12. Elise
— ? —
Elise
The words just hang there in the dark.
“What do you mean, it broke?” My voice sounds far away, like someone else is speaking.
“There’s a tear.” He’s sitting up now, examining the evidence. “Near the base. I didn’t feel anything. I only noticed when I…” He ruffles his hair. “Fuck. Elise, I’m so sorry.”
“You came inside me.”
“Yes.”
A baby. We might have just made a baby. I feel the thought arrive and keep arriving.
“Okay.” I sit up, pulling the sheet around myself. “Okay. We need Plan B.”
“The pharmacy in town, it’s twenty minutes away on a good day, and the roads are flooded.” Rowan’s voice is tight with barely-contained panic. “I don’t know if we can even get there.”
“Then we figure it out in the morning. Mabel might have something, or know where we can get it.” I’m surprised by how calm I sound, given that my heart is trying to beat its way out of my chest. “Panicking won’t help.”
“How are you not panicking?”
“I’m panicking plenty. I’m just doing it quietly.” I reach out, take his hand. “We’ll handle this. Whatever happens.”
“Whatever happens.” He repeats the words like he’s testing them, trying to believe them. “Elise, if you’re… if we…”
“Let’s not go there yet. Not until we have to.”
He nods, but his face is pale in the dim light, his jaw clenched tight.
We don’t sleep. We lie there in the dark, not touching, both of us lost in our own spiraling thoughts. Every time I close my eyes, I see timelines branching: one where this is a false alarm and we laugh about it later, one where everything changes forever.
I’m not ready for everything to change.
But life doesn’t care about ready.
***
Morning comes gray and grim, the rain still falling.
Rowan is up before me, already dressed, already on his phone trying to figure out how to get Plan B when the nearest pharmacy might as well be on the moon. I hear him talking to Mabel, his voice low and urgent.
I shower and dress mechanically, moving through the motions while my mind races. Calculations I shouldn’t be making, when was my last period, where am I in my cycle, what are the actual odds, chase each other in circles.
When I come downstairs, Rowan is waiting with coffee and news.
“Mabel’s husband has a four-wheel drive. He’s going to try to make it to town.” He hands me a mug. “Should be back in a few hours.”
“Thank you.”
“I should be apologizing, not being thanked. This is my fault…”
“It’s not your fault. Condoms break. It happens.” I wrap my hands around the warm ceramic. “We took precautions. Sometimes precautions fail.”
“You’re being remarkably calm about this.”
“Because one of us has to be, and you look like you’re about to vibrate out of your skin.”
He laughs, short and humorless. “Fair point.”
Simon appears in the kitchen doorway, and we both go silent. He looks between us, takes in Rowan’s tense posture, my death grip on the coffee mug, and his eyes narrow.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” Rowan says. “Just talking.”
“You two are always ‘just talking.’” Simon’s voice drips with contempt. “Must be nice, having so much to discuss with my wife.”
“Soon-to-be-ex-wife,” I correct flatly. “And what Rowan and I discuss is none of your business.”
“It’s my business when it’s happening under my roof.”
“Our grandmother’s roof, actually. She left it to the three of us, me, you, and Thatcher.” Rowan’s tone is dangerously calm. “So unless you want to have a conversation about exactly how much standing you have to police anyone’s behavior, I’d suggest you back off.”
Simon’s face reddens. For a moment, I think he’s going to swing. His hands are clenched, his whole body vibrating with barely-contained rage.
He says nothing at all, which from Simon is worse, and storms back upstairs.
The slam of his door echoes through the cabin.
“Well,” I say. “That’s going to be a fun conversation later.”
“He can wait.” Rowan moves closer, his hand finding mine. “Right now, you’re what matters.”
***
The Plan B arrives three hours later.
Mabel’s husband is a weathered farmer named Ed who doesn’t ask questions, just hands over the pharmacy bag with a gruff nod and drives away before we can properly thank him. Small towns, I think. Everyone knows everyone’s business, but no one makes you explain it.
I take the pill in the kitchen, washing it down with the last of my cold coffee. Rowan watches me swallow it with an expression that’s equal parts relief and lingering worry.
“Now we wait,” I say.
“How long?”
“A few weeks. Until my period either comes or doesn’t.”
“A few weeks.” He sinks into a chair, rubbing his face with both hands. “I don’t know if I can handle a few weeks of not knowing.”
“Neither can I. But we don’t have a choice.”
He’s quiet for a moment. Then: “Elise. If you are… if it turns out that…”
“Don’t.” I hold up a hand. “I can’t think about that yet. It’s too big.”
“I just need you to know that I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t run. If it came to that.”
“I know.” And I do, strangely. Whatever his faults, Rowan isn’t the type to disappear when things get hard. “But let’s not borrow trouble. One crisis at a time.”
