Hope
When I was younger, I always scoffed and rolled my eyes at the idea of a woman not knowing she was pregnant until she was too far along, or giving birth on a toilet bowl.
I used to be so convinced that it couldn’t be physiologically possible.
My opinion towards the concept did a one-eighty when my own best friend didn’t discover her first pregnancy until she was almost five months along.
I'd seen her.
She was skinny.
There had been no signs.
Teagan's situation with Einín had made me believe that there were circumstances when a woman truly didn’t know she was pregnant.
What worried me now, though, was those women who had that gut feeling, who deep down in their heart and soul knew they might be pregnant, but were too afraid to acknowledge it even to themselves.
I feared I was one of the women that fell into the second category.
From the age of thirteen, I'd gotten my period every twenty-eight days come hail, rain, or snow. It never mattered how much stress I was under, or whether I gained weight or not.
My period was always on time.
Therefore, my first red flag was the late arrival of my period.
The second red flag was when I came to realize that my period wasn’t just late; it had skipped clean over the month of June.
Fear of having to face my demons had kept my mind in a constant state of denial.
Knowing would be much harder than not knowing, so I blocked it out – fooling myself into a false sense of security by telling myself that it would come soon.
Well, 'soon' had come and gone.
It was time to face reality.
Clicking into my period app on my phone, I frantically tried to work out my dates.
May 4rd had been the date of my last period, which meant I should have had a period on June 1st.
Today was July 7th.
My fingertips lost all feeling as I found the calculator app on my phone and worked out the days. I had to use a calculator because my mind was fucking blown. I couldn’t form one single, coherent thought as I used my phone to add up the dates.
Thirty-six days.
It had been thirty-six fricking days.
Well, that was that.
I was either broken or pregnant.
Maybe both?
Peeling my frozen body off the couch that had become my bed, I reached into my laptop bag and retrieved the rectangular box with trembling hands.
I'd bought it weeks ago when I had made a rare trip to the store to stack up on food supplies.
But I wasn’t ready to know then.
I still wasn’t ready to know, but I had to do this.
Numb to the bone, I tiptoed up the staircase, trying to be as quiet as possible so I didn’t disturb Jordan from whatever self-medicated trance he was in.
Slipping inside the bathroom, I quietly turned the lock and hurried over to the toilet. Every possible human emotion rocked through me as I removed the stick from the box and peed.
And it was right there in that drug den of a bathroom, surrounded by dirty needles and the stench of vomit, all alone and terrified, that I watched two small lines appear on the stick.
Two lines.
Positive.
Blowing out a breath, I sank back on the toilet seat, and just stared down at the test as my heart catapulted into my butt.
I forced myself to breathe through my nose, not trusting my mouth right now.
All I wanted to do was have a full-blown panic attack, but that wouldn't solve anything.
I was pregnant and I didn’t know.
I had only slept with two men in my entire life, and either one could be the father of the child inside of me.
Disgust filled my body.
Shame crept through my veins.
Logically, I knew the chance of this baby being Hunter's was high, and knowing that was the only thing that was keeping me sane.
But I had the worst feeling inside of my heart; like a rising swell of dread and panic.
It only took one time to get pregnant.
And what Jordan did to me that night?
What he held me down and forced me to do?
My womb wouldn’t care that I hadn't wanted it – that I hadn't consented.
Standing up, I shoved the test into the back pocket of my jeans and then quickly cleaned up, before hurrying back downstairs to the living room – my living quarters since May.
Reeling, I paced the floor, desperately trying to figure out my next move.
What did I do now?
Who did I tell?
How was I going to face this?
There were so many questions that I had no answers to, but only one answer that didn’t need to be questioned.
I couldn’t stay here.
I needed to get out.