Page 84 of Shared By my Ex's Best Friends
My whole face crumples. Not enough to cry—not yet—but enough to stop pretending. I look away, blinking against the heat gathering in my eyes.
“I’ve just been feeling… off. I don’t know. Dizzy sometimes. Nauseous in the mornings. Tired all the time. Like bone-deep tired.”
She blinks once. Then again.
Then, like it clicks all at once, her lips part and she leans back in her chair. “Wait. That sounds exactly like what I went through right before I found out I was pregnant.”
I let out a sharp, startled laugh—one of thosenope, abort missionlaughs that sounds more like panic than humor. “Danielle…”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “Maya… could you be pregnant?”
The question hits me like a slap. All the air seems to whoosh out of my lungs at once.
My fork slips from my fingers and lands on the plate with a clatter, echoing too loudly for the calm setting.
“Wh—no.” I shake my head, hand fluttering through the air like I can wave the thought away. “No way. I mean… I don’t think so. I can’t be. Right?”
But even as the words fall from my mouth, my stomach churns.
Because my brain is already rewinding. Fast. Sharp.
The nausea that came out of nowhere a few days ago. The crying over a commercial for dog food. The soreness in my chest I brushed off as PMS—except my period never showed. The fatigue. The mood swings.
The way I fell asleep on the couch during movie night with Ethan’s hand in mine and woke up two hours later feeling like I hadn’t slept in days.
Danielle’s watching me, not saying a word now. Just sitting back, calm and steady. The kind of calm that says she’s already done this math. That she’s letting me catch up.
“You should take a test,” she says finally, her voice firm.
I shake my head again, but it’s less of a denial now and more of ahow the hell did this happengesture. “Danielle, I… I can’t even begin to think about what that would mean.”
Her expression softens. “I know, but don’t freak out before you know, okay?”
I grip the edge of the table, knuckles white. My heart is pounding in my chest like it’s trying to outrun the possibility.
“I can’t be,” I whisper before I even realize I’m saying it.
Danielle frowns. “Maya…”
“No, seriously. A baby?” My voice breaks. “It’ll blow everything up.”
She reaches across the table and takes my hand, squeezing gently. “You don’t know that.”
I shake my head, eyes stinging. “Yeah. I do.”
She lets that sit for a minute before she says, gently, “Just take the test. Then we’ll figure out the rest.”
I nod, but my stomach is already doing flips and my fingers are clammy.
Because even though I haven’t taken the test yet, even though I haven’t seen the result, I already know.
Deep down, I already know.
***
The upstairs bathroom is small—barely wide enough for the pedestal sink and the claw-foot tub I keep meaning to reglaze. Pale sea-glass tiles line the floor; they’re cool against my bare feet and somehow make me feel even shakier.
A single skylight lets in the late-afternoon sun, turning the air gold and dust-soft. The lavender candle I lit for “ambience” has burned low, scenting everything with a sweetness that suddenly feels cloying.
