Shatter (True Believers #4)(13)
Author: Erin McCarthy

“Oh.” I hugged my knees to my chest. “Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I really do have the flu.”

“There’s only one way to find out. Now why don’t you lie down in your room while I’m gone? And don’t pee.”

What I really wanted to do was shit myself.

Instead I stared at the ceiling of my bedroom and pictured having this conversation with Jonathon. Hey, remember that night we were studying and one thing led to another? Well . . . it led to a baby, too. Isn’t that just wild?

Yeah. Crazy.

Over and over I kept remembering the moment when his penis had pressed against me condom-free before I had shoved him away. Seriously, that could not be enough contact to cause pregnancy. Could it? I mean, I knew technically a guy didn’t need to ejaculate, that sperm hung around in that clear stuff that leaks out when they’re turned on, but still. What were the odds?

Probably pretty damn high.

My stomach lurched again and I concentrated on breathing through my nose.

Twenty minutes later my mother was back with a brown bag that she handed to me. I made her come into the bathroom with me, pushing the button to lock the door behind me. “Tell me what I’m supposed to do,” I said, pulling the box out and handing it to her. “I can’t read the directions. I’m freaking out too much.”

She pulled her reading glasses out of her cardigan pocket. My mom was beautiful, her figure still toned and athletic. She had a few wrinkles, but she was aging gracefully, her hair dyed blond now but still thick and lustrous, still long. I appreciated her more right then than possibly I ever had before. Her lips moved as she read then she looked up and pulled the glasses back off.

“All you have to do is hold this end with the blue tip under your urine stream. After you pull the tip off, obviously. Then you wait two minutes.”

I took the stick from her and did it as quickly as possible.

“Set it down flat after you put the tip back on. Here, put it on the paper. Now step away from it while I time it.”

I did, sitting on the edge of the bathtub. I closed my eyes and sang a Britney Spears song to myself to keep myself calm and pass the time.

“It’s time. Do you want me to look or do you want to do it?”

“I’ll do it.” I couldn’t be a total wimp about it. I held my breath as I leaned over to glance at the stick, keeping my distance. Oh, shit. “It’s a plus sign. Does that mean what I think it means?”

“Yes. You’re pregnant.”

Fuckity f**k.

For some reason my chemistry professor’s face popped into my head. Nothing like having to tell your chem prof that you’re pregnant with his grandchild. How random was that? Somehow I doubted that would improve my grade.

I gave a hysterical laugh that dissolved into tears. My mother pulled me into her arms and I sobbed on her sweater, tears and snot smearing all over her.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she murmured, her hand smoothing over my back, up and down in steady strokes. “Nobody died.”

“I’ll be dead when Dad finds out. He’s going to kill me.” Or maybe I just wanted him to kill me and put me out of my misery.

She laughed. “No, he won’t. You’re not sixteen, for heaven’s sake. You’ll be twenty-one in three weeks. I think your father is well aware that you’re a woman.”

I didn’t feel like a woman. I felt like an idiot. A terrified idiot. I peeled myself off her chest and wiped my nose with my sleeve. “What am I going to do?”

“That’s up to you, baby. What do you think Nathan will say about this?”

My lip curled and I felt my stomach cramp again. “Nathan is not the father, thank God. I haven’t been with him since August. There is no way.”

“Oh, I just assumed you had gotten back together. I know how much you were in love with him.”

“Mom, he had sex with Robin. No. We are not together.” I reached over and ripped a tissue out of the box on the back of the toilet, my sobbing fit seeming to be over.

“Well, who is the father, then?”

“My chemistry tutor.” I blew my nose. Hard. “He’s basically a genius. Or at least on paper he is. This is actually his fault and he of all people, Mr. Science, should have known better.”

Her eyebrows rose.

“But at least your first grandchild won’t be a moron. It will probably be born wearing glasses, though.” If I sounded irrational and bitter it was because I was.

“Kylie, that’s a bit ridiculous. You can’t possibly be berating his intelligence.”

What I was doing was freaking out, plain and simple. “He does wear glasses. And this is his fault.” Which was completely unfair of me. What, like I wasn’t there, too? Like I had been totally clear about the situation before getting naked? No, I was just as much to blame and that pissed me off. I knew better. This wasn’t my first rodeo. I had safe sex. Except for two seconds with my chemistry tutor and I got caught. Busted. Knocked up.

“What do you think you’ll do, then? Are you two dating?”

“No.” I sighed, my nose swollen, face itchy. “I guess what I’m doing is having a baby. I love kids too much not to, and you’re right. I’m almost twenty-one. I’m not a teenager.” Then I added completely pointlessly, “Why couldn’t this happen a year from now? Then I would at least graduate while I was pregnant.”

“Because it happened this year,” my mother said with a smile. But she took my hand and squeezed it. “I’m proud of you. You’ll be a wonderful mother, Kylie Ann. I’ve known that since you were three. And Daddy and I will be here to help you however we can.”

I nodded, my throat suddenly tight. If I was half as good of a mother as she was, I’d be just fine.

“I was only a few years older than you when I had you.”

I didn’t bother pointing out that she might have only been twenty-three but she’d been married to my father and out of college already.

She turned on the water. “Wash your hands and let’s go in and tell the family.”

Yay.

My mother wasted no time. Everyone looked up from where they were sitting in the family room, my brother Jake wrestling with the dog on the floor, my sister Ainsley banging away at the piano.

“Everything okay?” my father asked, busy laying logs in the fireplace to set them ablaze. The man loved to burn stuff.

My mother glanced at me for permission and I nodded. I couldn’t speak if my life depended on it.