Page 139 of First in Line

I sniff, tuck the test into my back pocket, and pass my hand over my face, hoping all traces of my tears are gone.

As I swing the door open, I force a smile onto my lips. “Have a good day at—”

“Were you crying?” he worriedly asks, immediately noticing something’s wrong. “Evie, what’s going on?”

“Nothing, I was just… a little melancholic, that’s all.”

His hands come up to frame my face delicately, and he forces me to look up into his eyes. “Princess, tell me what it is. I’m not leaving until you do.”

The tears resurface at once, so intensely that they immediately spill over. “I’m so sorry, Jax. I don’t know how it happened.”

“Howwhathappened?”

I take the test out of my pocket and bring it between us. He lets go of my face to take it and looks down at the results.

“I’ve been taking my pills, I promise. I haven’t missed a single day. I don’t know how that’s possible, I—”

“You’re pregnant?”

I nod, my throat so tight it hurts.

The confusion on his face turns into astonishment, acceptance, then a frown. “Fuck…” he lets out. “Evie, it’s too early for a baby.”

“You think I wanted this?! We’re still settling in, you’re never around, I can finally work on my bachelor’s… I thought we had at least five years before kids came into the picture.”

“Have you been suspecting it?”

“Not at first. I was feeling tired all the time, I barely have any appetite, and I’ve been crying for no reason for weeks. But I thought I was just depressed. Then my period didn’t come, and I started getting nauseous last week, so I thought I’d take a test to rule it out.”

Still staring at the white and blue stick, Jackson walks back into the bedroom and sits on the bed. I follow him there, struggling to contain my tears.

“I’ll look into it and see how I can schedule an abortion,” I decide.

“Wow, wait. You want to get rid of it?”

“I don’t know, Jax. All I know is that now isn’t the right time to have a baby.”

He looks at my lower stomach, at the sliver of skin between my pants and tank top. Right where a clump of cells is slowly turning into a human being.

“Why? What doyouwant to do?” I ask him.

“It’s your choice, Evie. Whatever you decide, I’ll stand by it.”

Although he’s trying to be sweet and understanding, his answer pisses me off a little. “No, you don’t get to put this decision on me, Jax. We’re in this together, and we’ll decide what to do together.”

He thinks about it for a moment, eyes back on my belly. After what feels like a whole minute of it, he carefully leads with,“It’s definitely too early, but after everything we’ve been through these past six years, I’m sure we can make it work.”

“You’re saying you want to keep it?”

“I don’t know. It could be a good thing, maybe. You’ve told me yourself how you’ve been feeling rootless and without a purpose since we got here. A baby could give meaning to everything. Like a goal. A project, kind of. Something to make you look forward to the future.”

“We’re talking about a whole human child, Jackson, not a hobby.”

“I know that, Evangeline. But it’s not like we weren’t going to have kids at some point, right? It’s just a little early. Nothing we can’t handle. And the house is definitely big enough for a baby. We could turn the room next to ours into a nursery. Easy access for the night feedings.”

Looking down at him, I can tell that he’s accepting the possibility more and more. Of course, I understand where he comes from. I want a baby with him. Terribly so. I want a perfect little mix of us, one I’d cherish more than life itself. But the timing is so wrong. I’m not sure it’s fair for any of the parties involved. Not us, not the baby.

We haven’t found our balance yet. Far from it. And adding a newborn to the mix would throw our whole world off its axis.