Marin

Kayla repeated the question several more times, but each time it only made me cry harder. Words became impossible. I sucked in air after each sob, trying to fill my starving lungs. She wrapped her arms around my shoulders and led me to the kitchen table. I cried as I watched her heat milk in the kettle on the stove and break large chunks of chocolate into a mug.

Her hot chocolate was legendary, at least with me. She made it countless times every winter, and whenever we had one of our ultimate best friend chats – we never knew when those would happen, so we kept a small stash of supplies in the cabinet above the stove just in case.

By the time she sat a steaming mug of thick hot chocolate in front of me, topped with a swirl of canned whip cream and marshmallows, I had finally gained control of my sobs, though silent tears continued to stream down my cheeks.

“What the hell is going on, Marin?” she asked, her voice thick with concern.

I took a deep breath and opened my mouth to speak, but I wasn’t sure where to start. So, I opted to take a drink of the hot chocolate. It was far too hot still, and my tongue got burnt almost instantly, but it was worth it. Chocolate coated my throat and made the whole world feel altogether less terrible.

I sat the mug down on the table, took a deep breath, and told the truth. “I don’t know where to start.”

“Then just start. If it doesn’t make sense, I’ll put the pieces together. I’m a smart girl.” She smiled at me, and I couldn’t help but smile back.

“If I tell you, you can’t tell anyone.”

She nodded.

“I mean it, Kayla. No one. Ever. It’s dangerous.”

She nodded again but narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re making me nervous, Mar. What are you tangled up in?”

I started at the beginning. I told her about that night at Jasper’s Grill when I closed. She gasped at all the right parts but otherwise didn’t interrupt. I told her about the nights spent at Jasper’s house, the fancy dinners, the biker party. I told her everything I knew about Angel, and how he’d shown up at the apartment that night.

“How did he know where you lived?” she asked.

“He said he’d been following me. And he knew you were at work, so I have to believe him.”

She nodded, but I could see her mind whirring. Finally, she was beginning to realize how much danger I had put her in. Certainly, she would move out and never speak to me again. I should have told her immediately – given her the chance to disassociate herself with me, continue on in her normal life.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, the sobs threatening to return.

“Don’t be sorry. You didn’t ask for this. None of this is your fault. But this is really bad. Should we call the police?”

“I can’t. I witnessed a murder, and I didn’t report it. I could be charged.” I buried my head in my arms, the warming effects of the hot chocolate beginning to dissipate. “Should I tell Jasper?”

“We have to tell someone.”

Kayla was right. Angel could come back, and Kayla and I wouldn’t be enough to hold him off. He could kill us both. Jasper had the resources to protect us both.

As I sat there, thinking about how I would explain everything to Jasper, my stomach began to churn. Nerves twisted my insides, and suddenly, I knew I was going to throw up. I pushed away from the table and sprinted for the bathroom, crashing to my knees and throwing the toilet seat open just in time. The hot chocolate didn’t taste as nice coming up as it did going down.

Kayla leaned against the doorway, and I looked up at her briefly before another round of throwing up. “Are you all right?”

I leaned back against the tub and nodded. “I guess. I shouldn’t have inhaled the hot chocolate like that.”

Kayla said something, but I didn’t hear her. I’d caught sight of my tampon box on the floor next to the toilet, and a calendar page was flipping back in my head. I was counting and recounting days, certain I’d done my math wrong.

“Earth to Marin,” Kayla said, waving her hand in front of my face. “I asked whether you want some crackers?”

I stared up at her, eyes wide, mouth hanging open. “Have you had your period yet?”

“Duh. It ended a week ago. You know that,” she said.

It was true, keeping track of Kayla’s monthly cycle was as easy as tracking my own. Since we’d lived with one another for so long, our cycles had synced up, so we got out periods at the same time every month. Only, this month my period hadn’t come.

It took Kayla a few seconds to realize what my question meant, but when she did, she slapped her hands over her mouth. “Are you pregnant?”

I stayed in the bathroom while Kayla ran to the convenience store on the corner and bought me a lifetime supply of pregnancy tests.

“I figured you’d want to take more than one,” she said, spreading them out on the counter. “I also bought you some ginger ale, and I bought myself a packet of gummy worms. Think of it as my delivery fee.”

I’d given Kayla my debit card to buy the tests, and usually, I would have given her a hard time for buying something for herself with my money, but the last thing on my mind was a one-dollar bag of gummy candy. I closed the door and peed into one of the red plastic cups Kayla had found in the very back of a cupboard in the kitchen.

The box said it would take three minutes for the test to give me my result, but the second pink line appeared almost immediately. I continued staring at it until the timer on my phone went off though, just in case the line would disappear, and this whole thing would be something Kayla and I would laugh about later while we sipped wine and ate grilled cheeses – the ultimate sick food.

“You’re sure?” she asked, her face pulled back in a wince.

“I took three tests.”

“Shit.”

“Shit,” I repeated.

Kayla offered to stay up and talk everything through, but I didn’t have much to say. The night had unfolded at a dizzying speed, and I needed a second to stop and wrap my mind around everything. I double-checked the front door was locked and then hid away in my bedroom, the comforter pulled up under my chin.

I was pregnant. With Jasper’s baby.

For a second, I tried to think whether it could be even remotely possible Jasper wasn’t the man who had gotten me pregnant, but of course he was. He had been the only man I’d slept with for the last few weeks. An image of a round baby face with a crop of dark hair and Jasper’s blue eyes rose to the forefront of my mind. I rubbed my flat stomach.

The rest of the night passed in a sleepless blur. I awoke the next morning to a missed call from Jasper. I was supposed to meet with him to go over some of the finer details of my new position as his charity consultant, but I wasn’t ready to face him yet. I powered my phone off and stayed in bed all day.

Kayla brought me soup and crackers, treating me as though I had the stomach flu rather than a baby growing inside of me, but still, I couldn’t complain. It was nice not to have to worry about anything other than how I would tell Jasper the news.

I didn’t have any basis for how he would react. As I saw it, there were four options: one, he would ask me to get an abortion; two, Jasper would want me to give the baby up for adoption; three, he would abandon me and tell me to keep the entire pregnancy a secret; and four, he would be excited.

The fourth option seemed the least likely, so I dismissed it almost immediately. I needed to focus on how to handle the other options.

I couldn’t get an abortion. My mother had talked about getting an abortion during her last pregnancy. Her lousy excuse for a boyfriend had abandoned her, and with so many other children to worry about, she’d considered it. But then she’d decided not to, and I was grateful every day. I couldn’t imagine our family without Luca’s blonde curls and mud pies.

Adoption was an option to consider, but I was pretty certain I wouldn’t be able to go through it. Even though I sometimes resented my role as caretaker for my younger siblings, I loved children. I wouldn’t be able to feel a baby kicking and growing inside of me and then give them away. I would spend every day wondering whether they were safe and cared for, whether they looked like me or Jasper.

The third option seemed like the most likely. Jasper didn’t seem like the fatherly type. He wouldn’t press pause on his life to take care of me and his child. As soon as I told him, he would probably break off our relationship – if you could even call it that – and wish me luck. And honestly, I knew I could handle it. My mom had been more or less a mess her entire life, yet she’d still managed to raise her brood. Plus, from a young age, I had taken on more than my share of childrearing duties. If anyone was prepared to be a single mom, it was me.

I grabbed my phone from where it had sat on my nightstand all day. I turned it on, and immediately it began to buzz with missed calls and messages. Jasper had called me six times. I called him back, pressed the phone to my ear, and listened to it ring.

“Hello?” he asked, surprise mingling with annoyance.

“We need to talk.”