58. Allie
Allie
My period is late.
Not fashionably late, like showing up twenty minutes past the reservation time with an "Oops, traffic was terrible!" excuse. No, it’s ominously late. The kind of late that makes horror movie violins screech in the background.
And I am not happy about it.
No. I am full-on, DEFCON-1-level terrified.
Three months of marriage is not long enough for this. Sure, Rico and I have sex. A lot. Like, a lot a lot. But that’s just biology. There’s no deep, meaningful connection outside of our contractual obligation to tolerate one another. At least, that’s how he sees it.
Rico doesn’t talk. He doesn’t share. He is the epitome of mixed signals—one day, he pulls me into his orbit like I’m the missing puzzle piece to his existence, and the next, he’s back to robot mode.
And the second I get pregnant? Game over.
His job will be done, the contract fulfilled, and I’ll be gently (or not-so-gently) shoved back into my room.
Thanks for your service, Allie. Enjoy your lifetime membership to Single Motherhood.
I ignored the tardiness of it at first. No symptoms. Nothing.
Just stress, exhaustion, and that my body could just be screwing with me because, well, life.
But then this morning, before heading to work, I grabbed a pregnancy test. Just a precaution.
And then I called Kai and told him he was in charge tonight because if this test was positive, I was going to need a night off to fully process my impending doom.
There is no way I can go into work pretending I’m fine if that test tells me my uterus has decided to play host for the next nine months.
One, because I'd have to cut back my hours to accommodate my new reality, and two, because any progress I’ve made with Rico will be erased faster than my last attempt at online shopping when I realized my credit card bill existed.
Time has flown by. Days have bled into weeks, then months, and somehow, here we are—three months married.
It doesn’t feel that long. Maybe because I’ve been too busy playing marital gymnastics—ducking his avoidance, sidestepping my own delusions, and trying (failing) to convince myself I don’t care about him beyond what’s necessary.
I know this marriage isn’t real. It never will be. But the realization that one stupid little test could reset everything back to zero? Yeah, that makes me want to scream into a pillow.
No one knows. Not even Violet or Sienna. Because if I told them, they’d be excited. And I’d be sitting there, full of dread, reminding them I am nothing more than a womb in this scenario. And I’m not ready for that. Not now. Preferably never when the reality of it all sinks in.
So here I am, in Rico’s bathroom—our bathroom, technically, because I moved my stuff in out of sheer spite and refused to move it back—staring at a pregnancy test like some cursed relic, afraid to even pick it up and look into the screen like it will doom me for good.
Because, apparently, this tiny little stick holds an outrageous amount of power over my life.
The damn thing is just sitting there, mocking me.
I set the timer on my phone. Two minutes. The slowest, most excruciating two minutes of my life.
Two minutes to seal my fate. Or doom. Depending on your perspective.
I stare between the test and my phone like they’re dueling executioners. And the worst part? I have no one to wait with. No one sitting beside me, holding my hand, cracking jokes to lighten the mood.
In a normal marriage, wouldn’t the wife tell her husband she might be pregnant? Wouldn’t they wait together? Their voices thick with emotion, their hands tangled as they stare down at the test like it holds the secret to the universe?
That’s what I always imagined.
That’s what I wanted.
But here I am, alone in a bathroom, gripping the counter like it's my last line of defense.
I hover my finger over my group chat with Sienna and Violet. The Queens, because obviously, the Bennetti brothers have their own little group chat, and Sienna declared ours infinitely superior.
I should tell them. I need to tell them.
I type out a message—because if anyone can talk me off the ledge, it’s them—but before I can hit send, my phone timer blares in my face.
Time’s up.
I take a breath, steadying myself.
One second.
Two.
Three.
I glance at the test.
Not pregnant.
Two words that a relieved sigh and a celebratory fist pump should follow, maybe even a shot of tequila. Instead, hot, stinging tears blur my vision, my stomach sinks like I just free-fell off a skyscraper, and my heart is doing this weird, fluttery thing that’s definitely not excitement.
I should be relieved. Thrilled. Jumping for joy. Hello, I'm not a walking womb.
Instead, I feel like a failure.
We’ve been married for three months. Three months of daily—sometimes multiple times a day—activities that should have resulted in at least something by now. I mean, if teenagers in the backseat of a Honda Civic can get knocked up after one bad decision, how the hell am I still at zero?
This was different. This was hope. That stupid, deceitful emotion that always ends in disappointment. Had I not pathetically let myself believe—just for a second—that I might actually be pregnant, I wouldn’t be sitting here feeling like someone just sucker-punched my uterus.
Am I sad it’s negative?
I don’t know. While I took the test, I wanted anything but "positive" to pop on the screen, but now that I know it's negative, I'm disappointed. If that's not an emotional whirlwind, I'm not sure what is.