“Right. One crisis at a time.”
***
The waiting is its own special torture.
Days blur together in a haze of rain and tension. Simon continues to sulk. Rowan continues to hover. I continue to sort through endless boxes of photographs and books and kitchen implements, trying to distract myself from the question mark hanging over everything.
I catch myself reading into every twinge, every cramp, every moment of fatigue. Is that my period coming, or something else? Is that nausea from stress, or from something growing inside me?
Rowan handles it by being aggressively present. He brings me tea without being asked. Sits with me while I sort through boxes, not touching, just there. Tells me stories about his grandmother, about growing up in this cabin, about anything except the thing we’re both thinking about.
It’s sweet. It’s also maddening.
“You don’t have to keep hovering,” I tell him on day five.
“I’m not hovering. I’m being supportive.”
“You’re hovering. Every time I go to the bathroom, you look at me like you’re waiting for a verdict.”
“Sorry.” He has the grace to look embarrassed. “I’m just… worried.”
“I know. But your worry isn’t making this easier. It’s just adding pressure to an already pressurized situation.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Act normal. Whatever that means anymore.” I sigh. “Talk to me about something other than this. Remind me that life exists outside of pregnancy scares and broken condoms.”
“Okay.” He thinks for a moment. “Did I ever tell you about the time Simon and I got lost in these woods for six hours?”
“No.”
“I was twelve, he was eight. We decided we were going to be explorers. Packed peanut butter sandwiches and walked straight into the forest without telling anyone.” He smiles at the memory. “Our grandmother was furious. Our mother was hysterical. And Simon blamed the whole thing on me, of course.”
“Of course.”
“He told everyone I was the one who suggested it. Who insisted we keep going when we should have turned back.” Rowan shakes his head. “I was too surprised to argue. It was the first time I realized he’d throw me under the bus to save himself.”
“That sounds like Simon.”
“It’s always been like that. Simon does something wrong, Rowan takes the blame. Simon wants something, Rowan steps aside.” His expression shifts, something darker flickering behind his eyes. “I got so used to it, I stopped questioning it. Just accepted that was how things worked.”
“Until?”
“Until you.” He meets my eyes. “You’re the first thing I haven’t stepped aside for.”
That lands somewhere I’m not ready for. I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say anything, just reach out and squeeze his hand.
It’s not a promise. But it’s something.
***
Day Ten
I wake up to cramping.
For a moment, I lie perfectly still, afraid to move, afraid to hope. Then I slip out of bed and pad to the bathroom.
My period. Five days late, but here.
The relief is so intense I have to sit down on the toilet lid, my head in my hands. Not pregnant. Not dealing with that particular complication. Not facing a future I wasn’t ready to face.
I should be celebrating. And I am, mostly.
But there’s something else there too. Something that feels almost like disappointment.
Which is insane. Completely insane. I didn’t want this. I’m not ready for this. A baby with a man I’ve been sleeping with for barely a week would have been a disaster of epic proportions.
So why does part of me feel like I’ve lost something?
I push the feeling down. Bury it deep. Focus on the relief.
When I emerge from the bathroom, Rowan is sitting on my bed, his expression anxious.
“Well?”
“False alarm.” I try to smile. “Crisis averted.”
The relief that floods his face is immediate and overwhelming. He stands, crosses to me, pulls me into his arms.
“Thank god,” he breathes into my hair. “Thank god.”
“Yeah.” I let myself sink into him. “Thank god.”
We stand there for a long time, wrapped around each other, letting the tension of the past ten days slowly drain away.
“Are you okay?” he asks finally. “You seem… I don’t know. Quiet.”
“I’m still deciding how I feel.”
“And what are the finalists?”
“Complicated.” I shift so I can see his face. “I felt disappointed. When I realized I wasn’t pregnant. Just for a second.”
“Disappointed?”
“I know. It doesn’t make sense. I didn’t want a baby. Not now, not like this.” I shake my head. “But part of me had started imagining it. What it might be like. And now that it’s not happening, I feel like I lost something I never actually had.”
Rowan’s expression softens. “That’s not crazy, Elise. That’s human.”
“It feels crazy.”
“A lot of things feel crazy that aren’t.” He cups my face in his hands. “You’ve been through a lot. Your emotions are going to be all over the place. That’s allowed.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Nobody likes feeling out of control.” He presses a kiss to my temple. “But you’re going to be okay. We’re going to be okay.”
I want to believe him. Want to trust that he’s right.
But the pregnancy scare has shaken something loose inside me. Reminded me how quickly things can change, how little control we actually have over our own lives.
And it’s made me realize that I still don’t know what this thing with Rowan actually is. What it means. Whether it can survive outside the pressure cooker of this cabin.
“Rowan,” I say. “We need to talk.”