Page 31 of The Southern Thirst Trap

Paloma pulls me into a tight hug before she releases me and smiles in what she must assume is a reassuring manner, though it just looks like she’s planning to commit murder, and the someone most likely to be her victim is named Zander Olsen. I told her everything as soon as I got home. If I was angry about everything, Paloma was furious. She wanted to fly to Atlanta right then, march into the Olympus International Tower, and throw Zander out of the highest window she could find. She’s felt all the emotions right along with me. I know she’s been worried about me as I mope around the apartment, my tan fading, unable to sleep because I got used to being in Zander’s arms, and now I feel too lonely to fall into a sleep deep enough to be restful.

“I’ll go to the store just down the street. It won’t even take ten minutes, and then we can sort this out. I’ll grab mango sorbet while I’m there, and we can laugh and celebrate when we realize it was all a mix-up after. Sit tight, I’ll be right back.” She kisses my head and prepares to leave the apartment on her mission. “Maybe shower and wash your hair while I’m gone. You stink.”

“Thanks a lot.” I roll my eyes, but know she’s right. I won’t listen either way.

I’m still grateful for her optimism and level-headedness when I’m so utterly losing my mind right now. Thinking I could be left with one more reminder that Zander wants nothing to do with me would be devastating. I won’t even be able to tell him if I am pregnant. He blocked me on social media, and I’m pretty sure he blocked my number because it doesn’t even ring and goes to voicemail every time I call him, and he hasn’t returned a single text. There’s not a single way I can get a hold of him short of seeing him in person, and I highly doubt that would happen without great pains being taken to arrange it, given how unlikely we are to cross paths. I know Zander orchestrated the few times we did run into each other prior to our trip, so that was purely because he wanted it to happen.

As promised, Paloma returns about ten minutes later, a bag swinging off her arm full of pregnancy tests and a pint of mango sorbet that she chucks in the freezer for later before she grips my arm and steers me into her bathroom.

“I read the directions while I was waiting in line. All you have to do is pee on the stick and wait. The kind I got tells you pregnant or not in the little window, so you don’t have to decipher any codes or lines.”

I open the plastic shopping bag and see she brought home a bunch of tests. I quickly count. “Six tests?”

“I wanted to make sure we had extras in case you wanted to get verification. You don't have to use all of them, obviously, but you know, just in case.”

My hands shake as I take out one of the tests, open the innocuous box, and pull out the test that doesn't look like it could ruin my life. I look at Paloma and she nods.

“I’ll wait outside. Let me know when you’re finished peeing and we can wait for the results together.”

She steps out of the bathroom and I’m left alone with the plastic stick that could damn me to hell or tell me I’m being a dumb fucking baby who made a mess of her birth control in addition to falling for an asshole. I pee on the stick and set it on the vanity, resolutely not looking at it as I wash my hands and open the door for Paloma. We sit on the edge of the bathtub, shoulders touching as the silence grows around us.

“I set a timer when I heard the toilet flush,” she tells me, showing me her phone that is counting down the minutes.

“Paloma, what… what if it is,” I begin, but she shakes her head, stopping me. Her silky sable hair tumbles over our touching shoulders, blending with my lank sunkissed brown waves that would have been so pretty after the time I spent in the sun if I washed it. She was right again. I should have showered.

“We’re not putting anything into the universe until we know for sure. No what-ifs. We will speak in absolutes only when we know.” Her timer beeps and we look at each other for a moment before she turns it off.

I stand from the bathtub and take the two steps to the sink where in bold letters the clear window of the plastic test reads PREGNANT. I stumble back and Paloma catches me, seeing the results and shushing the wailing noise I realize is coming from me.

“We can take another, just to be sure. These things can be faulty. That’s why I bought a bunch. Here, sit down.” She directs me back to the edge of the bathtub as hysteria rises in me and I start to shake violently.

