Page 21 of Beautiful Agony

I pick it up, close my eyes, take a deep breath.

"Lacey?" Megan's voice seems to come from far away.

I open my eyes and look down at the window.

And see two pink lines stare back at me.

"I need another one," I tell Megan, my voice shaking. "There has to be some mistake."

Without hesitation, Megan hands me another white stick anyway. "They're all going to say the same thing."

My hands tremble as I take it from her. Five minutes later, I'm staring at yet another pair of pink lines swimming before my eyes.

Positive.

I extend my hand out to Megan for another, and even make her test one of them.

The same result: two lines on mine, and a single line on Megan's.

Pregnant.

I'm pregnant with Vadim's child.

"You're going to be a mom…" She hugs me tight, but I can barely move.

A conflicting storm of fights for dominance inside of my mind—a swirl of monumental joy and icy uncertainty.

Like a slideshow, images flash before my eyes, each one coming faster than before: the faceless birth mother who abandoned me. An endless stream of people asking me where myrealparents were. Freddy spitting the wordMcKinneyat me like it's a curse. Mom wiping the tears from my face when I asked her why I don't look like her and Dad.

And at the end of it all, the beeping machines in Mom's hospital room in those final awful days as she begged, voice hardly stronger than a whisper for us to dry our tears so she can remember our smiles before she goes.

"Lacey?" Megan pulls back, studying my face. "What's wrong?"

I swallow hard against the lump in my throat.

"I don't know how to be a mom." My voice cracks.

"Lace." Megan grabs my shoulders. "Yes you do."

But doubt gnaws at me. "What if I mess this up? What if I'm not good enough?"

"Not good enough?" Megan scoffs. "Who made sure I ate properly during finals? Who helped me curl my hair for prom? Who was the one helping Dad while he forgot his own name? Who gave up on her own dreams to pick up the pieces in the family?"

"That's different?—"

"No, it's not. You've been mothering people your whole life. It's who you are." She squeezes my hands. "It's who you've always been."

I press my hand to my still-flat stomach, trying to process the reality that there's actually a life growing inside me. A tiny person who is half me and half Vadim. The thought makes me dizzy.

"I'm scared," I whisper.

"Of course you are. That's normal." Megan hugs me again. "But you're not alone in this. You have me, you have Vadim..."

Vadim. My heart skips. How am I going to tell him?

7

VADIM

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