Page 76 of Ivory Oath

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VIVIANA

I’m doing this because I’m bored.

That’s what I tell myself, anyway, as I pull an off-brand pregnancy test out of the box and shred through the plastic wrapping.

This is what days without adult social interaction will do to a person. I’m so starved for entertainment that I’m manufacturing drama in my head. Actually, to be specific, Google manufactured it for me. I dove head-first down one too many internet rabbit holes and things got bleak fast.

As soon as I take this stupid test, I’m going to write a strongly worded email to whichever sadistic algorithm curated my search results. No matter what pregnancy-related topic I searched for, the results pointed me straight to fetal abnormalities or sudden death. And not even sudden death for the baby—for all of us! A couple nights ago, I was seconds away from texting Mikhail that we might all have brain tumors. I talked myself down eventually, but it took a while.

“This is the kind of stuff that happens when you’re left alone for too long,” I mutter to myself as I sit down on the toilet.

Stuff like talking to yourself.

And taking pregnancy tests even though you’re ten weeks pregnant and there isn’t a chance in the world the test will be negative.

I mean, sure, I haven’t had the most pregnancy symptoms. But every pregnancy is different. I know because that’s the cliché line every listicle writer on the internet likes to add after articles like “10 Ways You’re Ruining Your Child Before They’re Even Born” and “7 Silent Symptoms of Miscarriage.”

With Dante, I had nausea morning, noon, and night. There was no relief. I was slung over the toilet constantly. When I couldn’t be slung over a toilet, I had an actual barf bucket I stashed under my desk for emergencies.

This pregnancy has been… different.

But that’s fine. I’m only peeing on this stick because there’s nothing better to do.

Mikhail has been busy since the moment we parked in front of the mansion. Raoul was waiting for him, grim-faced as usual. They walked into Mikhail’s office and I’m not completely positive they walked out again.

I think I saw Mikhail slipping into the hallway early this morning, but the sun wasn’t up yet and it was still dark, so I can’t be sure.

Two nights ago, I might have felt him drop into bed beside me, but I’d been asleep for hours already and was barely conscious. By the time I woke up the next morning, the bed was empty.

He has work to do and I get that. The peaceful bubble we lived inside at the cabin was never going to be forever. It had to burst at some point.

It isn’t just Mikhail; Anatoly has been busy, too. I used to be able to count on him to pop in and annoy me at least a few times every day, but lately, he seems to dart out of every room I walk into. I’d accuse him of avoiding me if I could pin him down long enough.

Even Dante has Mrs. Steinman to talk to for a few hours every morning.

I have nothing and no one.

The afternoons stretch on and on. That’s the only reason I can’t stop stressing about the pregnancy. If I had something else to occupy my mind—human interaction, work, a half-decent TV show to watch—I wouldn’t be hunched over my bathroom sink, staring down at a pregnancy test I don’t need to take.

I already know what the result is going to be.

When the timer goes off, I flip the test over. There’s a smile on my face. I’m actually amused with how ridiculous I’m being.

Then I see the test window and freeze.

Nothing.

The square, plastic window is utterly, incomprehensibly blank.

I snatch the test off the counter and shake it like that might change the answer. I don’t have any idea how pregnancy tests work, but some sort of chemical reaction should be happening in there, shouldn’t it? Maybe the pee got stuck inside the stick and didn’t make it to the test. I angle it one way and the other, but nothing changes.

“I peed on it,” I mutter. “Right?”

Maybe I didn’t actually pee on it.

It’s stupid, but it’s the only thing that makes any damn sense.

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