Page 190 of Breathe Like Hell

I’m so fucking tired.

I laid the two pregnancy tests flat on the counter and didn’t look at either of them. I pulled up my underwear and shorts, then slid down to sit on the heated tiles, crumpling into a ball, laying on my side. I stared at Micah’s nice bath mat and thought of the one at my trailer with all the threads hanging off of it.

A minute passed in which I avoided looking at the ceiling out of fear that something might be watching me from there. And then I got on my knees and looked over the edge of the countertop to the small windows on the digital tests.

Pregnant

On both of them.

For a few seconds, I did nothing.

I stared at them, my hands clenched into fists to prevent the shaking from getting any worse.

My heart was beating harder and harder. Too hard.

I felt sick to my stomach.

No. No. No.

Please don’t let this be fucking true.

All my efforts to escape the life I’d grown up in felt more and more futile by the second.

I’d never felt as much like trash as I did now. Like I’d fucked up every decision I’d ever made, and my life was completely embarrassing.

“I don’t want to have the baby,” I said as I burst out of the bathroom, Mason and Micah both sitting on the edge of the bed. They both stood up.

“You’re pregnant?” Micah asked, his voice strained.

I gestured back at the open door to the bathroom with a shaking hand. He stepped in with Mason, both of them looking at the two tests laying next to each other on the counter.

“I don’t want it,” I repeated.

“You don’t have to have it,” Micah said as he approached me, his arms slipping easily around my body, holding me to his chest.

I just started crying harder.

“I really don’t want a baby. I don’t want to be pregnant.”

“That’s completely fine.” Micah’s voice was low and rumbling against my cheek.

I squeezed my eyes shut, more tears sliding down my hot cheeks.

“Can we make an appointment?”

“I need to figure out the best way to do this, okay? I don’t think you can go to a clinic. We don’t even know how far along you are. It can’t be very far.”

“We have to go a clinic,” I said, pulling back, panic making my head spin. “Can’t you just make them forget if there’s any ichor?”

“I can only make them forget me. Not you or the baby.”

“It’s not a baby. It’s a fucking parasite,” I snapped, wrapping my arms around my stomach, stepping away from him further. Right after the word left my mouth I wanted to take it back. But I didn’t.

“Okay.” Micah dropped his hands from my shoulders.

I looked at Mason standing to the side of him, waiting for him to say something, acknowledge me in any way. When he didn’t, anger trickled in my blood.

“You have nothing to say,” I surmised.