26. Mia
Mia
The test is on the edge of the sink and I’m sitting on the bathroom floor with my back against the tub and my knees pulled up to my chest.
I already know what it says. I’ve known since the third morning I woke up before my alarm with my stomach turning over, since the coffee started tasting like the bottom of a copper pot, since I stood in a courtroom gripping the chair arms and told myself it was stress, told myself it was exhaustion, told myself it was weeks of dealing with everything related to Reed.
The second line is pink and clear and not even close to ambiguous.
I sit with it for a while. The cracked tile by the door.
The lemon cleaning spray smell I put everywhere when I need something to do with my hands.
The dripping tap I’ve been meaning to fix since February.
All the small unfinished things that are mine, entirely mine, no contract attached, and no countdown running.
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes.
The buzzer goes at ten past nine. I texted Juno from the cab, told her I was going home and buying a pregnancy test, and asked her to come. She didn’t reply, which means she was already putting her jacket on.
Juno is in the doorway with a container of soup in one hand. She doesn’t ask and simply comes in, puts the soup on the stove, sits on the couch beside me, and looks at the test still in my hand.
“Okay,” she says.
That’s all. She doesn’t ask how I feel, what comes next, whether I’ve told him, or why I’m home. She just sits there in silence with her shoulder against mine. I last about forty seconds before the first sob gets out.
It has no dignity in it, just the crying that shakes your whole ribcage and doesn’t care what sounds come out.
Juno puts her hand on my back and keeps it there, her palm moving in slow steady passes, not saying anything, not trying to make it smaller, just there the way she’s always been there when things go wrong.
I cry until my throat burns and my eyes feel like they’ve been turned inside out and there’s nothing left to get out.
I’m furious at my body for the timing. For doing this with Reed Hawthorne, of all the people it could have chosen.
I’m furious at myself for not seeing it coming, which is a lie, because I saw it coming every single time and I was too busy pulling him closer to do anything useful about it, like remember that contraception exists, like act like a grown adult instead of a teenager who couldn’t keep her hands off him long enough to think straight.
The pill stopped being a priority when the last relationship ended. I didn’t think to start again.
I’m furious at Reed.
The furious at Reed part is the worst part, because it isn’t clean.
It has wanting mixed into it, and the wanting is the problem, because you can’t be this angry at someone you don’t care about.
If I didn’t care, Saturday morning would have just been a door closing.
Instead, I’m still standing in front of it.
“He asked me if I planned it,” I tell Juno. “Like I engineered a pregnancy to change a custody ruling or trap him into a relationship.”
Juno’s hand on my back goes still for a second, then starts moving again.
“Fucker,” she says.
“After all of it,” I sob. “After everything we’ve been through, everything we’ve done, and everything we’ve talked about…”
“Asshole,” she says.
“And I still want him,” I say, which is the most humiliating true thing I’ve said out loud in years. “I’m furious at him and I still want him and I don’t know what to do with that.”
Juno doesn’t answer for a long moment. Her hand keeps moving on my back.
“You don’t have to know right now,” she says. “Focus on getting through today first.”
I pull back, wipe my face with the back of my hand, and look at the test on the cushion beside me. Pink line, clear as anything, not going anywhere.
“I’m keeping it,” I say. A fact I’m saying out loud for the first time.
Juno nods, not looking one bit surprised.
“Have you eaten?” she asks.
“No.”
She gets up and goes to the stove to heat up the soup. I sit on my couch and put my hand flat on my stomach.
I’m twenty-eight years old. My bakery is three weeks from its next rent payment.
My fake engagement expires in three days.
The man who is the father of whatever is currently making my coffee taste like copper accused me of using him.
I don’t regret walking out, but I also miss his apartment. I miss Harper and… him.
Juno brings me a bowl of soup and sits back down.
My phone buzzes on the cushion.
It’s Celeste. There’s no message, just a photo.
Reed is at a podium. I don’t remember anything scheduled for today, no press conference Celeste would have built a briefing document for. His jacket is on but his tie is crooked and his hair is a mess, and he just looks wrong, like someone pulled him out of bed and pointed him at a microphone.
The headline across the bottom of the image reads: CEO TO ADDRESS CONTRACT SCANDAL.
I stare at it for a long time. Juno reads it over my shoulder.
“Huh,” she says. “Where’s the TV remote?”