Page 58 of Jake and Conner
I nodded.
Most things were best faced head-on.
Even the doubts about my own condition that were starting to grow in the back of my mind.
25
Conner
As soon as Jake was scheduled for an overnight shift and I had an evening to myself, I knew what I had to do. I'd bought the pregnancy test the day after my fainting spell at the demo, but hadn't been able to work up the nerve to take it until now.
It was weird how a cheap little test stick could change your life so much. I stared at it as I sat on the toilet, my pants and underwear pulled down to my knees.
I knew how it worked, of course. I had to pee on this thing and then wait a minute and then it would tell me whether I was pregnant or just imagining things. But it was almost as if I didn'twantto know. I wanted to tell myself that there was simplyno wayand move on with my life.
Jake and I had been careful. I knew condoms weren't a hundred percent fail-safe, but still.
I couldn't be that unlucky, could I?
Did it even mean that I was unlucky? If I was pregnant?
I couldn't decide.
Having Jake's baby wouldn't be the most terrible thing in the world, but I'd always figured that if we were going to start a family, we would make that decision consciously, pick a good time, rather than being steamrolled by events.
But there was no point in lamenting an accidental pregnancy as long as I wasn't sure if I even was pregnant, so I told myself to get it together and peed on the stick--which turned out to be the easiest part. It was thewaitthat nearly killed me.
The whole time, I stared at the stick, waiting for something to change. If there was one line, I wasn't pregnant, but if there were two...
For a long time--or so it appeared to me--the display didn't show anything at all.
I was starting to think that the stupid thing was broken, when finally, a blue line appeared on the test stick.
And then another one.
I didn't move.
I just kept staring at the stick.
I was pregnant.
With Jake's baby.
After a minute or two, I put the test stick aside and pulled my pants up. I walked over to the sink, laid the stick aside and washed my hands and face. If I had any thoughts at all while doing this, I couldn't recall them. It was as if for a minute or two, time was simply standing still in my head. Nothing was processing.
I dried my hands and looked up, studying myself in the mirror.
How often had pregnant omegas come to me, asking for advice?
I wondered if they'd all felt the same way I did just then.
Probably not. I was in a much better position than many of them. I was with someone who genuinely loved me, and who was going to love this child more than life itself.
Unconsciously, I laid a hand on my belly, wondering about how funny it was that I'd always told everyone else that they had options and now that I found myself pregnant, I knew that most of them weren’t for me.
This was Jake’s child—this wasourchild, mine and his—and I wasn’t going to do anything to harm it.
In the mirror, I saw a soft smile form on my lips.
