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“I did not.”
“You snored during savasana. That’s why I thought maybe you had a cold. Your nose sounded stuffy,” she joked. “I’m bringing pizza.”
Instead of tidying up like I normally would, I just sat on the couch, feet curled under me, and waited for her to arrive with food. If she hadn’t announced her intention to bring pizza, the fact was I probably would’ve just gone to bed at seven o’clock and skipped supper.
When she got there, I told her to go ahead and grab some plates and we could eat on the couch.
“You mean we’re having food on the sacred couch that must be kept clean?” she joked.
“I just don’t feel like getting up. I’m serious. I may have mono or something. Or a virus that’s kicking my butt.”
“Did you get the elderberry syrup? I didn’t figure you would. If you had, you’d be better by now. It boosts your immune system.”
She fussed over me and brought me a glass of wine. “Thanks,” I said. “I’m fine though. I just need some sleep.”
“Since when do you hate green peppers? I had to learn to like them because you said they were a must-have.”
“Hey, I’ve eaten pineapple on pizza for you.”
“Yeah, as long as it had green peppers. So why are you picking them off?” she said as I fiddled with the remote and turned on a movie.
“They just don’t sound good,” I said.
We watched for a few minutes and then I got up. “Do you want some water?” I offered as I got my own glass.
“Uh, no, I’ve got wine. So do you,” Rina said wryly, raising an eyebrow. “What’s up with that? You never turned down a glass of cheap red.”
“It just didn’t appeal to me. I’m thirsty.”
“You’ve been yawning all night. You suddenly don’t want green peppers on your pizza, and wine doesn’t appeal to you. Are you pregnant?” she accused.
“What? No,” I laughed.
Then I sat back down with my water and watched the movie. But while the movie was going and Rina was drinking wine, I thought about it. When was my last period? It had been a minute. I remembered having the cramps on the first day of midterms. I did the math. Shit. I should’ve started like a week and a half ago at the latest.
I looked up from the water glass I was staring into and saw Rina watching me. “I know what you’re thinking. I’ll run to the pharmacy,” she said.
There was no way. It was just stress, the anxiety from my dad’s health scare, and the pressure of the project deadlines and graduation coming up. That was enough to make my period late. I had been really tense, hadn’t slept well the week my dad was in the hospital. I was exhausted and under a lot of stress. That’s why I was tired, why I was late. I started googling effects of prolonged stress on your period when Rina got back.
“Here you go. This is one test I hope you fail,” she said, trying to make light of it. I knew she saw how freaked out I was. I took it from her and then hugged her impulsively.
“Thank you. Just—wait with me, okay?”
“I’m not going to leave you do to it alone,” she said. “Go ahead and go pee.”
It was supposed to take five minutes, but my two telltale pink lines showed up bright and early at the two-minute mark. I was pregnant. Rina just hugged me and said it was going to be okay. I told her I was fine, that I was just going to go to sleep and deal with it in the morning. So, she left, and I sat on my couch beside my untouched glass of wine, staring in shock at my positive result.
“What the hell am I going to do?” I blurted out to myself. We weren’t even officially together yet because officially, he was my teacher! And my boss!
How was Aaron going to react to his intern, the student he had a fling with, turning out to be knocked up? We hadn’t had a conversation about defining the relationship, or if we were going to see other people or what. Because technically there was no relationship yet other than the student-teacher/intern-boss relationships whose ethics we’d violated flagrantly several times. Twice on his office chair.
I’d have to make a plan. Figure out how to handle this. But I was so exhausted that even the shock of finding out I was pregnant wasn’t enough to keep me awake for long.
CHAPTER30
AARON
She wasn’t exactly avoiding me. Probably. It just seemed that way. At least that’s the story I was telling myself.
