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A text message popped up on my phone, startling me, giving me a moment of hope that it might be Tarryn texting me to explain. Instead, it was Kim.
[Kim] I’m heading out. Everything okay?
[Me] Yup. Talk to you tomorrow
She sent me back a smiley face. Thank god she was giving me privacy to process what we’d both seen. I’d caught sight of her rounded eyes and open mouth before I’d shot into my office. She didn’t think things between them had been innocent, and chances were my work colleagues and investors wouldn’t either.
The fact that other people would think Tarryn was cheating on me was surprisingly humiliating. Why? I wasn’t sure, but that was my own shit to deal with. I knew the truth, but what was I going to tell other people?
Why had I assumed no one would ever find out?
Unable to stop myself, I started texting Tarryn, writing and deleting about twelve messages before I finally settled with the simple one.
[Me] Why were you at a clinic with Loïc? It was all over the news
I stared at the message I’d sent, hoping it didn’t sound like an accusation. I willed her to be awake, or to wake up and see it immediately. I paced my office for an hour and a half, phone in hand, staring at it even though I had my ringer turned on. It wasn’t like I could concentrate on anything else until I had an answer. What did I think was happening? I couldn’t even answer that myself.
I closed my tired, burning eyes for a moment, trying to decrease the stinging when the phone dinged, scaring the hell out of me.
[Nymph] It was on the news?
[Me] Yes. What was that about?
There was silence for a long few minutes before my notification went off again. It was a picture—a box of something I didn’t recognize at first, and then a second text came through.
[Nymph] We May Need To Make Some Decisions
My heart stopped as I scrolled back up to the picture, zooming in. I didn’t know what I was looking at until the picture was expanded enough to read. Even then, I had to Google it. It wasn’t a brand of pregnancy test we’d used before.
She might be pregnant?
Was she fucking with me? Practical jokes had never been her style. She wouldn’t send me this unless there was a legitimate concern.
[Me] Did you take the test? Was it positive? How is that possible? You get the shot
[Nymph] The shot isn’t a hundred percent effective, and I’m at the end of my dose. The results were inconclusive. I’ll keep you posted. I need to go back to sleep or I’m going to be a mess at work later. Talk soon xoxox
Inconclusive? What did that mean?
If she really was pregnant, I doubted it was mine—the timing wouldn’t line up.
What if we really did end up raising Loïc’s baby? That was a whole new level of complication. Raising Loïc’s baby would mean he’d be a permanent feature in our life.
Shaking, I imagined her growing a little French baby in her belly, and her growing more in love with Loïc with every passing day.
My primary care doctor had talked about sending me for testing, since we hadn’t gotten pregnant on our own, but then the move to Californiahad come up, and it had given me time to procrastinate. She’d told me from the time we were twelve that if I didn’t want children our relationship wouldn’t work. I had put her off and put her off, telling her I needed more financial stability until I would feel comfortable with the idea. Then we’d started living apart.
Now here was Loïc, willing to give her anything her heart desired.
I kept pacing, clutching the phone as though more messages might show up if I didn’t put it down—as though she might get a more definitive answer in the next twenty minutes so I could remember how to breathe again. Not sure what else to do, I packed up my shit and went back to my place. My throat hurt and so did my eyes, as though all the tears I hadn’t shed for any reason for years had dammed up inside of me and were fighting to come out all at once.
As soon as I was home, I started scrolling back through conversations we’d had, back through our discussions about the possibility of her sleeping with another man to please me. Loïc had told me how reluctant she’d been, so now I could see it for myself, in the subtext.
I went back months further to the last conversation we’d had about babies, and names she liked. Now, I saw that all the hesitation had been me and not her worrying about her role onRose Red.
Why had I been putting her off for so long?
She’d been eager for kids since we’d turned eighteen, but my answer had always been ‘no, not yet.’
