Chapter 31
Tallulah POV
The exhaust fan in the bathroom ceiling had an off-balance bearing, producing a high, metallic rattle that vibrated through the drywall into my skull.
I sat on the cold hexagonal floor tiles, my bare heels tucked against the baseboard beneath the radiator pipes, my knees pulled hard to my chest. The porcelain of the toilet bowl was ice against my right shoulder; my breath rose in faint, gray plumes in the unheated air.
On the white laminate rim of the sink, three inches above my head, two plastic wands lay side by side on a folded paper towel.
Beside my right foot, the screen of my phone was lit with a black digital clock face, counting down the seconds.
0:34.
0:33.
0:32.
A thick, sour wave of bile washed up into the back of my throat.
I swallowed it down, my tongue coated in the metallic taste of copper and cold tap water.
My teeth were clicking together, a fine, violent tremor shaking the muscles in my thighs, my fingernails biting through the thin flannel of my trousers into the skin of my shins.
My analytical mind, the part that had spent four years charting kinetic acceleration and statistical variance, tried to build a calculation.
A 0.3 percent false positive rate on immunochromatographic assays. A delayed cycle induced by psychological stress, nutritional deficits, and eighty hours of thesis drafting. A hormonal spike caused by caffeine-induced adrenal fatigue.
The numbers were clean. They were orderly.
And they were a pathetic, desperate lie.
0:12.
0:11.
0:10.
My carotid artery hammered against my trachea with a sickening, pneumatic force that made my vision pulse in time with the count. My ribs felt constricted, as if an iron strap were being cranked tight across my sternum.
0:03.
0:02.
0:01.
The phone vibrated.
The low, dull buzz against the ceramic tile sounded like an explosion in the small room.
* * *
I didn't move for five seconds.
The phone went dark, leaving only the sickly yellow glow of the overhead fluorescent tube reflecting off the chipped chrome faucet.
I reached out, planting both hands flat against the cold hexagonal tiles, and forced myself to stand.
My knees shook violently beneath my weight, the tendons behind my kneecaps buckling as my boots took the floor.
I grabbed the edge of the porcelain basin with both hands, my knuckles turning bone-white, holding myself upright as a sudden wave of dizziness tilted the room fifteen degrees to the right.
I leaned over the sink.
I looked down into the plastic wells.
On the digital test on the left, the black pixelated letters were locked, sharp, and permanent against the liquid crystal display:
PREGNANT / 2-3 WEEKS
On the rapid-response test on the right, two thick, crimson lines crossed the membrane, dark as fresh arterial blood, so bold and saturated they looked like they had been scored into the plastic with a hot iron.
A sharp, choked sound tore from my throat—a ragged, strangled gasp that knocked the rest of the oxygen out of my chest.
The room dropped into absolute, ringing silence.
The rattling exhaust fan, the drip of the faucet, the distant hum of campus snowplows on the access road—all of it vanished, swallowed by a deafening roar that filled my ears like rushing water.
My vision narrowed to a pinpoint. A cold, greasy sweat broke out along my hairline, soaking into my temples.
My right hand left the edge of the porcelain basin.
Slowly, involuntarily, driven by an instinct older than my degree, older than my fear, my trembling palm slid down the front of my sweater.
My fingers flattened over the soft curve of my lower abdomen, pressing through the wool and denim, resting over the dragging, fevered warmth deep behind my pelvic bone.
Twenty-two days.
Conceived at 11:45 PM on Friday, February 14, while seventy-mile-an-hour winds shook the timber rafters of Coast Stuart’s bedroom.
Conceived while his calloused hands pinned mine to the pillows, while his heavy athletic frame covered mine, while his voice broke against my ear, promising that I was his and he was mine forever.
A single, scalding tear broke from my lower lash, tracking down my cheek, splashing onto the plastic test on the counter.
The terror that had lived in my throat since yesterday morning—the memory of Arthur Cross’s stained teeth, the threats of the Boston Globe, the forty-thousand-dollar blackmail envelope—did not disappear.
It mutated.
It was overtaken by a sudden, ferocious surge of heat that bloomed behind my breastbone, spreading through every blood vessel in my body with concussive force.
It wasn't an abstract statistical event. It wasn't an administrative complication.
It was his child.
The baby of the man who had carried Julian into a hospital at seventeen. The baby of the man who had bought shortbread and pre-measured my tea at dawn. The baby of the fierce, broken enforcer who had looked down at me on that frozen ice sheet and whispered that he was done pretending.
My fingers curled against the denim of my trousers, holding my stomach with a desperate, unyielding grip that rooted my feet to the floorboards.
Nobody was going to touch this child.
Not Arthur Cross. Not the NCAA compliance board. Not the entire National Hockey League.
* * *
I reached out, turning the cold water knob on full blast.
The water gushed into the basin, freezing and clear. I plunged both hands into the stream, splashing the icy water over my burning face, scrubbing the salt of the tear from my cheek until the skin stung.
I dried my face with a coarse blue hand towel, dragging deep, deliberate breaths into my lungs until the dizziness receded and the static cleared from my vision.
I picked up the two tests from the paper towel.
Opening the linen closet, I pulled out a small, clean blue flannel handkerchief. I wrapped the plastic wands carefully within the soft folds, tying the corners together, and slid the package into the zippered interior breast pocket of my heavy olive-green winter coat.
I pulled the zipper shut. The weight of the tests rested directly over my heart, solid and immovable through the canvas.
I looked into the bathroom mirror.
My face was still pale, the dark shadows under my eyes stark beneath the fluorescent tube, but the hollow panic had vanished. My chin was tilted at that sharp, lethal forty-five-degree angle; my jaw was set with the same unyielding iron that Coast carried into the third period.
Arthur Cross thought I was an anchor dragging at Coast's skates.
He thought I was a frightened college girl who would pack her bags and run away to Saratoga to keep from being noticed.
He had no idea who he was dealing with.
I walked into the small living room of the flat.
On the kitchen counter, beneath my laptop, lay the manila envelope Arthur had dropped on my table yesterday morning—the photographs of Coast holding me, the copy of Corinne Vane's compliance grievance.
I picked up the envelope, slid it into my leather messenger bag, and slung the heavy strap across my chest.
Coast was at The Iron Foundry right now. He was in the private players' lounge, locked into pre-game quarantine for the noon walkthrough, taping his sticks, preparing to bleed for sixty minutes against Harvard.
He was going to hear the truth.
He was going to hear about his father's blackmail, and he was going to hear about the life growing beneath my heart.
We would face Vane together. We would face Boston together. If the league wanted to investigate, they could investigate, but I was not letting an extortionist butcher Coast’s draft standing from the shadows while I hid in an apartment bathroom.
I pulled on my heavy winter boots, zipped my coat to my chin, and grabbed my keys from the counter.
Outside the front door, the Adirondack morning was gray, bitter, and freezing, snow flurrying across the pine needles in quick, sharp gusts.
I stepped out onto the porch, locked the deadbolt behind me, and walked down the steps toward the arena, completely blind to the fact that across campus, the trap had already been sprung.