19. Rowan #2
Evelyn opens directly to Erik's recusal.
"This is why you document decisions while they're ordinary.
" She puts a blank verification form in front of me.
"Get the spirit-program reinstatement record.
Get the captaincy criteria in writing before anyone votes.
Preserve the date of his recusal beside both. "
I take the form. "You've told me this twice."
"I'll probably tell you again."
"Vanessa doesn't have evidence that he influenced anything."
Evelyn closes the file halfway. "She doesn't need evidence to make an allegation expensive. You don't defeat that by insisting the accusation is unfair. You make the documents boring enough that nobody can sustain it."
That sounds irritatingly familiar, but I appreciate the advice. I put the verification form in my bag. "I handled Vanessa professionally."
Evelyn looks at me for several seconds. "That sentence creates concern all by itself."
"I didn't threaten her." Even I hear the defensiveness.
"That clarification made it worse."
I laugh before I can stop myself.
Evelyn looks satisfied and returns to the paperwork. Before I leave, she copies the reinstatement request number onto the form and tells me where to obtain the independent review record. The practical work helps. By the time I reach the door, Vanessa is still annoying, but she's no longer a crisis.
Dinner is halfway finished when roasted garlic makes me sick.
I'm at the penthouse table telling Erik about the restaurant manager, with my notebook open beside my plate. The photograph of Dad and Orell is on his tablet, and Erik has already sent the witness information to outside counsel for follow-up tomorrow.
I reach for my water. The smell from the serving dish turns my stomach so quickly that I push my chair back instead.
Erik looks up from the photograph. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing." I stand too fast and catch the table edge. "I need the bathroom."
I make it there before I throw up.
By the time I rinse my mouth, embarrassment has replaced surprise. I lower myself to the floor beside the cabinet because the tile is cool through my trousers. A minute later, Erik appears carrying water and a washcloth while his phone rings in his pocket.
I point toward it. "You have a call."
"It can wait." He puts the water beside me, leaves the washcloth within reach, then sits against the opposite wall. His suit probably costs more than my semester parking pass, and now the trousers are on a bathroom floor because I threw up after dinner.
"You don't need to supervise this."
"I'm not supervising." His phone rings again. Erik takes it from his pocket, rejects the call, then places the device beside his leg. "Do you need Serena?"
"No. I probably ate something."
He frowns. "We ate the same food."
"You have organized crime in your family. Your digestive system may have developed defenses." I fake a weak smile.
His concern doesn't ease. "That isn't how biology works."
"You cook a couple of dinners and suddenly, you're also a doctor."
Erik looks almost offended. "I didn't claim either qualification."
I laugh, then stop when my stomach objects.
He gets up without another lecture and disappears into the hall. A few minutes later, he returns with dry toast on a plate.
I stare at it. "That's bleak."
"You don't have to eat it."
He sets the plate beside the water without telling me to lie down, cancel class, call Serena, or hand over tomorrow's schedule. That may be why I eat half a piece.
Erik sits on the floor again while I sip water. His phone vibrates once more before stopping, and he doesn't reach for it.
I look at him across the bathroom. This man tore up a schedule because it wasn't his to make. He stayed across a gym when every instinct told him to cross it. He followed an audit that restored my sister's scholarship without calling me first, even though I know how badly he wanted to.
Yesterday, he cooked while I studied and carried me to bed after I fell asleep. This morning, when Orell sent proof that my father met with him, Erik didn't tell me what the photograph meant. He waited until I asked him to help me figure it out.
The words reach my mouth before I'm ready for them.
I love you.
I could say them now. He'd hear them while sitting on cold tile because I got sick, with a missed call waiting in the other room and roasted garlic cooling on the dining table.
My mouth opens, but I take another bite of toast instead.
Erik watches me. "What?"
"Nothing."
He clearly doesn't believe me. He also doesn't demand a different answer.
That may be why I almost tell him again.
Another wave of nausea ends the possibility.
The nausea comes back before my second class the next morning. Harper waits outside the law-school restroom stall until I finish being sick, then follows me to the sink. I rinse my mouth while she leans against the counter with her phone already out.
"You're seeing a doctor."
"I have class."
"You have Serena."
I dry my face with a paper towel. "I can make my own appointment."
Harper lowers the phone and waits.
I glare at her through the mirror, then take out mine. "You're obnoxious."
"Yes."
Serena has an opening that afternoon.
The clinic is quieter than the university health center, with two exam rooms and an office behind frosted glass. Harper comes because she claims somebody needs to prevent me from rescheduling for moot-court preparation.
Serena waits until I'm seated before opening my chart. "When was your last period?"
I look at her. "I'm on the pill."
She leaves the tablet on her lap and waits for an actual answer.
I count backward once, then again, but the date doesn't improve. Reluctantly, I give it to her.
"Did you miss active pills?"
"No." The answer comes automatically.
Then the shutdown week comes back in pieces. Callie crying outside financial aid. Aaron calling while I was at practice. Dad's phone turning up after eighteen months. My pill pack staying in my school bag while one day ran into another.
I look at Harper before counting more carefully. "I missed some. Three active pills across that week. Maybe four. The last was around the night I stayed at Erik's estate."
Serena enters the information. "Missed pills increase the chance of pregnancy. Contraception can also fail with perfect use, so we test before assuming the nausea is unrelated."
The test is positive.
For several seconds, the word inside my head doesn't connect to the room.
Positive.
Pregnant.
Me.
I sit with the plastic stick on the counter between Serena's gloves and a box of gauze. The fluorescent fixture above the sink hums. A cart rolls past in the hall. Harper moves into the chair beside me without crowding closer.
"Ro?"
I keep looking at the result. "I'm thinking."
My voice sounds normal. That seems ridiculous.
Erik and I discussed contraception that first night at the estate. I believed I was covered because I usually was. I hadn't counted missed pills against the week when Dad's scandal exploded, Aaron disappeared, and everything else stopped running on schedule.
I put the test back on the counter. "I need to know how far along."