“That’s strange,” she said. “What happened to her?”
“From what I understand, she met someone else while I was in the desert.” I shrugged. “She was a pretty girl, and I was gone halfway across the world. I guess I should have seen it coming.”
“Not necessarily,” she said, walking up to me and pressing a kiss to my forehead. “I wouldn’t have left.”
I smiled.
“That’s good to know,” I said. “I was hung up on her for a long time. I guess because I never really got closure. Then I just swore all relationships off. By the time I got out, I figured I was just going to be alone forever.”
“Well, you aren’t.”
“I am glad about that,” I said. “But what makes it better is that I feel stronger and deeper for you than I ever did for her.”
She stopped and smiled, turning back to me from where she was at the stove.
“Me too,” she said, then shook her head. “Alright, dinner’s ready. I hope you brought your appetite.”
“I hope you made enough,” I countered and laughed.
The rest of dinner was very pleasant. Her cooking skills were top-notch, which was a lovely surprise, and we discussed our childhoods and funny stories about our past. It was nice to just relax and talk about things I hadn’t told anyone in twenty years.
But there was something else going on. Every time I asked about her, or mentioned something about the future, she would change the subject and giggle into something else. It was like a nervous thing, and it was weird. She was acting funny, like she was hiding something, but I had no idea what.
28
LAUREN
I thought finally getting my relationship with Carter out in the open would eliminate the stress and anxiety in my life and I would feel better. But more than a week after the cookout, I was still dealing with a churning stomach and feeling like I’d barely slept all the time. I didn’t understand what was going on. No one around me was sick. As far as I knew, I hadn’t come into contact with anyone who was sick, and I’d been making it a point to get extra sleep at night.
Things were going great with Carter, and we were happily spending more nights together rather than not together. Work was good. My friends were happy. Everything seemed like it was exactly as it should be, and I should have been feeling good. Instead, it was like I was always drained, and each day I discovered new things that made my stomach turn.
It wasn’t until Carter had asked me multiple times if I was alright that I realized it was obvious something was going on, and I sat down to really figure out what it was. That was when I took a glance at the calendar. Somehow, the time going by hadn’t occurred to me. I was so wrapped up in everything that was going on with Carter and with Ashton, I didn’t really pay attention to the time that was going by. And what wasn’t happening during that time.
Namely, my period.
By the time I thought about it, I was a month late, and everything started to make a lot more sense. I stared at the calendar for several long minutes, trying to wrap my head around what I was realizing. And maybe trying to come up with a way that it wasn’t the most logical explanation.
Of course, I couldn’t think of one. The stress I had been feeling could have accounted for the sick feeling and maybe even missing my period, but not for that long. And not after the cause of the stress was gone. By then my body should have rectified itself.
Instead, I was still without my period and dealing with waves of nausea and continuous exhaustion. I needed to get to the store. Until I had absolute confirmation, I wasn’t going to let myself freak out. I needed to take this one step at a time and let myself work through it that way.
Heading to the store, I bought several pregnancy tests of different brands and styles. In the logical part of my brain, I knew the chances of one of the tests being flawed and coming up with an inconclusive response were there. The chances of one of them being wrong were low. The chances of more than one of them having any of those issues were nothing. Yet, I still needed to have all the different options.
I got back to my apartment and locked myself in the bathroom. Taking all the tests, I laid them out on the counter and waited. It was the longest three minutes of my life. Finally, the time was up, and I stood up from where I’d been sitting on the cool tile floor to check them. Every single one of them had a valid result. And every single one of them was the same.