Page 19 of Sunday

“C’mon in. She’s in the kitchen, Nae.”

I made my way to the living room because I wanted to sit on the couch rather than at the breakfast nook.

“Ohhh, you bought my baby,” I observed with a pout.

Two-year-old Janaya reached for me with a whimper. “I’m sorry, baby. Tee-Tee Sunday wants to hold you sooo bad. But I’m sick, and I don’t want to give you what I’ve got.”

“That’s why I came over to check on you. I know that you haven’t been answering the door or your phone lately,” Janae stated.

“I told her you’ve been sick,” Cedar informed me.

“I know that Cedar’s been working late because I haven’t seen his truck at the usual times. So, I thought I might come over and cook you dinner or clean up or something. I feel so bad, and honey, you look like you’ve been through the wringer.”

I took a seat on the couch, and Janae followed me. Cedar sat on the arm of the couch beside me.

“I feel like it.”

“What are your symptoms?”

I told her everything that I’d gone through. Janae scrunched her nose and asked something that caused my world to stop spinning on its axis.

“You’re not pregnant, are you?”

I felt Cedar tense beside me. “Girl, no.”

“I mean, I know you haven’t been dating, and you’re on your abstinence sabbatical and all, but stranger things have occurred. Are you sure?”

“One hundred percent.”

Anxiety filled me with her words. Janae kept talking, but panic spread throughout me and warmed my body with a heated flush. How the hell had I not thought about it, realized it, or cared about it until now?

Cedar and I had sex and hadn’t used protection. I wasn’t worried about him having any diseases. I trusted Cedar, and I knew that it had been some time since he’d been with a woman, based on a conversation I’d overheard between him and Chaz.

Janae and I talked a little while longer with Cedar sitting quietly by, watching me. I pretended like I was feeling tired and weak again after fifteen minutes, and she and Janaya left. The minute she left, Cedar was all over me.

“Could that be a thing, Sunny?”

“What? Pregnancy?”

“Yeah. I mean, could that be it?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah?” I said it like, “Duh?”

“When was the last time you had a cycle? We didn’t use anything that night now that I think back on it.”

“Get out of my coochie, Cedar. Damn.”

“That ain’t what ya fast ass was hollering that night, and you damn sure was begging me to get back in it shortly after that.”

I shoved him in the chest. “Boy, shut up.”

“I’m just saying. If you haven’t had one, then maybe that could be it.”

“My cycle is irregular, and it always has been since I first got my period in middle school.”

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