Chapter 51: Chapter Fifty-One

RAE

I stare at the headline as if it’ll change if I go long enough without blinking. ~Logan Quincy Stepping Down as Quincy Ventures CEO, to be Succeeded by Howard Hanover~.

He did it. He resigned. He stood in front of the board and told them he…

I don’t know what he told them. I wasn’t there.

A couple of tears slip out, but I brush them away when Zoe barges in. “Get up,” she orders. Today marks the two-month point past my breakup with Logan, and she’s determined to tough-love me out of my misery.

I groan. “I feel like shit. Let me wallow.”

“No.” She crosses her arms. “No wallowing. I made waffles.”

My stomach flips. “Thanks, Zoe. I’m not hungry, but I’ll have some later.”

“Rae, it’s eleven in the morning.”

She’s right. I really should get out of bed, but every cell in my body feels like it weighs a million tons. “I think I’m coming down with something. I don’t feel well.”

Zoe eyes me skeptically but—quite uncharacteristically—accepts defeat and leaves my room. I sigh in relief and sink into the sheets once again.

Warmth and darkness envelop me. Maybe if I close my eyes again, I’ll fall back asleep and won’t have—

“Sit up. I’m taking your temperature.”

“Zoe,” I grumble.

“Rachel Jean Olson, remove your head from the blankets for thirty seconds.”

I obey, and Zoe gently slides a thermometer into my mouth. As the metallic taste overwhelms my senses, all I feel is the foreign object in my mouth.

My throat begins to spasm with gags. I spit the thermometer onto my bed and run into the bathroom.

God, I hate my weak stomach more than anything.

Zoe holds my hair and rubs my back. “Shit, Rae, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were actually sick.”

I respond by puking one more time, like my body feels the need to punctuate Zoe’s sentence.

“I’m going to run to the store and get you some nausea medicine and ginger ale,” she says softly. “Consider it a peace offering for gagging you with the thermometer.”

“I love you,” I mumble.

When Zoe closes the apartment door, I pull myself up, using the counter to support my weight, a task my jellylike legs aren’t capable of right now.

There’s no way I can stand long enough to brush my teeth, so I swish some mouthwash around and collapse onto the couch.

I tilt my head back and let the cool air drifting from the overhead fan dull the pulsating flashes of heat running through me.

Zoe’s biting her lip when she hangs up her jacket. “Don’t kill me,” she says slowly, nervously swinging a very full bag.

“Why?” I ask even slower.

And then I understand. I read the concern on her face. Really read it. And I know what’s in the bag.

“No,” I moan. “No, that’s not it.”

“It probably isn’t, but it can’t hurt just to be sure.”

I shake my head.

“I’ll come in with you. Let’s take it now.”

I allow Zoe to lift me from the sofa. She weighs a whole lot less than I do, but she works out, unlike me, so she’s capable of supporting my bodyweight (also unlike me).

I flop onto the toilet and keep my head tucked between my knees, not wanting to see where the sounds of cardboard tearing are coming from.

Then, something cool and plastic is in my palm.

“Do you need me to hold it for you?”

This is why Zoe Bridges is my best friend. She’ll let me pee on her hand for my peace of mind.

However, because she’s my best friend, I spare her from the experience of getting pissed on. “I got it,” I mumble, and then I pee on the stick myself.

It stays there on the floor, looking all innocent, as if it doesn’t have the capability to blow up my future. Zoe doesn’t wait for me to tell her I’m ready, probably because I’ll never be.

With a small pop, the blue cap is off the stick, revealing a small window.

A window with two lines.

The pregnancy test disappears. Zoe disappears. The bathroom disappears. I’m in a tunnel of darkness, silent except the lights buzzing. The tunnel is running out of oxygen, and so am I.

I gasp for air, and I feel it in my windpipe, but my desperate inhales do nothing to revive me.

There were two lines. Two perpendicular lines. A little blue plus sign. A plus sign for a plus one.

It has to be wrong. Faulty. Zoe must have gotten a cheap store-brand test.

