breathing hard, staring at myself in the mirror like I’m looking at a stranger.
“Auntie April?” Her voice is small when I hear it through the door. I swallow, trying to school my voice into something that doesn’t sound raspy. “Yeah, sweetie?”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m okay!”
“Sounded like you were throwing up.”
Fuck. “Did it?” I ask, trying to keep my voice light. “I’m fine, Ava.”
“It’s okay if you did. I do too sometimes.”
“Thanks, bug,” I sigh, pushing to my feet when the world finally stops spinning.
My face is pale in the reflection, my eyes too wide, and my hand drifts to my lower stomach without thinking.
No. No, it’s too soon. But is it? How long has it been?
Edward Island, the hotel, his penthouse.
It’s been weeks. Enough time. Enough tries.
My period is… shit, eight days late when I check the tracker.
My pulse pounds hard in my ears. I rinse my mouth, splash some water on my face, and try to fix my expression into something normal.
Something that doesn’t scream pregnancy panic.
I step out of the bathroom and find Angela watching me with narrowed eyes, the papers forgotten.
“What was that?” she asks.
“Nothing,” I say, walking back toward the table. “I’m fine.”
“Ava said you were sick.”
I glare back toward the living room as if I can see straight through the walls. “Tattletale.”
She stands slowly, crossing her arms. “April. What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
“You’ve been weird for weeks.” Her voice sharpens, worry threading through it.
“You’ve been distant. You don’t always answer my calls right away anymore.
You show up with money that doesn’t make sense.
” She says, gesturing helplessly at the table, where all the bills and paid invoices are scattered around.
“It’s just money from my job.”
“Your job doesn’t pay like this.” Her eyes narrow. “So where is it coming from?”
My mind scrambles for something plausible, something safe, something that won’t blow up my entire life in a single sentence. “I got a bonus,” I answer.
She stares at me. “A bonus?”
“Yes.”
“From your asshole of a boss? I didn’t realize he was so… generous.”
I try to hide the irritation on my face from her insult toward Anthony. “He can be generous sometimes. I did a good job over the last year and got rewarded.”
Angela’s expression doesn’t change. “April.”
“I’m fine,” I insist, hating how thin it sounds. “And Ava’s doing better. That’s what matters.”
Her eyes soften for half a heartbeat, then harden again. “You’re lying to me.”
I swallow uncomfortably. “I’m not.”
“You are,” she says, her voice cracking. “It scares me. You’re not the kind of person who lies unless you think you have to.”
The words hit like a slap. I grab my bag quickly with clumsy fingers, already feeling another wave of nausea coming. “I have to go.”
“April—”
“I’ll come back,” I promise, and it’s not even fully a lie. I just don’t know how to come back with this still lodged in my throat. “I just… I have something to do.”
Angela looks like she wants to follow me and grab my shoulders to shake the truth loose.
But she can’t, not when Ava’s in the next room.
She just watches me with that same helpless fear she’s been living with for months.
I leave with my heart hammering in my chest, nausea, and shame crawling up my spine.
————
Nicky’s already at my apartment when I get home.
I texted her as soon as I left Angela’s, and she must have let herself in with the spare key.
She’s sitting on my couch with her feet tucked under her, scrolling mindlessly through her phone like she’s been waiting for me to fall apart, and I’m right on schedule.
She looks up the moment I step inside and says, “You look like death.”
“I threw up,” I say flatly, kicking off my shoes.
Nicky’s eyes widen. “Oh, my God.”
I don’t answer. I just walk straight into the bathroom like my body already knows what it needs, like my hands are moving without permission.
I dig through the cabinet under the sink until I find the box shoved behind spare toothpaste and hair ties.
Pregnancy tests. A two-pack, bought months ago during a spiral when I hadn’t had sex in half a year.
Apparently, I’m the type of person who prepares for things by purchasing plastic sticks to pee on.
My fingers shake as I tear it open. Nicky appears in the doorway half a second later. “Are we doing this?”
“Yep.”
I take the test with mechanical numbness, cap it, and set it on the counter like it’s a bomb about to explode.
I lean against the sink with my arms crossed tightly across my chest. My mind is screaming, hoping, to my surprise, that it’s negative.
It’s not that I don’t want to do this for him or back out.
It’s that a positive test means we can stop trying, and I really don’t want to stop having sex with Anthony.
Two minutes feel like two years. We stand in silence, waiting for the timer on my phone to buzz, my stomach only getting queasier.
The timer goes off. I turn, hoping for a single line, hoping to still have a damn excuse to have him touch me, and find two pink lines and a smiley face. Positive. It’s positive.
The world doesn’t explode. The ceiling doesn’t collapse. Nothing dramatic happens at all. It’s just quiet confirmation, and the overwhelming sensation that my life is now sliding onto a different path that I, for some reason, agreed to.
Nicky exhales sharply. “Holy shit.”
I stare at the stick; my throat goes tight, and my eyes sting.
“April,” Nicky says softly. “How do you feel?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper.
Relief hits first, hot and immediate, because it means Ava gets to keep getting treatment.
It means Angela can breathe, and it means all of this wasn’t for nothing.
Then comes fear, icy and sharp, because now it’s real.
Now it’s inside me. Now there’s no pretending this is some reckless fantasy that can be undone.
Then the hollow ache hits. The expiration date on Anthony, on us, on whatever this has become, has hit.
My voice comes out thin. “I don’t know if I’m happy. ”
Nicky steps closer, eyes searching mine. “Are you at least a little happy?”
I swallow hard, staring at the test like it’s staring back. “I’m… definitely something.”
Her lips purse. “You should probably call him.”
The thought makes my stomach flip again, but this time it isn’t nausea. It’s nerves. It’s dread. It’s a sharp, strange longing I don’t want to name. “Probably.”
Telling Anthony means watching his face change, watching him become the CEO again, watching him claim it like property, watching him pull away like he always does once he gets what he wants.
If I’m being honest with myself, I don’t know if I can handle that right now.
So I just keep staring at the tiny smiley face and those two pink lines, and let it rewrite my future in silence.