18. Stephanie
STEPHANIE
Stephanie’s stomach churned as she fought her way back to wakefulness.
A week had passed since the night of the movie, the day of the farmers’ market.
In that time, she and Elijah had seen one another regularly, and they had fallen into a pattern of taking turns choosing the date activities.
He’d taken her to a nightclub, and she had taken him rock-climbing.
He had brought her to a museum, and she’d picked her favorite independent bookstore.
Life was filled with adventure lately, and she found herself constantly wondering what the next day would bring.
But today, she felt sick to her stomach, and she knew at once what the reason for that sickness was.
She had gotten better at pushing down the guilt her original motives for being in this relationship still caused her.
After all, that was ancient history now—well, at least, it was weeks-old history.
She hadn’t spoken to Oliver Norcross since the day she had contacted him to let him know that she didn’t want his money.
There was nothing at all there now, no business deal, not even any communication.
Her relationship with Elijah was pure, just as she wished it always had been.
Most of the time, that was good enough.
But there were some days—days like this one—when the past seemed to catch up with her, and she found herself unable to forget the things she had done. Even if she had set it right, she knew Elijah would be devastated if he ever learned the real reason she had started seeing him.
Eventually I’ll get over it.
She hoped that was true. In the meantime, though, she was struggling intensely. It was almost funny—it would have been funny if it wasn’t so painful—the way her emotions had taken on physical reality. It was as if the knowledge of what she had done was actually making her ill.
She sat up slowly and felt her stomach lurch in response.
The worst part about this was that she had been asleep.
It wasn’t as if she had been sitting around pondering their beginnings and thinking about it had led her to this self-recrimination.
It simply lived somewhere within her, deep enough in her psyche that it could reach up and poison her without conscious thought.
And that let her know just how hard it was going to be to let it go.
She would spend a very long time tormenting herself for the bad decisions she had made.
Stephanie dragged herself to her feet. The best thing to do when you were feeling upset about something was to get moving, she knew.
She just needed to start her day, that was all.
If she stayed in bed letting herself feel morose about what had happened, the guilt would only get worse, until eventually it swallowed her.
She moved slowly toward the kitchen, thinking that a glass of cold water would make her feel better, but she only made it halfway.
As she stepped into the hall, the world swung wildly around her.
She had to grab at the wall for support, and with a horrible gag, she clapped her hand over her mouth and changed course.
She sprinted into the bathroom, closing the door so that Bruno couldn’t follow her in there.
After emptying her stomach into the toilet, she sat back on the cool tile floor and pulled the flush, gasping for air. She was covered in sweat, but she felt steadier now, her body already beginning to cool down.
What the hell?
Nothing like that had ever happened to her before.
When it came to controlling her emotions, Stephanie was well-practiced—it was a skill you needed if you were going to present yourself publicly to promote your own small business.
She couldn’t remember the last time she had been completely overwhelmed by something she was feeling like this, and she didn’t like it.
This is not good. I can’t go on like this, losing my cool every time I think about the fact that I took an agreement with Oliver Norcross. I’m not even doing anything wrong, not anymore. Why is my body rebelling against me over it?
The unpleasant thoughts crawled through her mind like snakes…
But it was strange. Even though she was still feeling awful about it all, her stomach had begun to settle. The nausea had been much worse in the moments right after she had woken up. She would have thought that thinking about it would make it worse, but that didn’t seem to be the case.
Unless maybe this isn’t guilt. Maybe I’m actually just sick.
Maybe. But that didn’t add up either. She’d been feeling perfectly fine when she had gone to bed last night, and even now, she was feeling all right. It didn’t match the way she ought to have been feeling if illness was the problem.
This was something else.
A gnawing dread began to grow in the back of her mind.
Without meaning to, she started to do the math.
She didn’t really even need to do it. She was already aware that she hadn’t gotten her period since the beginning of her relationship with Elijah.
Just the other day, she’d brought a box of tampons over to his house just in case.
She hadn’t reflected that day on how long it had been since she’d needed one, but she was sure thinking about it now.
Isn’t this what morning sickness is supposed to be like? It comes on out of nowhere, and then it goes away just as quickly and leaves you feeling more or less fine?
But it couldn’t be. It couldn’t. She couldn’t have gotten pregnant. As complex as everything about all this had been so far, that would make it ten times worse.
Things were going well with Elijah. They were happy every time they were together. But they still hadn’t known each other that long. How could she possibly drop news like this on him?
And if I did, then what? Then we would stay together for the rest of our lives, raise a child together? Or we would have to break up, and I’d have the child alone? What would my preference even be? What do I want here?
It was impossible to imagine telling him she was pregnant without knowing what she hoped his response would be.
