Page 49 of Blueline Baby

“I’m right out here, okay?” Lorelei calls gently through the closed door.

The absolute second I cap the plastic stick, I pull the door open and hold it out between us.

“You’re supposed to wait, I think,” she starts to say.

“There’s a line,” I say flatly, turning the test so she can see it. “Should the control line be that far left?”

It feels like the floor of my apartment is dropping out from underneath me. Because I know, even as the words leave my mouth, exactly what I’m staring at.

Lorelei looks down at the little piece of plastic in my shaking hand.

“No, babe,” she says softly. “That’s the positive line.”

We both stand there in my narrow hallway. We watch the second line—the one that appears just to indicate that the test is actually functioning—slowly show up after the first one.

The first line started out a medium, dusty pink. It just keeps getting darker and darker until it’s almost fuchsia. It’s taken a total of twenty seconds. Not the three minutes the instructions promised. The entire time, my brain is screaming stop, stop, stop, as if the plastic stick can actually hear me.

I sink down onto the floor of the hallway. Lorelei immediately sits cross-legged across from me. I hear my own breath hitch once. Then again.

“Oh my God. What are they going to think?”

She tips her head, confused. “…Who?”

“Everyone.” My voice climbs sharply on the end of the word. “Everyone is going to think I did this on purpose.”

Lorelei covers her mouth with her hand. “Oh, my God, Chloe, no. No one is going to think that.”

I feel a hot tear course down my cheek. “That’s exactly what they said, though. Fastest way to go from a girlfriend to a wife. We’ve only been dating for six months. He’s going to think I did this to trap him. Jack’s going to think that a random college student got pregnant by a professional hockey player on purpose. I don’t know how I’m going to be able to do this alone. How am I going to be able to stay in school by myself, with a baby, and go to class, and go to my labs, and figure out how to⁠—”

The words are tumbling out of me, half-broken on actual sobs. I drop my head forward heavily into my hands.

Lorelei reaches out and wraps a firm hand around my ankle. “Chloe. Look at me. I promise you, that is absolutely not going to be the problem.”

“But Jack⁠—”

“I promise you.” She says it again, almost fiercely. “I know exactly what Jack is going to do. Please, please believe me.”

I don’t. There’s no way she can know what Jack is going to do.

Eventually, she stands up, walks into my bedroom, and comes back carrying my cell phone.

“Do you want me to stay here while you call him?”

“No,” I say, wiping my face. “Thank you. No.”

“Okay.” She offers me her hand, pulling me up off the floor and hugging me tight. “For what it’s worth, and you’re going to have to trust me on this one—I don’t think you have any idea what’s about to happen.”

Then she lets herself out. I hear the front door click shut. The apartment is completely, suffocatingly quiet.

I sit down on the edge of my bed and stare at Jack’s name in my phone contacts. I’m actively considering the fact that I have zero plan for this. I have no conceivable way that I can even begin starting this conversation. I seriously consider waiting until he flies back home tonight to tell him in person. Except he’s going to call me soon to talk, and he’s going to immediately hear that something is wrong with my voice.

I hit dial.

He answers on the second ring. I can hear loud voices behind him, somebody laughing in the background.

“Backcheck Girl.” He sounds so genuinely happy. “Tell me you miss me.”

“Jack.” My voice breaks as I say his name.