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“I love you,” he whispered.
“I love you too.”
Adrian is the only person, in my entire life, who has said that to me.
Chapter 42
I’m pregnant.
Pregnant!
I can’t say it enough.
I. Am. Pregnant.
With so much on my mind, I was two weeks late before I even realized it.
I briefly considered not telling Adrian that I was late, letting the news be mine alone for a little while, but I couldn’t do it.
I had slept until almost eleven o’clock after many, many weeks of waking up at five or six in the morning. When I finally awoke, stretching out on our new bamboo sheets (what a luxury!) and looking out the window at the tall, black fence, I felt great. Like the old me from before all the trouble had begun. I was lying there, feeling lazy and content, when it occurred to me how much time had passed since I’d last been bothered by my period. And then I just knew.
Adrian was cleaning up his studio. I walked in announcing, “I’m late. Really late. Let’s get a pregnancy test!”
“Do you feel pregnant?” he asked as we drove to the store.
“I don’t know. I dreamed like crazy last night. Does that sound like I’m pregnant?”
“What did you dream about?”
“I can’t remember. Ice cream? Cheese?”
“Sounds like you’re pregnant to me.” He squeezed my knee, beaming.
“Honestly, I’m sure I am. I’m never late.”
“How late are you?”
“Adrian,” I pouted, “don’t you keep track of my period?”
We both started laughing, and then we looked at each other and laughed some more, almost causing a car accident. Right then and there, for the first time in a very long time, nothing mattered but us.
I went in to the drugstore alone, since no matter how famous Adrian gets, I seem to be staying under the radar. Ever since what we were now calling the Bob Chance Encounter, Adrian was convinced that he was even more famous than he’d previously thought. He now assumed the paparazzi and his fans were everywhere. He also thought that the day when I was photographed had been an overflow of the energy normally directed at him. In fact, everything that was happening to us, he attributed to his crazed fans. He truly believed he was Savannah’s Picasso. Or Brad Pitt.
“If I go in there someone might leak the information that we’re expecting a baby,” he explained, turning on the radio and reclining his seat.
“Fine,” I said, too excited to argue. I could not wait to do it at home, so I ran into the drugstore’s bathroom and peed on the little stick. Immediately, two faint lines appeared.
No way. Despite my confidence in the car, I could not believe it.
It was a two-pack of tests, so I ripped the spare open and forced a few more drops of pee on that one’s stick, and set it beside the other test. I watched as the first test’s pink lines progressed to magenta, and the second test’s pair of lines faintly came into focus.
I felt an almost physical reaction, as if I were being pressed to the ground by a wave of hot, hot air from above. Becoming pregnant seemed like something that only happened to other people. Could both tests be wrong? I sat down on the edge of the toilet seat and reread the back of the box. It showed one line for not pregnant and two for pregnant. A fainter second line may still indicate that you are pregnant said the writing on the box. Both tests I had taken each had clear, bold lines. So there really wasn’t any doubt about it.
I stood back up and pressed my forehead against the smooth, cool partition wall. Normally I would have been way too concerned about germs to get so cozy with a public restroom, but in that moment I didn’t even think about the germs.
There’s nothing like finding out you’re pregnant to make you take an honest look at your life. Standing there in a bathroom stall, realizing you have another life growing inside you, knowing that someone killed your sister and might intend to kill you… It makes you think you can and should run away.
Didn’t I owe this baby, if not myself, the truth? Adrian’s and my world did not resemble the charmed, sophisticated existence that local magazines portrayed. There was a little more going on than a new fence and puppy, despite what the neighbors thought. Who was I living this charade for? It’s not as if I had many friends. They were Adrian’s friends, not mine.
