Chapter Ten
A week after Jesse had proposed and Ella accepted, she woke with the sudden urge to throw up. She ran to the bathroom, threw up in the toilet and sat on the cool floor.
“You okay?” Jesse stood in the doorway, rubbing his eyes and yawning.
She nodded. “I guess I’m getting the flu or something.”
“Stay here today,” he said. “I’ll work from home so I can take care of you.”
“No, then you’ll get sick, too.”
“It’ll be okay, I’m sure. I’ll work in my office and you take the bedroom. I’ll have Marla bring up some tea.”
He went to the intercom on the wall and called for her to come. Ella rinsed out her mouth and brushed her teeth, then climbed back into bed. Marla came in a few minutes later with hot tea.
“Can you bring Ella something? She got sick,” Jesse said.
Marla squinted at Ella, looking her over. “Are you pregnant?” she asked.
“No,” they both said fervently.
“You look it.” Marla shrugged and left the room again to get some medication.
Ella stared at Jesse with wide eyes. Then she remembered. “There was that one morning.”
“What morning?”
“After the first time we slept together. I crawled on top of you in the morning. We were both half awake. Now that I think of it, we didn’t use anything.”
“What? We must have.”
“No.” Tears filled her eyes. “Jesse, we didn’t. I didn’t think about the fact that I could actually get pregnant.”
He tapped his finger against his lips. “Only one way to find out, right?”
She buried her face in her hands and let the tears flow.
He stood beside her, one arm around her, the other wiping tears from her eyes. “It’s okay, baby. It’ll be okay. I’ll run out and get a test. Then we’ll know.”
He kissed her forehead and left the room.
Marla came back a few minutes later with some medication.
“I think you’re right,” Ella said.
Marla smiled. “I usually am about these things.”
“Jesse went to get a pregnancy test.”
“Let’s wait on this, then.” She set the box of medicine on the bedside table and pressed her hand against Ella’s forehead. “No fever. You have that flushed look. Do your breasts hurt?”
“A little. But I thought that was just…” Her and Jesse had gotten a little rough last night. She blushed thinking about it.
Marla smirked. “We’ll see. I’ll bring you some crackers for your stomach.”
She brought the crackers and Ella was nibbling on them when Jesse came into the room, a plastic bag in his hand.
“Ready to do this?” he asked.
“I don’t see how we have much of a choice.”
They went into the bathroom and took out the pieces of the test. Jesse read over the directions while Ella went to the toilet with the stick. She peed on it, then set it on the counter.
“If two lines appear, you are,” he said. “It takes five minutes.” He turned to her and squeezed her hands. There was a long silence. “You okay?”
“I… don’t know,” Ella said, confused.
“Would you be happy? If you are?”
“I don’t know. After everything that happened…”
“It would be ironic.” He glanced at his watch. “Two more minutes.” He let out a hard breath and squeezed her hands again. “I’m kind of excited.”
“Really? But we’re not even married yet.”
He lifted a shoulder to shrug. “We can do that anytime.” He looked again at his watch, then picked up the stick.
She leaned over to look at the little window. There were two pink lines.
“Oh wow,” she said.
He wrapped his arms around her tightly, holding her to him as she cried.
“This is so weird,” she said, through her sobs. “I pretended to be pregnant before and now I really am. The universe is messing with me.”
He laughed. “Or maybe it’s giving us what we really want.”
“I don’t know if I’m ready for a baby.”
“I guess we’ll find out real fast.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“For what?”
“It was my fault. I seduced you and didn’t use a condom.”
“You’re right,” he said sarcastically. “You evil succubus. How dare you force me to make love to you?”
“Stop it,” she said, half laughing and half crying. “I feel really bad.”
“Well, don’t. We’ve moved on from the past, and what’s done is done. I’m happy about this, Ella. Very happy.”
She looked up at him, her eyes puffy and sore. “Are you really?”
“Yes! Why aren’t you?”
“I just can’t believe it’s really happening. I’d thought so much about it and planned so much for a fake pregnancy. And the whole time, I actually was pregnant.”
“Well, it’s a good thing we thought you weren’t. At least this way we know that we love each other and want to be married, and we knew that before we knew we had made a family.”
“I wanted to have a fancy wedding, though.”
“Then we will.”
“But how can we do it that fast? That stuff takes time and the good places book up fast.”
He winked at her. “Money can buy almost anything.”