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She got out and climbed the steps to the second floor and waited outside Shea’s apartment door until she got home.
“Wow. This must be serious,” Shea said as she walked up to find Farren waiting for her, anxiously.
Farren said nothing, but nodded her affirmation with a serious look on her face.
Once they got inside, Shea kicked her shoes off, tossed her keys onto a small table next to the door, and sat on her couch with her legs tucked beneath her. She patted the cushion for Farren to sit beside her.
“Talk to mama. What’s up, Fair Child?”
Farren sat where Shea had indicated and shifted her messenger bag to sit in her lap. She rifled through it and pulled out the box of First Response pregnancy tests.
Shea’s eyes grew wide and her mouth fell open. “Holy shit, Far, are you serious right now?” she blurted.
Farren nodded again, feeling as though she might burst into tears.
“Have you taken one yet?” Shea asked, taking the box out of Farren’s hands to inspect it.
“No. Today is the first day I suspected I might be… you know. I woke up puking my guts up this morning when I needed to take Gramma to the doctor. Then this nurse made some off-hand comment about how she went through that for seven months solid when she was pregnant with her son, and Gramma asked me on the way back home if I thought I might be.”
The words tumbled out in a rush as Farren recounted how she had come to the suspicion that led her to buy the pink box Shea now held in her hands.
“Who’s would it be?” Shea asked her in a low, conspiratorial voice. “Please, God, tell me not Paul.”
Farren shook her head. “Not Paul. Definitely not.”
“Then who?” Shea asked, her eyes going wide once again.
“Um… well… about that,” Farren began, unsure of how Shea was going to react. “Remember my trip to Italy several weeks ago?”
She wasn’t sure how it was possible, but she watched as Shea’s eyes went even wider and her hands shot up to cover her mouth. Then she clasped both hands on either of Farren’s shoulders. “Wait, did you meet someone while you were there, or are you telling me what I think you’re telling me?”
“It was just one… night,” she said, defeated. She was going to say one time, but that would not have been the truth. It had definitely been more than one time.
“Wow,” Shea repeated. “Okay. So what are you waiting for? Get in there and take that test. Then I want details of this one night you speak of, and I don’t want you to leave anything out.”
She shooed Farren towards the bathroom, and Farren obeyed, taking the box with her. She followed the directions, and then went back out to the living room to sit with Shea while she waited the two minutes for the test to work its process.
This was it, the moment of truth.
EIGHTEEN
“Here, you check it. I can’t look,” Farren said, holding the piece of plastic away from her with her head facing the opposite direction.
Shea grabbed the test out of Farren’s hand, but didn’t look at it yet, either.
“Okay, I’ll read it. But first, I want some answers,” Shea demanded.
Farren curled up on the end of the couch, bringing her knees in close to her body and wrapping her arms around them. She buried her face between her arms and knees, and her words came out muffled. “What do you want to know?”
“You could start with why I’m just now hearing about this when it happened like a month and a half ago. I’m supposed to be your best friend, remember?” She scolded.
Farren lifted her head to look at Shea.
“Really? You want to yell at me for that, right now? I didn’t tell you because I didn’t tell anyone. I couldn’t tell anyone. Not even you. I wanted to… believe me, I wanted to. I just… couldn’t.”
Shea set the pregnancy test down on the coffee table in front of her, then moved in close to Farren and put her arms around her, leaning her head on Farren’s shoulder.
“You can always tell me anything. God, Farren, you know that. We’ve been through everything together. Everything. If you can’t cou
