Page 6 of Until Waverly

It could keep for a couple of days, though. I needed to sleep and get well. I also had to gather my tattered wits so I could withstand the coming lecture from my parents about being safe and not getting pregnant.How humiliating.Hopefully, once I was rested and after I was better, the doom and gloom, pit-in-my-stomach feeling would be gone.

Until then, this was going to suck.

* * *

Two weeks later, after it seemed like I was literally dying from morning sickness and the flu—shout out to the student nurse who gave it to me—I’d been back to class and work. Over the last couple of days, the morning sickness had tapered off. Unfortunately, not the tiredness. I could live with that though.

Since I found out Jackson was on the schedule to work tonight, I decided to forgo studying and head to Flame. I’d bought a digital pregnancy test and took it, knowing how it would turn out anyway. Then I wrapped it in a long rectangular box.

Cheesy.

Scary. Mostly.

I didn’t know what was going to happen. Fear gripped me in its clawed clutches, making me queasy and lightheaded. I’d almost chickened out several times. What if Jackson didn’t want a baby? What if he didn’t believe the baby was his? He’d been the only person I’d ever been with, and we had sex.

So damn stupid.

I hadn’t even told my parents. I knew they’d be disappointed. Even using protection wouldn’t get me out of being lectured about being safe or being too young to have a baby. The idea of seeing the crushing disappointment on their faces left me a sobbing mess most nights after class. I couldn’t do it yet. I needed more time.

Still, this was my first step. If I could give Jackson the test, and he accepted the results, well, telling my parents wouldn’t be so awful—or so I hoped. Jackson was my BOOM, and if he acknowledged our baby, then we could tell them together and go from there. Maybe start our lives together. Knowing my father, he’d insist on us getting married. Which I didn’t mind. Jackson, being my husband was how I’d seen my life playing out since my birthday.

Pulling open the door to Flame, I went past the front podium, waving at the girl on duty. Everyone knew I was Mack’s sister. I didn’t have to wait or be escorted to a table. The scent of perfectly prepared dinners wafted on the air, causing my mouth to water and my stomach to rumble in delight. I should have eaten before I came, but if things went right tonight, we’d probably have dinner here. So, I took a seat at the bar and ordered something simple, a sparkling water. According to the staff, Jackson was supposed to get off at seven, which meant I had about an hour to kill.

Halfway to my destination, I spotted him—Jackson. He’d been at a table, that gorgeous smile of his on display while he talked to someone. The conversation, from what I could see, was intimate. Friendly. I wondered who the person could be. Since I didn’t see Ireland or Mack, it wasn’t a family friend or a mutual. Curious, I leaned against the curio-type bar filled with trinkets of all kinds and watched. I wouldn’t say I was a jealous person by nature. The peculiar emotion got people nowhere. Nor did I envy anyone. Again, sometimes coveting the “good things” from the outside and taking them might be bad once you saw them from the inside.

When I observed the woman stand, wearing a fitted black dress with an exposed back and her hair pulled up in a severe bun at the nape of her slender neck, I thought nothing of it. However, when she leaned in and kissed Jackson’s cheek, and he gave the woman the same adoring smile he’d shared with me, I couldn’t sit there any longer.

Yet, I did.

In slow motion, I watched Jackson return the kiss on the cheek and then hugged her close. Love sparkled in his eyes. I’d seen that too, the night of the party. My heart sank. My chest seized. How stupid was I? If I’d paid attention to the gossip around the restaurant, Jackson, like his brothers, was a player. He’d use whatever tactic he could to get a woman in their bed. I’d been a notch in Jackson’s post.

Letting out a shuddered breath, I lifted my chin and walked out. There was nothing left to say. Jackson had moved on, it appeared, and so would I.I can’t believe how stupid I am to even believe for a second we had anything.Maybe I was wrong, and I’d just thought Jackson was my BOOM. What happened between Jackson and me had been chemistry. Insta-lust. Period. I’d done something stupid. Now, I was going to pay the consequences of doing such for the rest of my life.

Pain lanced my heart as the warm air hit me square in the face. Tears blurred my eyes. I was going to be sick. Jackson had used me. Mutual lust or not, he could have been forward with his... List of partners? I don’t know. My mind was a fog-filled, jumbled mess. I couldn’t string two thoughts together to form a cognitive plan. All I knew was I needed to go home. If I stayed there at Flame, I’d do something stupid.

Like wait for Jackson.

Profess my love for him.

I snorted.

No, I’d probably say or do something stupid like those women in all those daytime dramas did. I’d walk back into Flame, find the woman, smack her face, then announce I was pregnant with Jackson’s baby. Oh, and somehow, all this would take place after I’d come back to life after a tragic car accident, because that stuff sold, no matter how unplausible the idea had been. Supposedly housewives ate that up.

Unfortunately for me, my reality wasn’t such a happy one. I wouldn’t be coming back from the dead. There was no happily ever after for me. I’d become a statistic. A pregnant nineteen-year-old college student scared and alone because the guy I thought was my BOOM ended up being my dud.

Now, what was I going to do?

Chapter2

Waverly

Thirteen months later...

I sat outside of VUMC—Vanderbilt University Medical Center—willing myself to get out of the car and go to work. Exhausted and bone-weary from another night of hardly any sleep, I glanced in the rearview mirror at the reason I’d been so out of it. Currently, the adorable little monster—she was so damn lucky she’s so cute—was sleeping peacefully in the back seat.

I took another sip of the double espresso Starbucks cold brew drink I’d brought on the way in and groaned. I had under a half hour to get inside, drop Alandria off at the daycare center the hospital provided, and get myself checked in to start one of my final clinical rotations.

Six down, three more to go.

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