I wrench my eyes open.

No. It’s one of the fancy kinds. The kinds made for women who actually want two lines.

God, no. I can’t.

I’m twenty-four. Recently twenty-four. Nine months from now, I’ll still be twenty-four.

~Nine months from now~.

“Rae? Can you hear me?”

I nod.

“I made you an appointment at a clinic that’s open Sundays. I called when I was walking to the pharmacy.”

“How…”

“You haven’t been acting like yourself the past couple of weeks.

“You keep throwing up and I don’t think it’s from anxiety, our tampon supply hasn’t gone down in a while, and Rae, I’m going to be honest here, your tits look fantastic.”

Only Zoe can have me laughing as my world falls apart.

***

I nearly knock myself off the examination table when the ultrasound technician rubs the freezing cold jelly all over my abdomen.

I wasn’t expecting warm and cozy, but it feels like they pulled the stuff out from beneath the ice alongside Captain America.

Zoe squeezes my hand and breathes, “Oh, my God.”

My eyelids pop open to view the image I didn’t think I wanted to see. A tiny, white, fuzzy bean against a black backdrop.

A baby. An actual baby. My baby. A little baby growing inside me. Logan’s baby growing inside me.

“How can I be ten weeks?” I ask breathlessly, interrupting the doctor as she explains how far along I am. ~Didn’t I just have my period? Was that really two months ago~?

“Some women don’t experience pregnancy symptoms until they’re further along. Did the nausea just start today?”

I don’t want to answer that question, because no, it didn’t. I’ve been queasy for… ~How long has it been? A couple of weeks? A month?~ I’m such a fucking idiot, blaming everything on anxiety.

The fatigue, the nausea, the moodiness… Textbook pregnancy symptoms I was too stupid to recognize.

And now…

“I’ve been drinking coffee,” I blurt out. My stomach goes to ice, colder than the jelly spread all over it. ~What have I done to my baby~? I feel Zoe gripping my hand, pulling me out of the tunnel I’m beginning to fade into.

“I wouldn’t recommend consuming caffeinated coffee while pregnant because there are slight risks, but research has shown that one cup a day is generally safe.

I usually suggest that my patients wean themselves off caffeinated coffee or switch to tea rather than stop drinking it abruptly.

Giving it up cold turkey can be stressful on the body, and we want to avoid that as best as possible, especially so early in the pregnancy.”

“You’re okay, Rae,” Zoe says softly, “and so is your baby.”

The doctor—I should have paid more attention when she told me her name—nods. “She’s right. Your baby looks perfectly healthy. Here’s a photo of the ultrasound.”

She hands me a printout, and I lose touch with reality. The world disappears, and all I do is gaze at this little white outline of a tiny person who’s mine. Mine to love. A part of me.

Zoe takes down the doctor’s instructions in her phone’s notes app. I’m not capable right now. I can’t stop staring at my little bean. I nearly collide with the door exiting the clinic, unable to peel my eyes away.

“I…” I wipe my eyes. “Thank you, Zoe.”

A surge of appreciation and love brews in my chest. Zoe ~knew~. She knew, and she bought the tests, and she brought me here.

I would still be in bed, unaware of the ~baby~ growing inside me, had she not…

“Don’t cry on me, Rae,” she laughs. ~Too late~. “Let’s get you some expensive vitamins.”

She doesn’t even bother to ask if I want to come into the store with her. She just tells me she’s leaving the keys in the ignition so I can keep the heat on.

Zoe returns with prenatal gummies and an amused glint in her eyes. “The cashier told me I’m glowing,” she bursts out, doubling over the steering wheel in laughter.

“You ~are~ glowing,” I tell her. She really is. Zoe radiates positive energy wherever she goes.

“You’re making me blush,” she groans. “Remember when I told you not to kill me earlier?”

I take it back. The positive energy has disappeared. “Yes. Why do you ask?”

“Going to have to ask you to keep that up. We need to make one more stop before we go home. He needs to know.”

