Page 38 of Love and Other Lost Things

Matteo flung the test in the sink and swung around to face her. “You’re pregnant? You’re fucking pregnant?”

Oh God. Oh no.

“How could you let this happen?”

Jane’s mouth dropped open. “How could you let it happen? You were supposed to pull out!”

Matteo’s face turned the same color red as it did when he caught the bartender stealing from him. “I told you to go on the pill.”

Jane took a few cautious steps toward him. “I was planning on it, but I didn’t have a chance yet.”

“I’m trying to run a business, and you’re my employee. Who the hell is going to take care of a baby?”

Jane closed her eyes as the reality of it sank in. Diapers and formula and crying at all hours of the night. Her friends were starting their freshman year of college, going to classes and parties and living the lives of normal eighteen-year-olds. And she was…

Pregnant.

How had she ended up here? And what was she going to do now?

“I—I don’t know.”

Matteo shook his head in disgust, pushing past her out into the living room. Jane trailed after him, pausing in the bedroom doorway to watch helplessly as he headed for the front door. A sudden terror seized her. What if he was so mad that he broke up with her and kicked her out? What would she do if she were back out on the street, pregnant and broke? “Matteo, wait. Let’s talk about this.”

He stopped walking and spun around in front of her guitar on its stand. But instead of calmly crossing the room to Jane, as she expected, Matteo reared back on one leg. Jane gasped as his foot flew forward with a terrifying amount of force, crashing into the center of the guitar. With a terrible, dissonant clang, the wood splintered, the neck cracked, and the instrument flew off the stand and into the wall.

And then he turned and stormed out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him.

Jane stared at the guitar pieces scattered across the floor, her heart cracking like the splintered wood. Unable to look any more, she turned back toward the bedroom, spotting her phone on the bed where she’d flung it when she’d arrived home with the pregnancy test.

She sank down on the mattress. Her first thought was Nik.

She’d ditched her phone with his number when she’d left Linden Falls, but Jane would never forget those ten digits. What could she say to him, though? I’m a server in Los Angeles, pregnant with another man’s baby. And I’m scared.

Nik would probably come and get her. But could she ask him to?

Instead of dialing his number, she switched over to her internet browser and googled his name. He was probably in Ithaca, starting classes at Cornell right about now. The first link to pop up in her search was an article about his scholarship. The Linden Falls Gazette had featured Nik in a story last spring. They wrote about his volunteer work with the local paramedics, how he was the youngest person in the unit’s history to earn his EMT certification, how he’d been chosen over all the other applicants for the competitive scholarship. The Linden Falls town council would pay his tuition, room, and board every semester of his undergraduate degree, as long as he kept his grades above a B average. Nik was well on his way to becoming the doctor he’d always dreamed of.

The questions hung in the air. Was she pregnant with another man’s baby? Three months had gone by since Jane had been with Nik, and then she’d started sleeping with Matteo a couple of weeks later. Her nausea had started up maybe a month or two after that. How did the math work? Could this be Nik’s baby?

Jane quickly dismissed the idea as longing rather than reality.

This was Matteo’s baby, and there was no way she could call Nik. If her staying in Linden Falls would have ruined his life before, what would showing up pregnant do now? She’d gotten herself into this and she needed a plan.

Jane typed in the search bar again. How much does an abortion cost?

The first link to come up was the website for Planned Parenthood. She scanned the text. The average cost of a first trimester in-clinic abortion at Planned Parenthood is about $600. The average ranges from about $715 earlier in the second trimester to $1,500–2,000 later in the second trimester.Your abortion may be free or low-cost with health insurance.

Jane didn’t have any idea what trimester she was in, and she didn’t have that kind of money. Maybe she was still on Dad’s insurance—she had no idea—but she definitely couldn’t use it to get an abortion.

So, Jane did the only thing she could think of. She picked up the phone and dialed the one number she knew by heart other than Nik’s. Mom picked up on the second ring.

“Mom?” Jane hadn’t heard her mother’s voice in months. Despite everything that had happened, it comforted her in a way that nothing else could. “Mommy, it’s me.”

“Jane. Oh, my goodness!” Mom exclaimed, but then she cleared her throat and dropped her voice. “Jane, where are you?” she whispered.

“Why are you whispering? Is Dad home?” Jane checked the time. It was early evening on the East Coast.

“No, but he’ll be home any minute.”

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