14. The Mother Of All Plot Twists #2
On my way out I accidentally kick over the small garbage can underneath he sink and a flurry of tissues, cotton balls, makeup wipes, and small cosmetic boxes fall on the floor.
Empty eye cream, protective lip-gloss wrapper, and gold eyepatches.
I bend down to gather it all up and toss back into the bin when a makeup wipe reveals a crushed box and the pink stick protruding from its top.
My heart stops completely.
I can’t keep my hands steady long enough to grab the box and tear it open. The pink stick slips out with ease and lands in the palm of my hand. I turn the pregnancy test over and read the results.
It’s positive.
* * *
Dahlia
When I woke up this morning, I really thought I was going to have a good day.
I got up, took an everything shower, went through the agony of washing, combing, and styling my hair, and finally tried out the new sea algae body oil I spent a disgusting amount of money on last month.
Unfortunately, it’s amazing. Disrespectfully so.
My skin is soft and hydrated and glowy and smells phenomenal.
I could sniff myself all day and it’s almost worth the seventy-eight dollars I spent.
I smell delicious, my hair looks fabulous, I’m in comfy cashmere loungewear, and I thought to myself you know what would make this Saturday morning even better?
Pancakes. Banana pancakes to be precise.
So I waltzed myself on down to the kitchen, started whipping up pancake batter, and fell into easy conversation with Lyss and Dona Ana. A normal morning like any other.
Until Karina showed up, which wouldn’t have been so bad except a few seconds later, Diego arrived. Completely unannounced and unexpected.
“Um,” Karina awkwardly clears her throat and gestures vaguely. “Diego’s here.”
“I can see that.” I say.
Dona Ana lets out a little gasp and rushes to meet him. “Diego, ?mi nino!”
He manages to smile at least for her. They embrace tightly and he kisses the top of her head.
While the two of them get reacquainted, Lyss and I make eyes at each other from across the kitchen island.
“Awkward!” she mouths.
“I’m, um,” Karina doesn’t know what to do with herself. “I have to use the bathroom.”
“You don’t need to ask permission.” I say.
Lyss whacks my bicep with a kitchen towel.
Karina scurries under the archway leading to the guest bathroom just off from the kitchen. Dona Ana and Diego sit in the breakfast nook and exchange words before the alarm on the counter sounds. She jumps up from her seat. “Ay, olvidé la ropa.”
“Laundry room’s downstairs.” I rinse my hands out in the sink. “She was washing some heavy quilts, why don’t you go down and help?”
Diego meets my gaze and acknowledges me with a tilt of the head but that’s it. His behavior stings a little. We haven’t been in the best place this past year but he’s acting so strangely. We’re in my home and he hasn’t said a single word in greeting.
“Brrr,” Lyss shivers and rubs her arms. “Feels like the North Pole in here.”
I open my mouth to respond when Alejandro enters the room.
“Thank God,” my best friend says in greeting. “I was really hoping this morning would get worse!”
I know the second I look at him that something’s wrong.
Lyss crinkles her nose. “Gee, tough crowd.”
She snatches a banana off the counter and walks out.
“I’m going upstairs, call me when breakfast is ready!”
Alejandro wanders further into the kitchen but waits until Lyss is gone before closing the distance between us.
“What—”
He takes the spatula and frying pan out of my hands and sets them down on the counter.
“Oh—oh! Alex!”
He sweeps me off my feet and into his arms. He holds me so tightly I can feel his heart rioting inside his chest and with every beat, it crashes into mine.
My slippers fall off and he buries his face in my hair, inhaling deeply, as one arm tightens around my waist and the other cradles the back of my neck.
After a moment he finally sets me down and before I can get a word in, his lips are on mine.
The kiss is deep but gentle and still manages to take my breath away.
He kisses each corner of my mouth, both cheeks, the tip of my nose, and each eyelid as they flutter close.
“Um, Alex,” I whisper. “There are other people here.”
“How long have you known?”
Delirious from the heat of his kiss, I struggle to get my wits about me. “What?”
His voice is strained; as callused and gentle as the hands he uses to hold me. “How long have you known?” his arms tighten around me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you?” I echo. “Tell you what?”
“Oh my God,” he cups my face between his hands and tucks stray curls behind my ears. “I can’t believe it. I mean, I shouldn’t be surprised, the last thing we’ve been is careful.”
I frown and shake my head. “I’m so confused.”
“The pregnancy test, Dahlia. I found it in the bathroom. Well, not found.” He corrects. “I was looking for you and I accidentally kicked over the little trash can you have near the sink.”
The romantic bubble I was floating around in for the last two minutes pops instantly.
“Pregnancy test?” I pull away to look at him. “Alex, I’m not pregnant.”
His arms weaken around me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that test wasn’t mine. I’m not—I mean, I can’t be, I’ve been on the pill and—” I wince. “God this is so uncomfortable.”
Alejandro leans against the kitchen counter for support. “Oh…”
My stomach twists into knots. “Alejandro, you know, even if I was, because of the timing there’d be a possibility…
a small, very small one of course because I…
Rian he always…and with you, I never…” I drag a hand down the length of my face.
There is no humiliation greater than this.
I want to crawl into a hole and die. “All this to say, if I was pregnant, which I am not, there’d be a chance it wasn’t yours. ”
Now this whole conversation has me paranoid because even though I take my birth control pill religiously at the same time every day, it’s been made very clear that one can never be too careful.
I wasn’t with Rian and Alejandro at the same time but the window between them was a small one and while I’m embarrassed to admit it, I have to be realistic.
Nothing outside of menopause is a hundred percent at preventing pregnancy and even that has its exceptions which means I have to be far more careful going forward.
Alejandro frowns and says, “Of course it’d still be mine. It’d be coming from you.”
He’s so raw and sincere when he looks at me. It takes my breath away.
“Alejandro…” my throat tightens. “I do love you. Madly. I hope you know that.”
“Hm,” his mind is a million miles away. “If it wasn’t yours than whose was it?”
“This house is full of women. It could be anyone’s.”
“Karina?”
I shake my head. “She hasn’t even been here twelve hours. Besides, Lyss is the one always in and out of my room.”
He lifts a brow. “Do you think she and Rian…?”
“I don’t know. Maybe?”
“She said nothing has happened between them. Do you think she’s telling the truth?”
Someone enters the kitchen and our heads snap around. Lyss looks up and her eyes widen the second she realizes she’s being watched like a hawk.
Her footfalls slow as she reaches the trashcan and tosses the banana peel inside. “Why are you guys staring at me?”
“Are you pregnant?” I ask.
“Pregnant?”
Two voices overlap at once. Karina reappears and I remember she was in the bathroom a moment ago. Her face blanches. “Who’s pregnant?”
“Alyssa.” Alejandro says.
My best friend’s jaw drops both in shock and disgust. “Ew, no I’m not!”
“Well, it’s not Dona Ana.” I say, stating the obvious.
As if on cue, she passes through the hall balancing a basket of laundry on her hip while Diego follows close behind.
He parts ways with her and joins us in the kitchen.
Immediately, his blue eyes ping-pong between four different faces, each one bearing varied expressions of horror, shock, confusion, and perhaps a hint of entertainment on my end.
“It’s not mine!” she insists. “That’s tantamount to a teen pregnancy. I’m not even thirty!”
“Okay, well, there’s a positive pregnancy test in my bathroom right now and if it’s not mine and it’s not yours then whose—”
“It’s mine.”
Four necks break in tandem as we swivel in the direction of the disembodied voice.
Karina can barely look any of us in the eye. “The test is mine. I’m pregnant.”