All I know is that my hands are shaking as I grip the test, and before I can even process why this feels like the world’s cruelest joke, I collapse onto the edge of the tub, curling in on myself as silent sobs turn into loud, gasping ones.
What if I can’t get pregnant? What if I’m broken? Young and healthy doesn’t mean a damn thing if my body has other plans.
And what then?
Rico married me for one reason. One. And if I can’t give him that? He’ll leave. He’ll walk away without a backward glance because that’s the logical thing to do, and Rico is nothing if not brutally logical.
He didn’t ask me to marry him. He signed a contract. He made a deal. A transaction. And if the goods don’t deliver?
I’m expendable.
A womb. That’s all I am. And somehow, that realization cracks something inside me, sending more tears streaming down my face, because the reality is I'm nothing to him, and yet I know that I'm in love with him.
Flaws and all. But knowing that an outcome of a test will derail our progress or seal us together forever hurts more.
It hurts in every scenario. Whether I'm knocked up or turns out I can't be.
Rico doesn't love me and never will. He won't have the same feelings.
He won't feel hollow at the idea of shoving me out of his room.
He doesn't feel a fucking thing because that's who he is.
The bathroom is silent except for my pathetic sniffles, and I think I have the freedom to wallow in my existential crisis for at least a few more minutes, but then—
The pregnancy test is plucked from my fingers.
I let out a scream so impressive, I’m sure the neighbors are considering calling 911.
Standing in front of me, in all his tall, brooding, emotionally unavailable glory, is Rico.
Holding my test. Reading my test.
My first instinct is to snatch it back, but my limbs are apparently non-functional, so instead, I just sit there, looking up at him with wide, bloodshot eyes, waiting for him to say something.
He doesn’t.
Instead, his dark eyes flick to the single line. The one that means not pregnant. His brows lift slightly, then his gaze shifts back to me. “What’s this?”
I blink. “A pregnancy test.”
His lips twitch. “I gathered that. Why are you taking it?”
I sniff, because I’m one sob away from needing a hydration IV. “I was late. I figured…maybe…” I wave my hand in the air like poof, baby magic, but then shake my head. “Doesn’t matter. It’s negative.”
I push to my feet, reaching for the test because, hello, I can dispose of my own shattered dreams, thank you very much. But before I can grab it, Rico chucks it into the trash.
Then he does the last thing I expect.
He reaches out, wipes away a tear with his thumb.
My breath catches.
I’ve been married to this man for ninety-something days, and we have not once sat down and shared a meal together outside of the required weekly ones which are almost never now, and Sunday dinners.
He barely talks to me unless it’s during sex.
And now he’s standing here, looking at me like I’m some puzzle piece he’s trying to fit into his meticulously crafted world.
“Why are you crying?”
Oh, good lord. Does he want the full list? Because I have a list. And if I start rattling off all the reasons I’m currently holding it together with emotional duct tape, he’s going to need to clear his schedule for the next forty-eight hours.
So I opt for the one excuse I know will satisfy him without requiring too much emotional effort on his part.
“I failed. I’m not pregnant.”
His brows pinch together, arms crossing over his bare chest, and great, now I’m distracted by the sheer injustice of the universe that a man like him gets to look like that while ruining my life. “You didn’t fail.”
“I didn’t give you what you wanted. That’s the only reason we’re here.” I don't even care if my voice is bitter. It's the truth, and if anyone can appreciate a hard, cold truth, it's him.
And that’s when it happens.
Rico steps forward, his hands cupping my damp cheeks, and before I can figure out what the hell he’s doing, his lips are on mine.
Not rough. Not possessive. Not a distraction tactic.
It’s…soft. Deliberate. Unreal.
We’ve kissed plenty, but never like this. And for the first few seconds, I stand there, frozen, trying to figure out if this is some elaborate Inception-level dream.
But then his hands move, his grip tightens, and suddenly, soft turns into something else entirely. Something hotter. Hungrier. His fingers tug my shirt up, my hands move to his bare chest, and I swear I can feel his heartbeat hammering beneath my palm.
Which is ridiculous because Rico doesn’t do that. His heart doesn’t race at the idea of me.
Mine, on the other hand? Full-blown cha-cha.
His lips leave mine, trailing lower—over my jaw, my throat, my collarbone. Then he’s on his knees, his mouth ghosting over my stomach as he grips my hips, kissing lower as he drags my pants down.
I gasp, fingers tangling in his thick hair. “Rico, obviously I’m not ovulating. I won’t get pregnant if we have sex right now.”
His lips curve against my hipbone as he looks up at me, dark eyes flashing.
“I know.”
And then he wrecks me.