A million what-ifs rush through my mind. ~What if Logan doesn’t want it? What if he hates me? What if he thinks I’m trying to trap him? What if~…

The doctor’s words echo in my head. ~The first trimester can be unpredictable, so women usually wait to spread the news until they enter the second~.

~What if~ that?

“No, Zoe. No, please,” I whimper.

“He loves you, Rae.”

I shake my head.

“He does.”

“He might not even be home.” A horrifying thought hits me like a fucking bus. “What if he’s with someone?”

I can see it now. ~I knock on Logan’s door, ultrasound photo in hand. He swings it open. “Rae?” he exclaims, confused. From behind him, another voice, high and feminine, “Babe, who’s there?”~

“First of all, he’s not with anyone. At all. Not today, not since it ended between you. He loves you. Second—again, I need you to refrain from killing me—I asked Courtney. He’s at the gym. Well, he was at the gym. He should be—”

“What the ~fuck~, Zoe?” I shriek. “You told Courtney?”

Her eyes widen in hurt. “No, of course not. I asked her what Logan is up to. I said I was drunk and reassuring you.”

“Sorry,” I mumble. Then, remembering she’s bringing me to his apartment against my will, I start begging. “Zoe, please. Please, can we just go home? I’ll figure out a way to tell him. I just need some time to—”

“No. You need to process this with him. As much as I want to pretend I’m your co-parent, this is Logan’s journey too.”

I shake my head. She’s right, but I need time. This is… ~Holy shit~. I’m pregnant. And I want it. I don’t know who the fuck I am.

I mean, I always dreamed of having kids someday, but I imagined hitting thirty first. Twenty-four is…

Does this mean I’ll be making brownies for bake sales at thirty?

I thought I had more time, but I love this…this little bean. My little bean.

I burst into tears.

“Oh, Rae.” Zoe rubs my back. “You’ll feel better after you tell him. It’s best for you, and it’s best for your baby too, I think.”

~My baby~. “Okay,” I whisper.

“We’ll be there in a couple of minutes. You should call now.”

No chance am I calling until she forces me, which is exactly what happens when she pulls into a guest parking space in front of his building. I sink into the seat, feeling creepy as fuck.

“Rae?” Logan’s voice is gruff, a little raspy.

Mine, in contrast, trembles like a sapling in a hurricane. “Hi, uh… Hey, Logan.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything is… I need to talk to you. Everything’s okay. I just need to talk to you. I’m, uh, outside your apartment.”

“You’re at my apartment?”

“It’s, um, a long story.”

“I don’t know if this is a good idea. Do you have a way to get home?”

“Yes,” I choke out. I’m starting to full-out sob now.

“Are you sure everything’s alright?”

Before I can open my mouth, Zoe’s nails dig into my palm, prying the phone from my grip. “Logan, I swear to God, let her in.”

Logan’s voice is louder, angrier on the other line until Zoe interrupts him with a, “Do you really think Rae would just fucking show up here if it weren’t important?”

Half-smirking, half-grimacing, she hands me the phone.

“I’ll open the front door for you.” The line goes dead.

I slide the photo I’ve been clutching into my purse and force my legs to carry me past the granite benches and perfectly manicured shrubs that line the walkway to his apartment.

The door slides open with a ~whoosh~, and I don’t need to look up to know that it’s one of the doormen, not Logan. He won’t open this door for me.

He’s not inviting me back into his life. He’s too thoughtful to give me that sort of impression.

“Thank you,” I mumble.

“Of course.”

I whip my head toward the voice beside me, the voice belonging to the guy holding the door. Logan. A flicker of hope ignites inside me.

Is that hope? Or is that nausea? Because there’s a solid possibility I…

Yeah. I’m going to puke again.

I only nod when Logan asks, for the third time, if everything is okay. I’m seconds away from defiling the elevator when the doors mercifully open. The walk to his apartment is agonizing. Each step rattles my insides.

The key scrapes the lock, sending shivers down my spine and my stomach into a frenzy.

Finally, the door is open.

I don’t take off my shoes. I don’t have time. I just run straight into the bathroom.