Page 99 of Stone

Everything was a mess. Dad's passing, Mom’s grief, and John not being here to make everything better, tore at me. I was nineteen, in my prime, but I felt exhausted all the damned time. A social life had never been something I indulged in a lot, but these days, it was non-existent.

Especially because now, I had something else to worry about.

Kelly made me go to Mapletree with her a few days before. She’d confided that she needed to go to a drugstore and buy a pregnancy testing kit. We had a pharmacy in town, but it was too dangerous. There was always somebody familiar, some gossip around who would spy on whatever she bought, and the news would get around like wildfire.

Unmarried mothers were more reviled in Hambleton than Saddam Hussein. If word got out Kelly was in the midst of a pregnancy scare, she’d probably get put in stocks for the townsfolk to throw rotten fruit at.

So, we had to go elsewhere.

We waited until Saturday and drove to the next town, just the two of us. I was happy to be there and happy to help her. Stevie and John were best friends, and Kelly was probably the person—bar John, Connie, and Mom—to whom I was closest, so I wanted to look out for her and give her my support.

During the journey, she’d twisted her face toward me and murmured, “I’m not ready.”

“You may not have a choice,” I replied. “A baby won’t wait, Kells.”

“Stevie said we can get married if I’m pregnant,” she said snippily. “And I’d love to, one day. I just wanted some fun before we settled down.” She threw her hands up in the air. “He promised me vacations and interesting trips abroad, not diapers and pacifiers.”

“You can still do those things with a baby,” I protested. “The world’s changed, Kelly. People fly everywhere now with kids in tow. We can visit places we’ve only dreamed of before.”

“We can,” she murmured. “But I also think I love home. My mind often goes to John, and I know how lucky I am to have Stevie here. You’ve gone through so much in so little time. Sometimes I wonder how you’re still standing.” She studied my face, frowning slightly. “Are things still weird with Connie?”

I turned the wheel to drive onto the main road into Mapletree. “Not weird as such. She’s just preoccupied, like she’s got the weight of the world on her shoulders. After Bandit stayed away from Dad’s funeral, she kind of withdrew. I don’t know if she felt as if she was in the middle of our supposed feud or if things with John are getting on top of her, too.”

Kelly stared off into space. “Never realized before how hard it is. You see it on the news, the troops being shipped out to the desert, and the cameras that follow them around their camps, but it’s always somebody else. It’s not real until you live it, and then it’s more real than you ever want real to be.”

I smiled ruefully, murmuring, “Damned straight.”

“And there’s me whining aboutmaybehaving to get married becausemaybeStevie knocked me up out of wedlock. All because we live in a town full of religious puritans who think single mothers are the work of the Devil.” She shrugged. “Just goes to prove there’s always somebody worse off than you.”

I smiled at Kelly’s words, which I knew she exaggerated to make me laugh. She was a good friend and was there for me as much, if not more, than I was there for her.

Okay, so I missed John, but he was having a tougher time than I was. Perhaps I needed to stop feeling sorry for myself and start counting my blessings. Dad being gone was hard, but I still had Mom and John. Even though my ol’ man wasn’t there physically, he did his best in his letters to be supportive.

Kelly was right. I needed to start becoming a glass-half-full kind of girl.

My eyes darted to Kelly, then back to the street leading toward the superstore. “Why do you think you’re pregnant? Isn’t Stevie careful?”

She shrugged carelessly, her face still turned toward the passenger side window. “Yeah, but you know as well as I do that condoms break. Plus, last month, we were so into it he forgot to put the condom on at first. He remembered before…” her eyes slid to me, “you know, but there’s still a risk of those pesky little swimmers getting through even if he hasn’t…” she shrugged again, “you know. Plus, my boobs are sore, I feel bloated, and my period’s nearly a week late.”

Something pinged at the back of my mind, and an icy shiver ran down my spine.

A memory flashed through my brain of John and I in a San Diego hotel room, loving each other so beautifully that I wanted to cry, and my guy’s voice echoed in my head.

Jesus. Forgot the wrap.

It was weird because my boobs had been sore recently, too, and my belly was beginning to bloat. I just assumed I was due my period. My eyebrows drew together in thought as I tried to calculate the date of my last period, but my mind blanked.

It took me a minute to get there, and I gasped inwardly when a realization hit me.

I hadn’t had a period since well before Dad died.

Months had gone by, and I hadn’t noticed, but I’d been a bit of a zombie with the funeral and trying with Mom to find a new normal ever since. I was also working forty-hour weeks plus overtime when I could. On top of that, I was desperately trying to keep things together at home. It was no wonder everything else had fallen by the wayside.

As if in a daze, I pulled into the car park at the superstore and found a spot.

“You coming?” Kelly asked.

I shook my head, fixing a smile on my face. “I’ll wait here.”

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