Page 97 of Holiday Hostage
I’d told them I was because I simply forgot that it had been left behind.
My stomach heaved again, and I curled over the toilet bowl until the spasm passed.
I had to know for sure. I stood and shuffled to the sink.
An hour later, I’d managed to shower, brush my teeth, and dry my hair enough to make it presentable to the world outside.
I could have made another grocery order and added a pregnancy test in.
No one would even notice or ask questions.
This felt like something I needed to put in an effort for.
I hurried into the empty elevator outside my apartment and shoved a pair of sunglasses over my swollen eyes.
I hadn’t bothered with makeup because it had taken me half an hour to find clothes that fit well enough to stay on my hips.
When Lisa said I’d lost weight, I hadn’t thought much of it.
I flared a hand across my stomach and closed my eyes as I waited for the doors to open so I could escape.
There was no escaping my thoughts, but stepping out into the sunshine helped calm the voices telling me I was going crazy.
I hurried across the street and down the block to the nearest pharmacy.
Ten minutes later, I used the self-checkout to scan my three different pregnancy tests and threw them into a bag.
The jog back to my apartment left me sweating and breathless by the time I reached my living room and kicked off my shoes.
I rushed into the bathroom, read the instructions on every single test, then followed them to the letter.
They all recommended using them early in the morning, with the first urination of the day.
Well, lucky for me, I hadn’t peed yet this morning.
I wouldn’t have been able to wait anyway. If they were all negative, I might try again tomorrow, just to confirm.
But if they were all positive…
I held my breath, realized it was making everything worse, and performed a few of Lisa’s favorite deep breathing exercises.
The front door opened and closed. Lisa’s voice broke through the tinny ringing in my ears. “Payton? Payton, answer me right now.”
The panic in her voice brought my head up. “In here.”
She rushed my way, her steps pounding across my hardwood floors.
“Don’t you ever do that to me again. You scared me to death.” Her red hair whirled around her face when she came to a sliding stop in the bathroom doorway. “I’ve been texting and calling for an hour. I thought you were dead.”
A cold feeling wrapped around my heart and squeezed. “Not dead.” I took a step away from the sink.
I’d thought about it a few times, if I was being honest with myself. I’d wanted to die with them, because how could I live without them? “But I am pregnant.”
Lisa’s mouth fell open with a gasp. She leaned over the sink to check the pregnancy tests lined up across one edge. “Yes, you sure are.”
She didn’t ask what I planned to do.
I loved her for not asking a single damned question.