But the truth was that it didn’t matter what she hoped for. Hopes weren’t going to have anything to do with the outcome. The only thing that mattered was what was true. And if she was going to find out what was true here, there was only one way to do it.
She was going to have to get a pregnancy test and find out once and for all whether this was actually happening.
Who knows—maybe once I’ve taken the test, I’ll learn that it was all a false alarm. Maybe I’ll never have to answer any of these questions at all. Maybe this is just a scare.
Forty-five minutes later, Stephanie sat at her kitchen table staring at the two blue lines on the pregnancy test.
It wasn’t just a scare.
She buried her face in her hands. Her body felt foreign to her in that moment, almost as if it had betrayed her.
She was in the grip of something she had never planned for.
Or rather, she had supposed that this would happen one day, but it was supposed to be years down the line, when she was good and ready for it. Not now.
As if sensing just how unsettled she was, Bruno let out a little whine and cuddled up to her leg.
I wasn’t even supposed to be involved with anybody, Stephanie scolded herself.
I promised myself I wouldn’t do this. I said I would make sure SilkSoft was successful before I got involved with any men, and yet here I am.
Not just in a relationship, but pregnant!
How am I going to go on living the life I’ve been trying to build for myself after this? How do I move forward from here?
Telling him was vital, of course… but also, she didn’t think she could face it. Not yet. Not until she came to terms herself with what had happened.
Thankfully, her schedule was clear for the day.
She’d had no work meetings planned. That was distressing in its own way—things had been light lately, especially since she had had to give up the loan she’d hoped to get from Oliver.
If she hadn’t been so distracted by this new discovery, she might have spent the day worrying about the fact that her business was on the verge of falling apart.
Today, though, she couldn’t even think about that.
Carrying Bruno in her arms, she made her way back to bed and crawled between the sheets, where she was able to shut out the rest of the world.
She had problems that needed to be dealt with and she knew it, but they could wait.
Everything could wait one day. If she could sink back into sleep, she would be able to put all this from her mind, at least for a little while.
She would be able to escape it until she was ready to think about it…
Her phone buzzed.
Stephanie squeezed her eyes shut, willing the buzzing to go away. She wanted nothing more than to sink away from the rest of the world, to forget her problems for a few hours. This would need to be dealt with, but she just wasn’t ready…
The phone buzzed again.
With a groan, she picked it up and saw exactly what she had feared she would see—a pair of text messages from Elijah.
Hey! Want to hang out again today?
I have a pretty cool idea, if you’re up for a little adventure…
If she had received those messages yesterday, they would have sparked pure joy and excitement.
But today they were more than she could handle.
She didn’t even want to respond to the messages.
She wanted to put the phone down and ignore them altogether.
But she owed Elijah better than that. She couldn’t just leave him on read.
She drew in a breath and began to formulate her response. What could she say that would reliably put him off for a day, but without giving up any information she wasn’t ready to share?
I’m not feeling well today, sorry. Need to stay in bed.
That was certainly the truth. She fired it off quickly before she could overthink it. Then, anticipating a follow-up, she added, I’ll text you in the next day or so when I’m feeling better.
That was good enough. That would let him know that she meant to get back to him, so he wouldn’t worry that she was trying to avoid him or anything—even though, if she was honest with herself, she was doing exactly that.
She put the phone on silent and dropped it into the drawer of her bedside table. If she kept getting texts from him, she knew she would feel compelled to answer them. This way, she would be able to pretend she just hadn’t heard anything from him at all.
Exhausted and overwhelmed, she cuddled up to Bruno.
It was next to impossible to believe just how much life had changed in the time since she had left this bed this morning. She had felt ill, yes, but she had never imagined that her illness was due to something that would turn her whole world upside down. And now she was forced to grapple with that.
One thing rang true through all the turmoil—she was going to keep the baby.
It wasn’t even a question. She had always wanted to become a mother someday.
This was the worst possible time for it to be happening, and she was just about as unprepared as it was possible for a person to be, but who knew whether she would ever get another chance?
Life had handed it to her now and she was going to accept it, regardless of how much it challenged her. Regardless of how difficult it was.
I’m going to be a mother.
And in the darkness of her overwhelmed heart, there was a tiny spark of joy, one that she was sure would eventually fan into a flame.
I’m going to have a baby.
She curled herself around that knowledge.
For now, for today, she would forget about everything else.
She would forget her tumultuous feelings about Elijah and the worry over what he would say when he found out about this.
She would forget about her career and the potential impact trying to manage a child would have on it.
She would just think about this one, simple, beautiful fact.
She was going to become a mother.
She closed her eyes and, incredibly—miraculously—felt herself begin to smile.