Chapter 2 #2
Followed by the morning I woke up naked next to Z in bed, with him looking so happy, like everything was finally right in the world.
Ximena’s watching me with way too much understanding in her eyes. “Harper.”
“Fine. Turn around.” I yank my pants down and sit on the toilet, hands shaking so badly I almost drop the test. “But this is stupid. I’m not pregnant. I have an IUD. This is just—it’s just stress or food poisoning or—”
I squeeze my eyes shut, do what I need to do with the test, then set it on the edge of the sink.
“How long does it take?” I’m washing my hands, not looking at it.
“Three minutes.” Ximena’s leaning against the door, arms crossed. “But sometimes they show up faster.”
“Well, I’m not looking until—”
“Harper.”
Something in her voice makes me look up. She’s staring at the test on the sink, her face gone pale.
“What?” my voice comes out sharp. Scared. “What is it?”
“You should look.”
“Ximena, just tell me—”
“Look at the fucking test, Harper.”
I grab it with shaking hands, holding it up to the dim bathroom light.
Two lines.
Clear as day.
Positive.
“No.” The word comes out strangled, and I’m still shaking my head. I can’t be. “No, that’s—that’s wrong. Those things give false positives all the time, right? Right?”
But even as I’m saying it, I’m thinking about the nausea. The exhaustion. The way coffee—my favorite thing in the universe—has made me want to vomit for the past week.
The way my period… when was my last period? I’ve been so busy working doubles, crashing into bed exhausted every night, and trying not to think about Caleb or the life I left behind. When was—
Two months.
Oh fuck.
“I’m going to be sick again.”
I turn back to the toilet just in time, retching up what little water I managed to drink outside. Ximena’s there, holding my hair back like we’re best friends instead of just housemates who happen to work together.
“It’s okay,” she murmurs. “It’s okay. We’ll figure this out.”
“Figure what out?” I spit, then wipe my mouth with toilet paper. “I’m eighteen, living in a trailer, working at a taqueria, and I’m—” I can’t even say it. “This isn’t real. This can’t be real.”
A sharp knock on the door makes us both jump.
“Harp?” Z’s voice is muffled but clear. “You okay in there?”
Ximena and I exchange looks. Her eyes ask: Do you want me to tell him?
I shake my head frantically. Not yet. Not until I—
But Z knows me too well and for too long.
“Harper, open the Goddamn door or I’m kicking it in.”
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, but I unlock it.
He barges in like he owns the place, and it’s suddenly very fucking cramped with three people in this tiny bathroom. His eyes scan me—taking in my pale face, my shaking hands—and then land on the pregnancy test I’m still clutching like it might bite me.
“What’s that?”
“Z—”
But he’s already grabbing it from my hand, and I watch his face as he reads it.
Watch the confusion shift to shock, then him just totally blanking out while his eyes dart around the bricks on the far wall like they do when he’s trying to figure out how to fight a final boss on a video game, then to something that looks almost like—
Satisfaction?
“Holy shit.” His voice cracks. “Holy shit, Harp, we made a baby!”
And just like that, my worst nightmare gets even worse.
Because Z’s smiling. Smiling. Like this is good news.
Like we’re some normal couple who planned this. Like we’re not two broke kids barely surviving in a city that doesn’t give a fuck about us.
Not to mention the elephant in the room, the very giant elephant in the very miniature room.
Two months.
I don’t know that much about pregnancy math, but if I try to think about the last time I had a period, it might’ve been a little longer than two months…
Caleb’s face flashes through my mind.
And the ghostly feel of his arms wrapped around me that haunts my dreams. The way he’d hold me so tight, refusing to let me go even after we finished, stroking my hair while I closed my eyes and both of us just breathed, and I listened to the strong beat of his heartbeat through his broad chest and felt so Goddamn safe and—
I pull away from Z with a sharp exhale, heart feeling like it’s cracking in two. “We don’t know who—”
My eyes search back and forth between his, and I see the moment I see the moment it lands, because he swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.
“—who the father is,” he finishes for me. His eyes go a little dark as he says it.
“Ay cabrón…” Ximena whispers. “Maybe I’ll leave the two of you alone for a minute. I’m just gonna—” She gestures vaguely toward the door. “I’ll tell Dani you need to go home early. Take the rest of the day.”
She squeezes my shoulder once before slipping out, leaving me alone with Z in a bathroom the size of a shoebox, holding a positive pregnancy test and trying not to hyperventilate.
“Say something,” I whisper.
Z’s staring at the test in his hand like it holds the answers to the universe. When he finally looks up at me, his eyes are wet.
“I want it to be ours,” he says quietly. “I want—” His voice breaks. “Fuck, Harp. I want this to be ours.”
And somehow that’s worse than if he’d yelled. Worse than if he’d gotten angry or accusatory or any of the things I expected.
Because the hope in his voice—the raw, desperate hope—makes me realize something I’ve been trying not to think:
I don’t know if I want it to be his baby.
I don’t know if I want it to be Caleb’s baby.
I don’t know if I want to be pregnant at all.
And standing here in this sweltering bathroom, holding a positive pregnancy test, with the sounds of the lunch rush pounding against the door, I’ve never felt more trapped in my entire life.
“We need to figure out—” I start, but Z’s already pulling me into his arms.
“We’ll figure it out,” he whispers into my hair. “Whatever happens. Your body, your choice, babe. I can get you to the clinic if that’s what you want. I’m here for you. We’ll figure it out together.”
Fuck, Z is being so amazing and supportive. He’s everything any girl could ever ask for.
But over his shoulder, through the crack in the bathroom door, I can see the kitchen. The never-ending cycle of dirty dishes. The heat and chaos and constant hustle just to survive.
And I think: How the fuck am I supposed to figure any of this out?
How am I supposed to be a mother when I can barely take care of myself?
This is everything I was supposed to be smart enough to avoid. Fuck. Somehow I’m a pregnant teenager living in a trailer after all, no matter how hard I’ve fought for a different destiny than my mother’s.
And now, Jesus. Forget Mom’s man trouble.
How can I choose between two men when I don’t even know which one fathered this fetus?
And underneath it all, the question I’m too terrified to even acknowledge:
What would Caleb say if he knew?
Even the thought alone feels like a betrayal of the earnest, supportive man standing in front of me who’s only ever wanted to offer me the world since the first day we met in the woods as kids.