Things were going well for me. My students were behaving, my boyfriend brought me flowers every other day and my pregnancy was progressing well. Nearly five months along and barely showing as long as I wore the right clothes. Sure, I’d had to keep encounters with my boyfriend to quickies with all the clothes left on and no belly contact for the past two weeks, but I was going to tell him soon. Maybe this weekend, and then that problem would go away too. All in all, I was feeling pretty lucky.

Really, I should have known that disaster was coming. Life never left me alone for too long.

Still, I was completely flabbergasted when I walked into the school one Monday morning and all the other teachers were exchanging looks when they saw me.

What was going on?

Did they know? I thought I caught Mrs. Sanders and Mr. Douglas staring at my belly as they passed, but they couldn't know. It had to be coincidence. I was just making it up in my head because I was paranoid. Not even Aaron knew yet, so how would any of the other teachers? Furtively, I glanced down on myself. I wore baggy clothes these days. No bump visible. Subtly pulling my sweater even farther down, I stepped into my classroom to prepare for the day.

While I was giving my lessons, I forgot all about the day's drama. I was busy enough stopping Tommy Faulkner from throwing paper pellets at little Sarah Beeman.

But then lunch came, and Mrs. Sanders found me in my classroom before I could even step out. The way she closed the door behind her let me know she had something serious to discuss. Or something that she thought was serious, anyway. Last year, she'd given me a lecture on the importance of keeping the spirit of Christmas alive in our classrooms. If I had to describe Mrs. Sanders in one word, I'd call her an antique. Something that didn't quite fit in with the rest of the furniture anymore, but that's still too valuable to put away, even when everyone knew we'd be finding it a nice corner in the attic soon.

"Robin!" she started now, approaching me at my desk.

"What is it, Mrs. Sanders?"

"Is it true what they're saying?" She said it in a hushed tone of voice, as if we were talking about something scandalous. But everything was scandalous to her, so I wasn't feeling alarmed yet. Honestly, even the fact that I wasn't a virgin anymore would have shocked her.

"That depends on what they're saying." I leaned back in my chair with a fake smile.

"Are you..." She glanced at my belly again, shaking her head as if this simply couldn't be, but she needed to ask anyway. "Are you pregnant?"

I felt all the color drain from my face. How could she know? Had someone seen me at that doctor's appointment after all? No, then I would have been confronted sooner. "Why would you think that?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't want to assume anything." she said, waving her hand in front of her face. "But there's all these rumors going around. You know how it is. I can't imagine that it's true, seeing as you don't have a mate and all... Surely you wouldn't let yourself become pregnant like that and flaunt this kind of immoral behavior in front of the children."

"You think it would damage the children to see omegas acting as single dads?" I tried to distract her from the actual topic.

"There's single dads in tragic situations and there's omegas who were never even mated in the first place," she gave back. "Don't pretend like you don't know that."

"I'm not pretending anything." I sat straight. "But you know I have some strong opinions on omega rights." We'd clashed on this topic before. Seriously, Mrs. Sanders was only a fellow teachers, but she acted like she thought she was the principal. She felt it was a shame that I passed out pamphlets advertising schools outside of Oceanport to my 4th grade students, simply because I knew there were better options out there for omegas who were interested in more than child rearing. I was a somewhat typical omega in the sense that I wanted babies, but that didn't mean I wanted to be reduced to that—or that I wanted my students to be reduced to that.

"I know you do." She shook her head again as if this was all very regretful. I was quickly becoming fed up with this conversations.

"If you'd excuse me," I said. "I have some grading to catch up on."

"Of course." She glanced at my stomach again in a way that made my skin crawl. "I hope the rumors aren't true," she said before leaving the classroom. "I'd hate to see you get in trouble with the school board."

I swallowed. Fuck that old bitch. Dragging the heel of my hand over my face, I tried to calm down. The school board wasn't going to fire me just because some old-fashioned people believed omegas shouldn't have sex before marriage. They weren't going to side with Mrs. Sanders on this. Still, I hated the thought that everyone at the school knew. For now, it was only rumors, but they'd be watching me more closely in the following weeks, and they'd get their evidence soon enough.

Also, this was not the way I'd wanted to tell Aaron.

As if thinking of the devil summoned him, Aaron appeared in the doorway to my classroom. "Please tell me you're not here to lay into me as well," I said when he stepped inside.

He quirked an eyebrow at me.

"Mrs. Sanders was just here," I explained.

"Oh." He sat on the edge of my desk. "The old lady heard the rumors?"

"Yes." I sighed. "Do you know where they started?"

He shook his head. "No idea, but I don't like them. We haven't had sex without protection. How could you be pregnant?"

I scratched the back of my neck, suddenly feeling super uncomfortable in my skin. Aaron was asking me whether there was anything to the rumors, wasn't he? I knew I had to tell him sooner or later, but still...

Why couldn't it be later?

Unwilling to sit for this conversation, I got up. "Aaron..." I paused because I didn't know how to go on. I'm pregnant but it's not from you? No matter how hard I thought about this, I couldn't come up with a good way to explain the situation to him. That's why I'd been putting this off in the first place.

"Why do you look so serious?" he asked.

I chewed my lower lip. "I..." I exhaled. Just get it out. "It's not only rumors."

Aaron looked surprisingly not surprised. "So you really are pregnant."

He sounded like he'd known all along. But how could that be?

"Were you planning to tell me at any point?" he asked, tone accusing.

"Of course I was planning to tell you, but..."

"But what?" he demanded, jumping off the desk and taking a step toward me. Suddenly feeling threatened rather than turned on by his alpha pheromones, I backed away.

"It's not so simple," I said. "The child..." For a split second, I considered pretending it was his, just so he wouldn't get angry, but I couldn't do that. This child was Ben's. Nothing was ever going to change that. If Ben didn't want me to, I wouldn't tell people it was his, but I wasn't going to make up another father either. That wasn't the sort of omega I wanted to be. Bracing myself, I spoke on. "The child isn't yours."

For a split second, Aaron's eyes became huge. And then they narrowed. "What do you mean it's not yours?" He came yet another step closer. "Are you telling me that you've been sleeping around? I should have known. There had to be a reason you're still single after all. Pretty omegas like you are all the same. All sluts. I should have known when you never wanted me to sleep over."

"It's not like that! I haven't slept with anyone else since we started going out," I tried to defend myself, but I could tell it was too late for that.

"Right, like I'm going to believe that." He pushed me against the wall, and then he stormed out.

I inhaled deeply, trying to gather myself.

This relationship was probably over. Burying my face in my hands, I focused on my breathing.

Why could I never make it work?