Page 107 of Break Me

My throat tightens as I picture Sam’s face shift from certainty to joy. His hand on my stomach at night as he talks to our unborn child. I picture a small crib in the corner of our room. Tiny socks in the laundry.

My phone chimes and I look down at the plastic test.

One line.

I pick it up and turn it slightly like the angle might matter.

Maybe I didn’t wait long enough. Before I can talk myself out of it, I grab the second one.

“I have to be thorough,” I mutter to myself.

Three minutes later, I look down. One line.

By the time I’m opening the third, I’m almost laughing. Who buys multiple tests and keeps taking them like the first two might be lying?

The third confirms it. They’re all negative.

I sit down on the edge of the tub and stare at the three of them lined up on the counter.

This doesn’t make sense. I feel different—I know I do. Maybe it’s too early. I don’t even know exactly when I’m late. I just know it’s been a while.

I swallow over the lump forming in my throat and stand, gathering the tests before I lose my nerve.

When I open the door, he’s right there. Waiting. He looks at my face first. Not the tests. That undoes me a little.

“They’re all negative,” I say quietly.

If he’s disappointed, he doesn’t let it show.

“How far along would we even be?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” I admit.

He nods slowly. “I mean… we haven’t exactly been trying. But we haven’t been preventing it either.”

That almost makes me smile.

He steps closer, takes the tests from my hand, and sets them aside like they’re temporary. “Then we don’t know anything yet.”

I search his face. He still believes it. Or at least he believes it’s too soon to stop hoping.

Strangely, so do I.

“Okay,” I say finally. “We wait.”

“A few days,” he agrees. “Then we test again.”

He cups my face, his thumbs warm against my cheeks. “We’re not in a rush,” he says quietly. “If it’s meant to be, it’ll be.”

I lean into his hands before I can stop myself. “I thought I felt different,” I admit.

“You probably do,” he says without hesitation. “Your body knows before a test does.”

That settles somewhere deep.

He kisses my forehead like this isn’t a setback, like it’s just a step.

“Come here,” he murmurs, drawing me into him.