AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yeah, I’m just having a rough day.” It was a lot more than a roughday. It had been a couple of rough days in a row. I told her what had been going on. It had been a while since we’d talked, with her being busy, too.
I should have gone back to my office to eat something and prep for the presentation I had in an hour, but I couldn’t even think about food, and I needed a friend now more than I needed to prep for something I’d already perfected a while ago.
“That sounds awful,” Hailey said sympathetically after I’d explained it all to her. “And Troy has been there for you the whole time?”
“Yeah,” I said. “He’s been pretty great.”
“So… what are you? Are you together?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. He’d been such a pillar of strength the last while, and we clearly had a connection but we hadn’t at any point discussed what was going on between us. It was a topic we’d both been avoiding rather than facing head-on because we were on either side of an invisible line with this contract hanging between us. “I guess I’ll figure it out after we know what happens today. I just hope I don’t get sick in the presentation.”
“What do you mean?” Hailey asked.
“I’ve been throwing up all day,” I said. “I don’t know what I ate or what’s going on.”
“That doesn’t seem like you,” Hailey said.
“No, it’s not at all, but I’ve been stressing a lot lately, you know, with Rachel and everything.”
“Hmm,” Hailey said. “What about protection?”
“Excuse me?”
“Have you and Troy been using protection?”
“I’m on the pill,” I said.
“Yeah, but those things fail, you know. So do condoms, sometimes.”
“I’m not pregnant,” I said firmly, but my stomach clenched and twisted and I felt sick again. “I can’t be. It has been…” I wanted to saylong enoughbut that wasn’t true. Since the first night we’d slept together, it was more than long enough. When I tried to calculate when my last period had been, I failed. It shouldn’t have been that long ago that I couldn’t pin a date on it.
Shit.
With everything going on with Rachel, I hadn’t stopped to notice that I was late.
“I’m not pregnant,” I said again, but my voice was thin, and I didn’t sound as convincing as the first time.
“Look, just go get a test. Maybe it’s really just something you ate and it’s a false alarm, but you can’t be too safe, you know?”
I snorted at the double meaning of her statement.
“I have to go,” I said, not answering her. “I have to prepare for this presentation and get it over with, and then I’ll worry about the rest once it’s over.”
“Good luck,” Hailey said. “And call me once you find out.”
“I will,” I said.
“About your period, too,” Hailey added. “Not just about the contract.”
We ended the call, and my stomach twisted again. I pressed my fingers to my lips and tried to breathe through the wave of nausea. I couldn’t be pregnant. I couldn’t have a baby. I had a career I wanted to build, and with Rachel so sick, I had no support network.
I pushed the thoughts away. I couldn’t think about that right now. I had to focus on the presentation and getting this contract. If I did, a promotion could be in my near future, and it would change everything for me—my reputation and my income.
If it turned out I was having a baby, I could definitely use the cash injection.
You’re not pregnant, I told myself, looking in the mirror again. I slid my hand onto my lower abdomen.
There was no way. I was just sick from something I ate or from the stress. The fact that my period was late could also be attributed to stress, and I’d really been going through it lately.
