Chapter Eleven Vivien
He ran toward the danger.
Four hundred people went up that hill and Thoran went the other way. I stood on the ridge with my hand knotted in the back of Drew's shirt and watched a man I have known for a few weeks walk into black smoke like it was a job that needed doing.
Because it was. Because that's who he is. Thoran is a hero. This town needs him. A man like that shouldn't be tied down to anybody.
"Mom." Drew taps on the bathroom door. "It's time to go."
"I know, bud." My voice comes out level. It takes absolutely everything I have. "We'll leave in a minute."
My heart is flapping like a bird against a window as I wait for the results. But deep down, I already know what's coming.
It isn't nausea that gives it away. It isn't cravings either. It's that I have been here before. Two pink lines turned my whole life upside down once already. Now here I am on a Thursday morning, doing it all over again… I think.
Last time, I was determined to do things the right way. We got married. We bought the house. We filled it with all the things I thought we needed. None of it mattered. I ended up with Drew on my own anyway.
At least this time I know what to expect. If I'm pregnant.
In my gut, I already know I am.
I pace the tiny bathroom. Three steps, turn, three steps.
I count the yellow tiles behind the mirror and notice the way they meet the ceiling in a crooked line.
Whoever laid them gave up somewhere around the third row from the top, but I suppose it adds character.
I pick my book up off the back of the toilet.
Then I put it right back down without opening it.
It's amazing, the way time can shrink and stretch at the same time when your whole world is about to get rocked.
"Mom, can I eat, then?" Drew's voice punches through the door. "I thought we were supposed to be on the road already. Can I have beef jerky or an apple?"
"Yes. Have—" I press my palm flat against the wood. "Have whatever you want."
A pause. "What about your Trader Joe’s frozen pizza?"
"Sure. Yes. Have whatever."
It comes out nearly a bark, but it works. Drew lets out a whoop of pure victory and I hear his feet pound off down the hall. I let myself slide down the inside of the door until I'm sitting on the bath mat with my knees up.
Then I make a plan. Because that's what I do.
If I'm pregnant, I am not pushing Thoran into anything. I did that once. It doesn't get you anywhere.
Drew's father telegraphed his indifference from the very first week. It didn’t stop me from spending nine years trying to convince him to be a dad, a husband, a partner, or at the very least a friend to me.
It didn’t matter. It was nine years of hauling a man toward a life he never once said he wanted, and it turns out he knew his own limits from the start.
I was the only one refusing to hear him.
I won't do that again. I won't spend one single day of the rest of my life convincing somebody to want us.
So Thoran doesn't have to be involved.
I don't need anything from him. I have a business with my name on it. I have Jules, and a phone that rings, and a town that waves at me on the street. I can do this. I have done this.
He's off the hook before he even knows he's on it.
An eternity later, the timer on my phone goes off. The little chime is so ordinary it's obscene. The whole world stretches and goes slow around me as I pick the test up off the edge of the sink. I turn it over in my hands and hold my breath.
Pregnant
Not two faint lines to squint at. Not a maybe. The word, spelled out, in a plain gray window.
I look at myself in the mirror. “So it’s confirmed. Okay, that’s what we knew would happen. You have a plan. Right now, it’s business as usual.” I pull my shoulders back and open the bathroom door. “Okay Drew, we’re heading out.”
I don't do it on purpose. But the next three days become something of a disappearing act on my part.
Drew goes to his dad's for a rare long weekend. We arranged it three weeks ago and the timing feels like destiny. I hug him at the curb and wave until the truck turns at the light. Then I stand there a lot longer than I need to.
From there, I put my head down and I go to work.
I don't tell Thoran. Mostly because I don't see him. He texts twice. I answer both times, and both answers are true, even if they are the two smallest true things I can find.
I dissolve into the rhythm of the shop. Wash, dry, brush, clip, nails, ears, next. A golden doodle with a mat behind both ears. A terrier who bites and knows he's charming. A collie whose owner talks for the entire forty-five minutes and needs nothing from me but a mm-hm.
The saw runs across the street and I don't look up. I get lost in the pages of my books. I make it through seventy-two hours this way.
But the following day is the grand opening of the firehouse. It’s finished enough to cut the ribbon and dedicate the plaque. Half the town has already called about it. Jules has left me a voicemail in her professional voice and a second one in her real one. There's a banner over Main.
My absence will be noticed and it will be noticed loudly. It doesn't matter one bit.
There’s no way I can go.
I can't stand out in front of that building and smile up at him while he watches his life's dream come true. Not while I'm carrying the thing that's going to take it away from him.