Page 12 of Afterglow

Does she really believe that? That her pain doesn’t matter?

“Don’t,” she whispers hotly. “I don’t want your pity. I don’t even know why I told you any of that.” She rolls on top of me, and before I can reply—before I can tell her I don’t pity her, I just feel for her—she’s reaching between us and driving any thought of further conversation from my mind.

“Don’t think this means I like you,” she taunts between gasping breaths as she slides onto me, but I see it for what it is. She’s protecting herself in the only way she knows how.

“I wouldn’t dream of it, blondie,” I say, pressing up so we’re flush before pulling her in for a searing kiss.

I burn for her, and she burns for me… and together we could set this tent ablaze.

I fall asleep wishing I could stay tangled up with her like this forever, and that’s something I told myself I’d never wish for again.

When the sun rises the next morning, it takes with it the afterglow from the night before.

I’m alone, white sheets strewn over my naked legs, and other than the smell of Leanne’s perfume on the pillow beside me, it’s as if she were never here at all.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Leanne

Six Weeks Later

“Holy shit.” The whispered words disappear into the void, not even reaching the white walls to reverberate back to me.

The white-and-grey marble countertop of my bathroom is littered with the remains of my spontaneous run to the store.

Three boxes and six blue-and-white sticks—all displaying the same eight-letter word.

Pregnant.

“Holy shit,” I say again.

I pick up each test in turn, as if the results will change if I blink, or look away, or shake it like an eight-ball. They’re all resolutely the same after my inspection, the grey display screen and the small black letters.

I cover my mouth and stifle a sound that’s somewhere between a sob and a laugh.

Is this really happening?

My gaze tracks over the tests again.

Yes, it’s really happening.

I squeeze my eyes shut as the first tear rolls down my cheek, finding the corner of my mouth and leaving a salty residue behind.

My belief that I’d get to experience pregnancy was ripped from me months and months ago. The irony of spending the last six weeks finally dealing with that hurt—with that loss—only to be slapped with this reality, is not lost on me. It’s like being given a gift I was told was never meant for me.

I took the singular box of tests—leftover from before—out from the medicine cabinet this morning knowing it was impossible… But then they were both positive. A result I refused to believe, blaming the date on the box showing they’d expired two months ago.

I pushed them aside, along with the reluctant hope growing in my gut.

When I threw up again—the initial reason I even considered taking them—I made a hasty trip to Walmart to buy two more boxes and a bottle of Sprite.

I had the entire bottle chugged by the time I got home… and then I peed on four more sticks. Each one displaying the same result in much less time than the directions required.

Pregnant.

I sit on the lip of the bathtub and stare at the test cradled in my hands, the reality finally dawning on me in the same way the sun crests the mountains surrounding Bozeman every morning.

I’m thirty-seven years old and pregnant for the first time in my life.