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My entire body rebels at the idea of saying it out loud, but I know I have to tell him. I can’t do this on my own, and they’ll all find out soon enough if I’m right.
“It’s not poison making me sick. And it’s not something I ate. My period is a bit late, but I didn’t really think much of it. I thought it was just stress from dealing with Olivia and moving here and everything, but…” I shake my head. “The timing lines up a little too well. I think… I think I’m pregnant.”
Ransom’s eyes light up for a second, and I realize that he doesn’t understand yet. He thinks it might be his baby, or one of his brothers’. Before he can get too excited, I shake my head.
“No, Ransom.”
That makes him stop and think about it, and I can see the moment all the pieces come together in his mind. Pain takes the place of excitement in his eyes, and I know it’s pain for me. Because he realizes what this means.
“I think… I think Troy had my birth control implant removed,” I whisper, my voice shaking. “I didn’t even think about it while I was there or in the aftermath because there were so many other things to worry about. And I didn’t notice the pain or the bruising from the removal because I had so many other bruises. Other marks. I should’ve checked. I should’ve known he would—”
I break off, the pain in my chest becoming too much to bear.
“Fuck,” Ransom breathes. Before I can say anything else, he’s pulling me into his arms, crushing me to his chest in a tight hug. He’s on his knees and so am I, his strong arms wrapped around me.
It’s enough to make the dam inside me overflow, and I let myself cry into his chest.
“What the hell is going on? What’s wrong?”
Malice’s voice comes from behind Ransom, and I look up to see him and Vic standing side by side in the bathroom doorway. They must’ve realized something was wrong when we didn’t come back to bed.
I can see the worry on their faces at finding us like this, and I swallow hard, brushing a hand over my face to wipe away my tears.
Silence fills the bathroom for a long moment. The thought of repeating those awful words makes my stomach turn for an entirely different reason than the nausea that brought me in here in the first place, but when Ransom shoots me a questioning look, I shake my head.
I know he would take this burden from me if he could, but I have to be the one to say it.
Wiping my eyes again, I take a shuddering breath, trying to steady myself. My limbs feel heavy and numb, and I glance from Malice to Vic, almost as if I’m trying to memorize the way they look before they hear the awful news I’m about to deliver.
“I think I’m pregnant,” I tell them, the words halting and stiff. “And it’s… it’s probably Troy’s.”
Vic makes a noise low in his throat, his shoulders going tense. Malice’s jaw clenches immediately, fury snapping in his eyes.
“Are you sure?” he demands.
I shake my head. “No. Not entirely. I woke up feeling sick, and my period is late. But I don’t know for sure.”
Vic and Malice share a look, and without a word being spoken between them, Vic nods and then leaves.
As soon as his twin disappears, Malice comes into the bathroom and puts the lid down on the toilet, sitting there with us. Ransom keeps stroking my hair, letting me lean against him, and Malice wraps his large hand around mine, threading our fingers together.
“Vic will get a test,” he says. “We’ve gotta be sure.”
I nod, because he’s right about that. Even if I don’t want to know the truth, I can’t avoid it forever. And I have to be sure.
We sit in silence for what feels like an eternity, and by the time Vic comes back with the test, I’m not shaking quite as much. It still doesn’t feel completely real, and my mind sort of refuses to latch on to this new crisis.
Vic presses the test into my hands when he comes back, and I let out a shaky breath. He and his brothers clear out, giving me some space to deal with it. Part of me wants them to stay, to hold my hands while I figure out just how fucked I am, but a larger part of me wants to do this alone.
I can hear them right outside the door though, too protective to go very far even now.
It’s pretty simple to pee on the stick, although it takes a little maneuvering to get it right. I have a memory of being pretty young and sitting outside the bathroom door while Misty did this, trying to see if she felt shitty that morning because she’d been partying too much or because she was pregnant.
It turned out okay for her in the end, and I silently hope that it’ll be the same for me.
The minutes until the test will reveal the result crawl by, and I pace the bathroom, hugging myself tightly, everything in me practically begging for it to be negative.
But when I finally look, I see a little plus sign staring back at me, sealing my fate.
