Page 214 of The Marriage Clause

I have to let her go.

Chapter Thirty-Five

ARIA

I buy the test at a pharmacy two neighborhoods away from Serendipity's because apparently humiliation has layers and one of them is not wanting the barista who just watched me nearly pass out over chamomile tea to also see me buying a pregnancy test and a pack of saltines.

The cashier doesn't even look up at me as she scans my items.

Here I am, standing in front of her with my life potentially ending and beginning at the same time and she just scans the box like I'm buying toothpaste. Not like I’m about to find out if Everett Kauffman, the man who dropped me the moment he didn’t need me anymore, is about to become my baby daddy.

I sit in the car afterward with the bag in my lap and the steering wheel pressing into my ribs and try to convince myself this is ridiculous.

Cammy and Penelope can’t be right. Me? Pregnant? I mean… we were careful, mostly. I think back on whether I missed a pill or if I took the wrong day, or if I had taken any medication that might have messed with it but nothing comes to mind.

Yes, I've been tired and nauseous and dizzy and my appetite has gone to hell, but heartbreak does strange things to a body. So can stress. So can not eating enough and sleeping badly and spending twenty-four hours cycling between sobbing and rage and trying not to text your estranged husband things that would permanently lower your self-respect.

There are plenty of explanations.

I hold onto that all the way back to the estate.

The house is too quiet when I walk in. Every room looks larger and emptier without him in it. I keep listening for sounds that aren't coming.

I take the bag upstairs.

Past the bedroom.

Past the studio door where waves of creativity come and go without a way to control them. Sometimes I paint for hours without stropping, sometimes I can't even bring myself to pick up a paint brush.

Into the guest bath because I can't do this in the bathroom that still smells like his damn soap.

The instructions blur the first time I read them, so I make myself breathe and read them again. Then I do the thing and set the test on the marble counter and back away from it like it might explode.

I wait the three minutes, though it feels like thirty.

It's almost offensive how long three minutes can be when you're waiting for the world to rearrange itself.

I pale. Sit on the edge of the tub. Stand again. Look everywhere except the counter. But then I look at the counter against my better judgement, and the pregnancy test stopped blinking. It has the results written in clear writing but I’m too far away to read it.