“I can’t be pregnant. I can’t! Paloma, I just started booking big jobs. Givenchy made me the face of their perfume. I’ve only shot two campaigns with them. They won’t want a pregnant model. I can’t be on Sports Illustrated pregnant. I was barely fit enough when they asked me to be on the cover this time around. This will ruin my career before it really gets started, and I’m only twenty-four. I’m too young to have a baby.” Tears streak down my cheeks, and I’m back to feeling again, but it’s panic and fear instead of heartbreak and sadness. I sob openly, holding my knees and barely able to breathe.

Paloma is kneeling in front of me, hands on my shoulders, staring into my face. “This isn’t the end of everything, Lolo, even if you are pregnant. We can be certain first, so let’s take more tests.”

So I do, and all six of the tests scream PREGNANT at us, and Paloma can no longer deny the truth. I’m definitely pregnant.

“My career is over,” I moan, face down on my bed, where we’ve moved from the bathroom and the incriminating pregnancy tests screaming my failure to take a little bitty pill properly at me. Paloma lies next to me, rubbing my back. I’m no longer sobbing, but I can't stop the tears from leaking into the pillows.

“You have choices,” she says, hesitantly. “It’s really early. You could take a pill and erase everything. Zander would be gone from your life and you wouldn’t have to think about that lying asshole ever again. You wouldn’t have to sacrifice your career or give up what you have worked so hard for. You could keep your contracts and continue shooting and traveling and go on as if nothing even happened.”

I roll over onto my back and stare at the ceiling while the tears slide down into my hair now. The picture she paints is the easy one. It’s the logical one and would give me the most freedom. It provides the most security and allows me to keep my life exactly as it is with everything I have worked to achieve. It’s what I know I should do.

But I would lose something that was made during a tiny moment in time, a blip in the vastness of the universe, where two people let down their walls and fell in love in the middle of the ocean. It would erase the proof that Zander and I had existed in the same space and time and he had given himself to me, and I had let myself belong to him, even if it was fleeting. It would remove the possibility that he had seen the real me and wanted that woman, flaws and all. I would lose the one small thread still connecting me to Zander forever, the only attachment he couldn’t possibly deny.

With that thought, my future solidifies in front of me. I will give up everything to protect the life we created against all odds. I will sacrifice my career, turn my back on what I have worked for, and raise the little piece of him that Zander left with me when he couldn’t be man enough to give me the forever he promised. This will be my forever, and it will be enough. I will be enough.

I turn to look at Paloma, seeing her concern, and feel a tender love and appreciation well up in me. “I’m keeping the baby. Looks like I brought you home a beautiful souvenir after all.”

Three weeks later, I’m in Atlanta doing what I imagined when I wondered how I would even tell Zander if it came down to it. I look up at the sleek metal and glass skyscraper of Olympus International Tower and take a deep breath as I push into the polished lobby.

I tried calling, but the damn receptionists wouldn’t put me through, saying the CEO wouldn’t take calls from anyone who wasn’t on his approved list. That sounded like bullshit, but here I am, feeling desperate and needing to tell Zander that not only did I come home thinking he was a lying asshole, but, oh yeah, surprise, we’re pregnant and I’m having your baby!

I don't expect anything from him, I just want him to know. It’s the decent thing to do. To give him the choice to be a part of his child’s life or, like with me, forget that it exists entirely. I place a protective hand over my flat belly that won’t show the evidence of this life for a while yet and send up a plea to anything listening that Zander isn't that cruel, but even I can’t put it past him, now.

I walk up to the impressively large matte black counter in the lobby and smile. I’m in Prada business wear and look like I belong in this building, another role I can pull off expertly, so the receptionist smiles back politely, ready to be of service.

“Hello, Layla,” I say, reading her nametag. “I'm hoping you can help me. I’m an old friend and business associate of Zander Olsen’s in town for the day, but I just got a new phone and no longer have his number to reach his direct line so we can connect. Would you please be a dear and let him know I’m here?” Disarming, slightly embarrassed to be asking for help, bringing her in as the one person who can be the savior. Piece of cake.

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