Right now. Right here…and I wasn’t fucking ready for it, even though I had to be for her sake.
“Haven,” I croaked. “What’s going on?”
She looked at me, holding her breath. Her spine straightened just slightly. She was bracing herself for the bad news.
I pre-empted it. “Haven, I knew this wasn’t gonna be forever. If you’ve met someone—if you don’t want to do this anymore, I understand?—”
“I’m pregnant,” she interrupted.
The whole world went quiet.
I heard the filly shift. Heard Juniper’s soft whinny.
Heard my own pulse and my ears ringing.
The words came out before I could stop them. “I’ll pay for it,” I said. “Whatever you need. If you want to get rid of it, I’ll take you.”
I winced, closing my eyes for a second, desperately trying to breathe. Because even saying that…ithurt. It hurt like a motherfucker, because I wanted this, wanted to see what me and her could make?—
“Wyatt,” she started.
“This is my fault,” I said. “The condoms, they were probably expired. Iknewthey were too old and I used them anyway because I didn’t care, I wanted you so fucking bad. I should have been the responsible one?—”
“Wyatt, please listen to me?—”
“You’ve got vet school and years ahead of you and I’m not gonna let you throw that away because I was careless with?—”
“I lied about being on the pill.”
That stopped me cold.
She was looking at me straight on, chin up, not flinching from it.
"I was on it in January," she said. "Then my insurance changed and I missed a refill and I just—I let it lapse. And when you asked that first night I said yes because I wanted you and I was scared it was my only shot." A beat. "I should have told you. I know I should have. I kept meaning to and then the weeks went by and you never asked again and I told myself it was fine because you always used a condom." Her jaw worked. "It wasn't fine. I know that."
Quiet.
I looked at her. At the careful steadiness of her, the way she was holding herself together by sheer will, giving me the whole truth even though she had no idea what I was going to do with it.
Something moved through me that I didn't have a name for. Not anger—or not only anger.
"Oh my god,” I exhaled.
"I know," she said. "You can be angry. You should be angry. I just—I needed you to know all of it."
I turned away from her. Pressed both hands flat on the top of the stall door and stared at the filly and breathed.
“And that means I need you to know I’m keeping it,” she said quietly.
I turned around.
"Haven."
"I know what you're going to say?—"
"You don't." I crossed the distance between us in a few steps and she held her ground, chin up, watching me come. "You think I'm angry about the pill."
"Aren't you?"
