Page 11 of Not Our First Rodeo
“God, please do.”
“How do you feel?” Jade asks me an hour and a half later, staring at me with wide, unblinking eyes.
I swing my head to face her, hands still propped on my bathroom counter. “Pregnant.”
“Do you actually feel pregnant, or are you just saying that because there’s a positive pregnancy test right in front of you?”
We stare at thepositivepregnancy test I just took. And when I say positive, I meanreallypositive. I grew up in dance and Jade grew up on a ranch, which means neither of us has ever cared about having any semblance of privacy. She stood in front of the toilet and mocked me for not being able to aim at the stick properly, and then we both watched as two lines started to show up before I even set it on the counter.
“I don’t know,” I tell her honestly. There have been…signs. Ones I remember from seven months ago, the last time I was pregnant. The nonstop urge to pee. The cramps that feel like my period could show up at any second. The way I’ve passed out on the couch the last two nights before ever making it to bed.
There were signs that I should have caught, but I didn’t. Not when the night with Beau felt like so many other dreams I’ve woken up from, alone and covered in sweat in our bed. Until looking at those two lines, I was convinced I’d made it up, thathe hadn’t actually left the fingerprint-sized bruises on my hips or the hickey on my chest.
But now I know that what we did was very,veryreal. And had very,veryreal repercussions.
“Are you okay?” she asks me, and I really don’t know how to respond. I meet her green gaze in the mirror. She might have just come from a cattle ranch, but she still looks effortlessly stunning. She has the kind of natural beauty that people pay lots of money to achieve.
“I don’t know,” I say truthfully.
I’m separated from my husband and pregnant with his child. Just five months after I miscarried our last one.
Oh yeah, and I feel like I’m going to throw up my breakfast.
I let my head fall back, closing my eyes against the bright bathroom lights. “Not good, I don’t think.”
“So…” She hesitates. “How far along are you? Probably, like, five weeks, right? Unless you guys—”
My eyes connect with hers in the mirror again. “No, we didn’t. Again.”
Even though I’ve wanted to. God, I forgot how much I love having him likethat. I’ve missed him in so many ways over the last three months. I’ve missed hearing his laugh and cuddling up to him in the middle of the night when I’m cold and having someone to eat dinner with at night.
But it wasn’t until that night three weeks ago that I realized how much I’d missed his hands and mouth and the way he makes me come alive with just one touch. That night felt magical.
And looking down at my flat stomach that will soon start to become rounded with our child, I guess it was.
“Five weeks,” I confirm. “If I had to guess.”
Jade’s voice is softener, less tinged with shock, when she asks, “How do you feel, really?”
I shake my head, so, so many thoughts jumbling around inside it, and turn around to face her in my bathroom. “I’m scared, Jade,” I whisper, wishing I could feel the relief of tears.
I’ve experienced so much hurt, so muchgriefthis year, but I’ve hardly been able to cry. I think I’m broken. No, I know I am.
Jade wraps her arms around me, and I sink into her embrace. She’s so much taller than me, and I love the way she always rests her head on top of mine when we hug. It always makes me feel intense comfort, right down to my bones, and this time is no different, even if it doesn’t manage to knock all the anxiety away.
“It’s going to be okay,” she promises, her voice raspy. She has the kind of voice they put in men’s deodorant commercials. The ones where ridiculously hot women are talking about how their ridiculously hot partners smellsogood in this three-dollar deodorant.
“You don’t know that,” I say into her chest, willing the panic not to take over, not when Jade is here and I can’t retreat into myself.
That’s all I can think about. How excited I was last time. How finding out I was unexpectedly pregnant was the first bright spot I’d seen in the months following my injury, the first happy thing I’d felt since learning I’d never be able to dance professionally again. It was sunshine after months of rain.
And then I lost the baby.
And the world suddenly felt so dark again.
“I don’t know if this baby will make it, Els,” she says, and although some people might feel hurt by those words, they feel good to me—validating my fears. “But I do know that whatever happens, you will make it through this. We will. You are so strong.”
“I don’t feel strong,” I choke out around the lump forming in my throat.
