Chapter 11 Avery
AVERY
My hand slides across cold sheets before I'm fully awake, reaching for him the way I've reached for him every morning since we started sharing this bed. Muscle memory. Need wired so deep it doesn't wait for consciousness.
My fingers find nothing but smooth, untouched fabric. His pillow still holds its shape from yesterday's making. The shape of absence.
He didn’t come to bed last night.
The penthouse is quiet. I don’t need to step out to the hallway to know I’m alone. Nick will have left for the office hours ago.
Now I regret closing the door in anger when I retreated to our bedroom. Not that he even knows. He was still talking to Beck when I turned off the light. That’s probably for the best. I wouldn’t have wanted him to see that I cried myself to sleep.
We've survived worse than one terrible fight. The secrets we kept from each other, my lies, his obsession and the lengths he took to indulge it. Our breakup, followed by the awful year we spent apart. We survived all of it. We always come back to each other.
I have to believe we'll survive this too. But right now, in this moment, his absence hurts. I feel the ache low in my chest, pressing against my ribs.
I've grown accustomed to waking tangled with him, his heartbeat the first sound of my morning, his skin warm against mine, his hands already moving over me before either of us is fully conscious.
My body has learned to crave his weight, his warmth, the way he pulls me against his chest like I'm the only thing anchoring him to the world.
And he's not here. The bed feels too big. Too cold.
He didn't come to me. Didn't try to bridge what broke between us. I wanted him to fight through the distance, to prove that his love was stronger than his pride.
Instead, he gave me space I never asked for.
I sit up slowly, and the world tilts without warning.
Nausea slams into me—sharp, violent. Not the occasional twinges of queasiness I've felt lately and brushed off. This is something else entirely. Urgent. Undeniable.
I barely make it to the bathroom before my entire body heaves.
The cold tile bites into my knees as I lean over the toilet. Nothing comes up. I couldn't have swallowed any food past the knot in my throat last night, but my body doesn't care. It convulses anyway, stealing my breath until I'm gasping, trembling, wrung out.
When it finally passes, I stay there for a moment with my forehead pressed against my arm, waiting for the world to stop spinning. Stress, I tell myself. Everything that happened yesterday finally manifesting physically.
The explanation feels thin even as I think it.
I pull myself up from the marble floor and move to the sink on unsteady legs. Cold water on my face helps. The shock of it cuts through the fog. I reach for my toothbrush, going through motions that feel automatic, grounding myself in routine because it's the only thing I can control right now.
And somewhere in that mechanical rhythm, a thought surfaces. Quiet at first. Then impossible to ignore.
When was my last period?
My cycles have never been reliable. Stress throws them off. Any kind of emotional upheaval can make my period late. I've never been someone who could mark a calendar with certainty. But I find myself counting anyway, trying to remember when I last bled.
I’m easily a week later than I should be. Ten days? Maybe more.
Oh, God. Is it possible?
I think back to how I’ve been feeling lately. The exhaustion that won't lift no matter how much I sleep. The way my emotions have been on a roller-coaster, making everything seem too sharp, too raw.
I've been blaming the wedding. The stress.
What if it's not?
I'm moving before the thought fully forms, pulling open drawers, scanning shelves. A pregnancy test has never been part of my routine. It was never something I thought to keep on hand.
Then I remember Tasha's gift.
She made me an engagement gift basket from over a year ago, assembled with her typical mix of love and humor.
Champagne, ridiculous lingerie, expensive bath oils.
And, tucked among the indulgences like a punchline…
a pregnancy test. Along with a note in her loopy handwriting: For when you're ready to make me an auntie. No pressure, but also PRESSURE! :) :)
I'd smiled and tucked the test away, never imagining I'd actually need it anytime soon.
The box is still there, behind hotel toiletries I'll never use. Still sealed. Not yet expired.
I read the instructions twice, then follow them with absolute focus. Setting the test face-down on the counter, I step back to wait for the results.
Three minutes.
I rush into the bedroom to get my phone, setting the timer. Then I move back to the doorway between bathroom and bedroom, leaning against the frame with one arm crossed over my stomach and my other hand gripping my phone.
From here I can see the test on the counter, small and white against gray marble. Three minutes has never felt so long.
I try not to let my mind race ahead. But anticipation builds low in my chest. The possibility of being pregnant takes shape inside me whether I'm ready for it or not.
A baby. Nick's baby. Something we made together in all those nights when his body moved inside mine and I forgot where I ended and he began.
Three minutes.
The timer sounds. I silence it, then I push off the doorframe and cross to the counter where I set down the phone. I pick up the test and peer at the results.
Two pink lines in the display window. Clear. Unmistakable.
Positive.
The breath leaves my body in a rush. I grip the edge of the vanity to steady myself, weight forward, head bowed. For a long moment I just breathe. The marble cool under my palms. The test clutched in my other hand.
I’m pregnant.
When I lift my head, my reflection blurs with tears I didn't expect.
I don't know what I feel. That's the truth of it. Joy is there, bright and fierce, but it's tangled with something else. Fear. Uncertainty. The ache of last night still sitting heavy in my chest.
A baby. Nick's baby.
I want to laugh. I want to cry. I want to run to him and tell him and see his face when he understands what we've made together.
But he's not here. And we're in the middle of something unresolved. The timing of this is either just what we need or the last thing we need, and I genuinely can't guess which.
I set the test on the counter and let my hand drift to my flat stomach. There’s no visible sign of what's happening inside yet, of course. But I know now.
We’re going to have a baby.
A little boy or girl who will have Nick's eyes, maybe. Or my stubbornness. Or some combination neither of us can predict.
This baby is the family I've always wanted. The future we're building together.
I think of my own childhood—the abuse, the shame, the mother who sacrificed everything for me. I think of the awful traumas Nick suffered too, the kinds that left permanent marks inside him and out.
This child will know none of that. Only love. Only safety. Only two parents who would burn the world down to keep them safe.
I'll make sure of it. We both will.
I need to see my doctor. Confirm this with bloodwork, with an examination. Home tests can be wrong. I need to make certain before I let my emotions run away with me.
A small laugh bubbles up inside me despite my attempt to think logically, to process this in a rational, calm way.
Holy shit. I’m pregnant.
It’s not something we’ve talked about or planned for yet, other than in nebulous terms that never held a firm shape. Our future has always been the two of us. Now, suddenly, we are three.
How will Nick feel about this? It isn’t something I want to tell him over the phone. After last night, I’m not even sure how to tell him.
What if he isn’t ready for a baby? What if he’s at his office right now wondering if he’s even ready to be a husband in three weeks?
It’s not that I doubt us. But we need to find our way back to solid ground again. I want him to come back to me because he can't stand the distance. Because he needs me the way I need him. Because I'm enough to bridge whatever opened between us last night.
Not because a baby changed the calculus.
Am I prepared to be a mother? Do I even know how?
The thoughts fill me with something too large to name. Joy and terror and wonder, all braided together.
My palm presses against my stomach, holding the secret I should be able to share with Nick right this second. We'll be okay. I know we will.
We have to be. Now more than ever.
I just wish he was here to say those words to me, instead of leaving me alone to wonder whether this news will pull us closer or push him further away.