Kate
Chapter Forty-Five
I didn’t even remember getting home. The airport, the flight, the train ride here was all one big blur. I’d been going for hours and yet I didn’t have any concept of what day it was.
The grey light outside blurred, and before I knew it I was in the hallway, the click of the door at my back making the air feel older, heavier, like I’d slipped into another lifetime.
Everything was where I’d left it. My books. My mug on the draining board. My work bag still slung over the end of the banister. It was like I’d dreamed the last four weeks.
I dropped my case at the foot of the stairs and sank down beside it.
Still in my crumpled airport clothes. Jesus, I’d left the hotel in such a state, I hadn’t even noticed what I was wearing.
His hoodie. That still smelled like him.
My body folded in on itself, like maybe if I got small enough, the pain wouldn’t find me. Then the tears finally came.
Not pretty, cinematic tears. Nope, these were ugly, raw sobs.
The kind that cracked open your ribs and tore their way out whether you wanted them to or not.
My whole body shook. My throat burned. My lungs were on fire.
I think I cried until I couldn’t breathe.
I cried so hard until my stomach lurched and I scrambled to the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before I threw up.
I couldn’t move. Didn’t want to. Lying there felt easier than trying to stand, easier than facing the storm I’d just unleashed.
And then the reality hit, sharp as glass: what the hell had I done? I’d bolted, like a coward. Left him, left us, without giving him a chance. And now I was here, alone, curled on a bathroom floor, sobbing over a man. Again.
He didn’t even know where I was, though he’d probably guessed by now.
I should’ve stayed. We should’ve talked.
I should’ve fought for us the way I swore I would.
But the truth was, I hadn’t been thinking at all.
The only thought in my head was to run. Run until there was nowhere left to go but here.
I must have eventually passed out from exhaustion, because the next time I opened my eyes, it was morning. That pale grey Welsh light slipped in through the frosted glass bathroom window like a ghost. My head throbbed and my mouth tasted like ash. My eyes were swollen and sore.
And then I heard the front door creak open.
“Kate?”
Gwen.
Of course it was her.
I didn’t even lift my head. Just croaked out a hoarse, “Bathroom,” whilst my cheek was still pressed against the cold tile.
Seconds later, I heard her footsteps, fast but careful on the stairs. Then her arms were around me, pulling me close, curling her chin over my head like she could physically hold me together.
I started crying again. Softer now, because apparently that was all I had left in me.
“Oh, babe,” she whispered. “You should have let me pick you up.”
“I didn’t want anyone to see me like this. Gwen, you didn’t have to come all this way.”
“Well, tough shit. You knew I would. I’m your next of kin in all but blood, remember?” Her voice cracked. “Of course I came.”
I sniffed and sat back. She passed me a tissue from the bathroom counter, and I wiped my face with shaking hands.
Gwen had seen me like this before. She’d held me tight the night I found him and fled to London.
She’d cried with me as I packed up the boxes.
But even then, she’d never seen me this broken.
I opened my mouth to speak, but instead I lurched forward and threw up again. I couldn’t keep down the sheer agony of it all.
“Jesus, Kate…okay, that’s it.” Gwen knelt beside me, pulling my hair back with one hand and rubbing my back with the other. “How long has this been going on?”
“Since last night,” I croaked. “It’s the stress, jet lag, everything.”
She gave me that look, the one that could melt steel. I could see her studying me for a moment. Mulling something over.
“Right…And when was your last period?”
I blinked. “Gwen, don’t be ridiculous,” I said, shaking my head.
“Answer the question.”
I opened my mouth. Closed it again. My brain scrambled like it was trying to run through sand.
I reached for my phone to scroll through my tracker app that I barely filled in anymore.
“One a week before I came to Wimbledon. One a few days before I flew to D.C. One…Shit…I’m late.”
“How late?”
“…Almost a week.”
Gwen was already on her feet. “Right. That’s it. I’m going to Tesco. You’re staying here. Don’t you dare move, don’t think, and for the love of God, don’t google anything.”
I stayed sat upright on the rug, the cold of the tile seeping into my back now, while the spiral caught up to me.
There was no way I could be pregnant. I couldn’t be. I’d tried for three bloody years with Andrew, and nothing. And I’d been on the pill for months now since we split up, precautionary. How could it just…happen now?
And with him?
Okay, yes. I’d left my pill in Canada, and finding a pharmacy in Cincinnati had been a nightmare the day we landed. But I was only half a day late taking it. Well… maybe a couple more before that with the time zones.
Oh. Oh, fuck.
My stomach growled, cutting straight through the spiral. I’d basically been throwing up on an empty stomach.
Gwen was halfway down the stairs when I croaked after her, “Gwen?”
She paused. “Yeah?”
“…Get crisps, too.”
She turned, one eyebrow raised, arms folded. “Oh, now you want snacks. Anything else, Your Highness?”
