Ten
Piper
It had only been a week since my last conversation with Logan and still, I woke up with a stomachache almost every morning. I hated feeling like such a lovesick girl. Logan crossed my mind at least ten times a day. No matter how busy I was, he always found a way to creep back up and take over my thoughts. To remind me just how much I missed him.
I knew it was coming. Logan was always talking about the SEALs. It shouldn’t have been a surprise. And yet, it was. It knocked the wind out of me and damn near broke me. The worst part was his smile. It was like he was happy to be leaving me, like our entire relationship had just been him marking time until he could begin his real life.
Thinking about it made my stomach roll again. That morning, I shot out of bed and hurled myself into the bathroom. I threw up everything in my stomach, which wasn’t much, and curled into a ball on the floor. When Audra found me, she sat down next to me and rubbed my back slowly.
I rolled over to face her, knowing how pathetic I must seem to someone as strong as her.
“He’s just a boy,” I said, my voice weak. “I don’t know why it’s affecting me so much.”
“Because you love him,” she said gently.
“So, what?” I argued.
“So, it’s going to hurt for a while,” she said. “But, Piper, I don’t think that’s why you’re sick.”
“What do you mean?”
Audra sighed and reached behind her. Slowly, she laid a box down beside and brushed my hair off my face.
“I’ll be right outside if you need me.”
I frowned and watched her leave, closing the bathroom door softly behind her. When I looked down at the box in my hand I almost screamed. The pregnancy test Audra had given me felt like it was burning a hole in my hand.
I sat up quickly, fighting another wave of nausea. The box fell onto the floor and I stared at it for a few seconds. All I knew in that moment was that she was wrong. I wasn’t pregnant. Logan and I were always careful. I had been on the pill for two years. There was no way this could have happened.
Still, something tugged at the back of my mind. One night when we were drunk… After we left Kellan’s… Did we use protection that night?
I counted backward, realizing it had been about six weeks since that night and that I hadn’t had a period in almost two months.
My heart was pounding as I opened the box and took the test. When I laid it down on the bathroom floor to wait, I couldn’t tear my eyes away. For every single second of those three minutes, I watched the little screen waiting for it to tell me my fate.
When the plus sign appeared, my stomach rolled and I threw up again. Audra hurried into the bathroom and pulled my hair off my neck. I could feel her rubbing my back and I knew she knew. She’d known all along.
Heartbreak wasn’t the only thing Logan Alexander had left me with.
When the memories passed, I was still sitting on that curb with my head in my hands. Part of me wanted to stay there forever, but a bigger part forced me to my feet. Whether Logan was still there or not, I had to go back. My family would be worried. Audra had probably already verbally accosted Logan. I couldn’t hide forever.
Slowly, I walked through the streets until I reached Kellan’s. I went around the back so I could enter he way I left, but it didn’t matter. When I walked inside, the place was almost entirely empty. Only my mother and a few distant relatives were left.
“Where’d you go?” my mom asked as I walked up to her.
“Just had to clear my head,” I explained.
“Uh huh,” she nodded and gave me a scrutinizing look. She didn’t say it, but I knew she’d seen me leave after Logan arrived.
“Audra take the kids home?” I asked.
“She did.”
“Do you need any help cleaning up?”
“No, I think we’ve got it handled.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll just meet you at home then.”
I turned to leave, when I felt her fingers brush against my arm. I looked up at her. Her eyes were watching me the same way they did that morning all those years ago. The morning Audra and I told her. She looked at me with concern and a motherly intuition I recognized all too well.
I waited for her to speak. She didn’t. She simply looked at me with so much understanding it made my eyes fill with tears. I stepped closer to her. She wrapped her arms around me and held me against her chest. I breathed in the familiar smell of her perfume and let myself relax for the first time since I arrived in Bradberry. Of all the things I missed, I didn’t realize how much I needed this.
When she let me go I wiped my eyes and left the bar without saying goodbye. Audra and Jack took the car and I didn’t want to wait for my mother, so I decided to walk home. It wasn’t far, just a couple miles, and it would give me a chance to clear my head before I saw the rest of the family. Especially Lilliana.