Page 60 of The Circle

Christine finishes the water, sets the goblet down, and lets her head fall back against the wall.

“Are you”—I pause, making sure to punctuate the point—“okay?” She closes her eyes. Nods. “What the fuck was that?” I ask her. “What happened? Do you think you’re… What happened?”

I don’t want to speculate or put words in her mouth, but I’m worried that getting tossed around in the van may have shaken something loose or given her a concussion or something. Maybe the effects are only just catching up to her now. Bodies hold onto and release trauma in weird ways. I tend to release mine with bullets and my fists, but we’re all different.

She takes another calming, steadying breath, and says, “I didn’t want to say anything before.”

And now I am worried. Because this isn’t a worry about the distant future. This worry is about the very, very near future. The thing that’s about to come out of Christine’s mouth, the fact that ‘I didn’t want to say anything before’ means she’s known about something she’s been withholding. There’s something she’s not been saying because she didn’t want to for some reason. And the cold chill that runs through me totally offsets the warmth of the floor and the train and what I usually feel when I’m with Christine.

But I don’t say any of that. Instead I just take a breath and say, “Okay.”

The ‘okay’ is an invitation for her to keep talking. But she doesn’t accept. So, I do a bit more clarifying. “What didn’t you want to say?” I ask with as soothing a tone as I can possibly muster.

“I just wanted to be sure that… I suppose, technically, I’m still not sure, but when taking all the evidence into account, I…”

“Christine,” I say with what I hope is encouragement and not impatience. “What. The fuck. Is going on?”

“Just… with everything that’s been… I didn’t want to—”

“Christine! What the fuck?” Pretty sure I blew up the appearance of patience just there, but oh, well.

She pushes a strand of hair from in front of her eye and leans her head off the wall, supporting it once again on her own, and looks at me. I can feel my heart pounding, preparing myself for whatever terrible thing she’s about to say.

She has some kind of disease.

She remembered all the things she had forgotten and she has awful news.

She gets motion sickness on trains.

Whatever.

But then she tells me the one thing I hadn’t prepared for and didn’t expect. Which, of course, is how shit always happens, isn’t it?

“I think I’m pregnant,” she says.