“No, just salt and vinegar.”
She gave me a look. “Pregnant or not, you’re a fucking menace.”
And then she was gone, out the front door. My best friend, on a pregnancy test run like it was a regular Tuesday and I hadn’t just burned my whole fucking life to the ground.
I curled tighter on the floor. One hand on my stomach, the other gripping my phone like a lifeline. Everything hurt now, even my brain.
But she’d come, of course she had. There was never any doubt. But now I had to wait so see if my whole life was about to change for the second time in as many months.
It felt like my arse had moulded into the tiles by the time Gwen came back.
I hadn’t moved. I couldn’t. Partly because I was trying my best not to throw up again, and party because my legs were trembling with nerves now.
My thoughts were whirling around in my head like a hurricane.
Pregnant? There was no way. I’d only known him two months.
The front door slammed, and I heard her voice ring out, casual as ever from the bottom of the stairs.
“Pregnancy test, crisps, jelly beans, and don’t panic, but I got you a Lucozade in case you pass out.”
I heard her footsteps again. Then her face appeared in the doorway with a Tesco bag and that particular blend of pity and amusement she reserved just for me.
She knelt down and threw a bag of crisps into my lap.
“You ready?” she asked, holding up the little pink box like she was about to defuse a bomb.
“Absolutely not.”
“Too bad. Pee on the stick, please. I have snacks but no patience.”
As I took the box, my heartbeat was everywhere.
In my throat, in my fingertips, in the hollow of my stomach.
I kept staring at the little stick like it was a bomb.
How many years had I begged for this? Willed it?
Prayed into the dark for a second line that never came?
And now…now I was shaking so badly I almost dropped it.
What if it was positive? What if it wasn’t? Both answers terrified me. Both would split me in two. A minute later, I opened the door again, holding the test like I might fall apart by just looking at it wrong.
She snatched it before I could even blink. “Timer’s on. Three minutes.”
“Three minutes,” I whispered, sinking back to the floor.
Three minutes where the air felt too thick. Where my head was too full. Where my body felt too small for everything it was holding…or could be holding.
We didn’t speak. Not until Gwen’s phone buzzed. It scared the shit out of both of us.
“I can’t look,” I panicked.
Gwen nodded once, then stood. She was as calm and as steady as ever when she walked over and flipped the test.
“Oh my God.”
I covered my face with both hands. “It’s positive, isn’t it?”
She didn’t answer. Not right away.
I felt the whole room get heavier. I peeked through my fingers. Gwen was staring at the test like it was something precious.
“Oh my God,” I said again, lower this time. “Gwen, I’m pregnant.”
“You’re pregnant.” She nodded, confirming it.
I laughed, or maybe sobbed. It came out jagged and strange. “But…I tried. Before. You know. It didn’t happen. I thought…”
Her expression changed into something calmer. “It didn’t happen with him,” Gwen corrected softly. “Maybe for a reason. Maybe the universe knew.”
I shook my head. “No. This is…this is insane. It was an accident. I forgot my pill in Canada, and I was only a few hours late taking it. I didn’t even know, didn’t even think…oh God, the time differences. Shit, maybe there were a few more I was late with…and now this? Now?”
She sat beside me, warm and solid, her hand finding mine.
“Jesus Christ, two months with Jordan, and he’s already knocked you up. Honestly, if that’s not the universe trying to make a bloody point, I don’t know what is.”
“That is not comforting.”
She grinned a little. “Meant it as a compliment. You’ve got serious fertility skills, apparently. Who knew?”
I couldn’t laugh. I just stared at the stick like it might blink and change its mind. “What am I going to do?”
Gwen let the silence settle, then gently she said, “You’re spiralling. Which is allowed. But let me say something.”
I nodded, barely.
“You were never the problem, Kate. Not with your ex. Not with the IVF. It wasn’t you. Okay, maybe the timing is a bit shit, but Kate, maybe this was meant to happen like this?”
She paused. Tilted her head, voice soft now.
“You love him?”
I swallowed. “Yeah.”
“He loves you. He’s a good man, Kate. Dense, clearly…but good. You deserve that.”
Tears stung again.
“I was supposed to be done with this, Gwen. I was supposed to go back to work next week.”
“Work will wait. Your old life will wait. But this?” She touched my stomach lightly. “This won’t.”
She gave a small, hopeful shrug. “Look, you feel like shit. You’re not going back to work.
Take a breather to figure it out. You don’t have to know everything today.
You’ve built your life around safe before.
Look where it got you. Maybe this is different.
Maybe this is the start of something that’s meant to be yours. ”
I nodded. She didn’t know I’d already jacked it all in. I let the tears fall. Let her pull me in again, her hand in my hair, her chin on my crown.
And for the first time since I saw those pink lines, I let myself really feel it.
I was pregnant.
And maybe, just maybe, that didn’t have to be as terrifying as it felt.