Chapter 18
Eighteen
Jami
It’s strange how quiet life feels when the chaos stops.
Two months since I got home. Two months learning how to live again. It’s the little things that undo me — grocery lists, clean laundry, a toothbrush in the holder next to Tommy’s.
I keep a small notebook now, one I started in group therapy. Every day I write something real. Some days it’s just I made it through. Other days I surprise myself with gratitude.
Day forty-two: I laughed today without guilt.
Day forty-six: I kissed him and didn’t feel guilt.
Day fifty-three: I want to be alive tomorrow.
It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s everything.
Tommy’s been patient. He gives me space but never distance. He cooks when I forget to eat, leaves little notes under my coffee mug telling me affirmations or reminders that I have this.
The man doesn’t say much, but he shows it in a thousand quiet ways.
I get back to work again — cleaning construction sites after the crews leave. The smell of sawdust and new paint fills my lungs, something about it grounding me. It’s simple work, honest work. I get dirty and tired and go home feeling like I earned my place in the world.
Still, something’s been… off.
It starts as a weird ache in the mornings. I think it’s nerves or stress. Then the dizziness comes. Some days, I can’t keep breakfast down.
When Jenni shows up on Saturday, she takes one look at me and frowns.
“You look pale,” she remarks, kicking off her boots. “You okay?”
“I think I ate something bad,” I reply, shrugging it off.
She sets a paper bag on the counter. “Well, let’s see if soup helps. I brought Mom’s recipe — chicken and rice, extra ginger.”
The smell fills the kitchen, warm and familiar. I barely make it through two bites before my stomach turns. I run to the sink, gagging.
Jenni rushes over, rubbing my back. “Whoa, slow down. You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I lie, rinsing my mouth. My hands shake.
She studies me. “You been sick long?”
“Couple days.”
She tilts her head really watching me. “Jami… when’s the last time you had your period?”
The words hit like a slap. I freeze. “I don’t know,” I say quietly.
Her eyes widen. “You don’t know. How far back don’t you know.”
“I stopped tracking after—” I stop myself from finishing the sentence. After I started using again. After I stopped caring about calendars or consequences. I stopped my birth control after my money ran out because buying drugs was more important.
Jenni’s voice softens. “Could you be pregnant?”
I can’t breathe. The room spins. “No. No, that’s not.”
But the nausea, the fatigue, the way smells make me sick, it all fits.
Jenni’s already moving. “Get your shoes. We’re going to the pharmacy.”
The drive is a blur. I sit with my hands clenched in my lap, staring out the window. The world feels too bright, too loud. Jenni keeps one hand on the steering wheel and the other on my knee, grounding me like she’s done since we were kids.
Inside the store, everything feels surreal, fluorescent lights that are too bright, the hum of refrigerators that are too loud, a teenage cashier who doesn’t look old enough to know what heartbreak is.
Jenni grabs three boxes off the shelf — different brands, like she’s buying lottery tickets. “We’ll be sure,” she speaks but not to me particularly, maybe to herself.
I want to protest, to tell her it’s ridiculous, but the lump in my throat won’t let me speak.
At checkout, the cashier gives us a curious look. Jenni stares her down until she looks away.
Back in the car, the paper bag crinkles between us like a secret waiting to explode.
At home, I can’t make my hands work. Jenni reads the instructions out loud, her voice too calm, too clinical. I follow her to the bathroom like I’m sleepwalking. She hands me a cup, I fill it and let her take over from there.
Five minutes later, the world tilts.
Two pink lines. Test one.
Positive. Test two.
Then pregnant on the digital screen, test three.
Every single test says the same thing.
I sink to the floor, my legs giving out. The tiles are cold under my palms.
Jenni kneels beside me. “Hey, breathe. You’re okay.”
I shake my head. “No, I’m not. I can’t be.”
“Jami—”
I throw a hand up silencing her. “I don’t know how far along I am, Jenni. Don’t you see. I don’t know whose it is, Jenni.” The words rip out of me like glass. “I don’t know! I was high, I was gone, and I don’t know!” The last words come out in a full on screech.
She closes her eyes, pain flashing across her face. Then she pulls me into her arms. “You don’t have to know right now. You just have to breathe.”
I sob into her shoulder, the sound raw, animal. She holds on tighter.
When the storm finally breaks, she tilts my chin up. “You have to tell Tommy.”
“I can’t.”
“You have to.”
“He’ll hate me.”
“No,” she says fiercely. “He loves you. But he deserves the truth.”
I cover my face with my hands. “How do I even say it? ‘Hey, I might be carrying your child, or maybe the child of a monster who used me when I was too high to remember my own name?’”
Her voice softens again. “You don’t know that’s what happened.”
“I know enough.”
We sit there in silence, the ticking of the clock loud in the small room.
