Days passed.
I went to class. Sat through lectures. I answered my professor when called on. I smiled when people looked at me too long, like they were trying to figure me out. Like they could see something I was trying to hide. Every morning, I woke up and told myself the same thing.
You’re overthinking it.
You’re stressed.
Your body is just reacting.
I waited. Because as long as I didn’t know for sure, I could still pretend. I could still be normal. Still be the girl my parents dropped off here with plans, expectations, and a future that made sense.
But the pretending started to feel like lying. And I was getting tired of lying to myself. Hell, I did that for almost a whole summer. Lied to myself about being the Angel of a man who was the devil. As much as I loved Xavier, I had to be honest with myself. He lied. His sentence was probably his karma. Whyshould I mourn someone who probably got what he deserved? Except my heart wouldn’t allow me to believe he didn’t love me. Even thinking that what we had was made up felt cheap. How could I cheapen his love when I felt it?
That afternoon, after my last class, I walked off campus to the local pharmacy.
The store was small.
Quiet.
The kind of place where nobody really looked at you unless you gave them a reason to. I kept my head down as I walked the aisles, pretending to browse. Like I wasn’t there for one thing. As if I wasn’t about to confirm something I wasn’t ready to face.
When I finally grabbed the pregnancy test box, my hands began to shake. They felt foreign, as if they weren’t attached to me.
I paid without looking at the cashier.
The walk back to my dorm felt like I was walking for miles. My body felt heavier. Every step was louder than it should have been.
When I got back to my dorm, my roommate still wasn’t there. Of course, she wasn’t.
She was always somewhere.
Living.
Laughing.
Doing all the things I couldn’t seem to do anymore.
I locked the door behind me, set the bag down on my desk, and just stood there.
Staring at it.
Like it might open itself or give me a different answer if I waited long enough. I walked into the bathroom slowly, closing the door behind me. The space felt smaller than usual.
Too bright.
Too quiet.
I followed the instructions without thinking. Step by step. I hoped that if I focused on that, I wouldn’t have to feel anything else. And then I waited. That part felt the longest. My heart was beating too fast. My hands were cold and clammy.
My mind was blank. I didn’t know if I should pray. What exactly would I be praying for to not have a piece of the love of my life, or to have a piece of the love of my life and be a teenage pregnancy statistic with no help, because surely my parents would cut me off? My sister, who had never abandoned me, would surely disown me because she warned me not to get pregnant by a King brother.
As I waited those three minutes on edge, suspended between not knowing and knowing.
When I finally looked down, I saw the two lines bright and clear, unmistakably staring back at me. I was in shock, and I just stood there staring. Like if I looked long enough, they would shift. Blur. Maybe turn into something else.
My grip tightened on the edge of the sink, but I still didn’t move. I reached out slowly and picked up the test, turning it over like there might be another answer hiding somewhere on the other side. There wasn’t. Just the same truth staring back at me. I exhaled, long and quiet. And that’s when it settled. I was pregnant with Xavier King’s child.
My chest tightened at the thought of him. Because for the first time since he was gone, I didn’t feel completely empty. I sat down slowly on the closed toilet seat, still holding the test in my hand. My thumb brushed over the edge of it without thinking. And my other hand… found its way back to my stomach.