Finally, she says, “What do you want to do?”
The question echoes in my head. What do you want to do?
I want to run.
I want to disappear.
I want to find the numbness that used to hide the truth.
But then I think of the tiny heartbeat growing inside me. The part of me that’s still capable of creating life after everything that’s tried to destroy mine.
“I want to do better,” I whisper.
Jenni squeezes my hand. “Then start by staying clean. For you. For the baby.”
“I don’t even know if I can be a mom.”
“You can. You’re stronger than you think.”
I shake my head, tears blurring my vision. “I’m terrified.”
“Good,” she says. “Means you care.”
That night, I sit on the edge of the bed with my journal open.
I write my truth. I’m pregnant. I don’t know how to feel. I finish the page, the same way I have been since starting to journal: I didn’t use today.
I stare at the words until they stop shaking.
The cravings come hard — not just for drugs but for escape. I can almost feel the weight of it, that old familiar promise of silence. But there’s another voice now, small and steady inside me.
You’re not alone anymore.
Tommy’s voice drifts from the kitchen. He’s humming under his breath, something low and tuneless. He doesn’t know yet, and the thought makes me ache.
I trace a hand over my stomach, still flat, still unreal. “Who are you?” I whisper. “Why now?”
There’s no answer, just the sound of rain starting against the window.
I close the journal and make myself a promise.
Tomorrow, I’ll tell him.
The next morning, Jenni insists on driving me to the clinic. “We’ll get an ultrasound,” she says. “It’ll help you see things clearer.”
I don’t argue. My stomach churns all the way there.
The nurse is kind, her voice practiced gentle.
She doesn’t flinch when she sees the faint scars on my arms. “We’ve seen everything, honey” she says.
“You’re safe here. If it’s early we may have to do the transvaginal, but if you haven’t had your period in two months or more, we should be good this way.
” When she presses the cold gel to my skin, I hold my breath.
The room fills with static, then a faint, rapid sound — like wings fluttering underwater.
“That’s the heartbeat,” she says.
Jenni grips my hand, tears shining in her eyes.
I can’t look away from the screen. It’s just a shadow, a flicker of light, but it’s real.
My heart breaks and rebuilds in the same moment.
I cry quietly, not from fear this time, but from awe.
The nurse prints a picture and hands it to me. “Healthy so far.”
She mumbles about weeks and it all gets lost in my head. The print out tells me my timeline. She shares my anticipated due date. The thoughts hits like ice water, but beneath the fear there’s something else — determination.
Whatever happens, whoever this child belongs to biologically, I’m their mother. And I’m not running anymore.
Back at the house, Jenni makes tea and sits with me on the porch.
“You need to tell him soon,” she says.
“I know.”
“Do you want me there?”
“No. This is something I have to say myself.”
She nods. “Then I’ll wait by the phone if you need me.”
When she leaves, I sit there for a long time, staring at the photo in my lap.
The tiny blur of life, proof that something good can grow from ruin.
Tommy’s truck pulls up just as the sun starts to set. He climbs out, smiling when he sees me. “Hey, Tiny.”
My throat closes.
He walks up the steps, leans down to kiss me. “You okay? You look pale again.”
“I need to talk to you,” I manage.
His smile fades. “What’s wrong?”
My hands shake as I hold out the picture. “I went to the doctor.”
He takes the photo, frowning at it, then looks back at me. “Jami?”
I swallow hard. “I’m pregnant.”
He doesn’t speak at first. Just stares, processing.
Then his hand trembles slightly as he looks back at the image. “That’s… ours?”
“I don’t know,” I whisper as the shame washes over me. “It could be. It might not be. I’m so sorry, Tommy. I didn’t know. I wasn’t myself.”
He looks at me for a long time, eyes full of a hundred emotions I can’t read — shock, pain, maybe even hope.
Finally, he sits beside me, the photo still in his hand. “You’re clean now?”
“Yes.”
“You staying that way?”
I nod. “For the baby. For you. And for me.”
He lets out a slow breath. “Then that’s all that matters.”
Tears blur my vision. “You’re not angry?”
“Angry at the world, maybe, I’m not gonna lie” he says softly. “But not at you.”
I cover my mouth with my hands, the sob catching in my throat. He pulls me into him, wrapping me up until the shaking stops.
“Whatever happens,” he murmurs into my hair, “you’re not doing this alone. We’re gonna have a baby, Tiny. And that is something to cherish.”
That night, after he’s fallen asleep, I lie awake listening to his breathing. My hand rests over my stomach, the faintest curve now that I know it’s there.
The fear doesn’t vanish, but it doesn’t own me either.
I think about my journal entry today. I told him. He stayed. I’m still sober. Maybe love really can give the gift of a new life.
I close the journal, turn off the light, and finally let myself rest.