Page 80 of Ruck Me

Chapter24

AOIFE

I stoodon Tanya’s porch, my right hand on the knocker, while with my left I balanced a soggy brown paper bag filled with ice cream and wine against myhip.

“Hey,” she said, swinging the door wide so I could come in from the rain. “You bring the supplies?”

“Always.”

“Thank Christ,” she said, settling herself atop a stool at the counter. “Here, give me that,” she said, reaching for the bottle of wine. “And toss me the corkscrew.”

Rummaging through her drawers, I pulled it out and slid it across the granite. Tanya had the bottle uncorked and the wine in her glass before I could unpack the Ben and Jerry’s. When the red liquid reached the rim of her glass, she moved to pour the secondone.

“Oh, none for me thanks,” I said, keeping my eyes trained on the ice cream I scooped into a largebowl.

“I’m not drinking alone tonight,” she answered, filling the glass until the bottle was empty.

“Actually, you are. Only ice cream for me tonight, I’m afraid.”

Her head popped up. "Why?"

It’s now or never

I stared back at Tanya and took a deep breath.“It turns out birth control has a ten percent failurerate.”

As Tanya’s brain processed my words, her eyes blinked rapidly. “I’m sorry, but did you just tell me you’re pregnant?”

I shoved a heaping spoonful of peanut butter cup ice cream into my mouth and savored the sweet and salty flavors coating my tongue. I’d had a hard time keeping food down but I’d finally figured out that ice cream was one of the few things I could consume without immediately needing to empty the contents of my stomach. With my mouth occupied by ice cream, I nodded.

“Shut up! You’re fucking with me, aren’tyou?”

“Sad to say I’m not,” I answered once I’d swallowed.

“What did Eoinsay?”

“He doesn’t know yet,” I admitted. And then I started crying.

Again.

Tanya jumped off her stool and ran around the bar to pull me into a hug. “Oh honey, it’s going to beokay.”

I sobbed into her chest, all the pent up emotions I’d had to keep hidden from Eoin bubbling up and spilling over. “It’s not going to be okay,” I blubbered. “My life isover.”

“Shh, none of that now,” she said, petting my hair and rocking me gently as she cooed words of comfort and reassurance. Eventually, my tears slowed, and she let go. “How long have you known?”

“A couple of weeks,” I said, sliding down the wall to sit on the floor, my knees pulled against me. Tanya dropped down next to me on the cold, hard tile as filled her in. “I had a big presentation due, and I was always tired and overly emotional. I didn’t think anything of it because it was just stress. Then, Eoin brought over fish and chips, and the second he opened the bag, I had to run to the loo. That was the first time I threwup.”

I continued, going over all the little clues I should have caught on to but hadn’t, before concluding, “I went to the doctor this morning and she confirmed it. I’m about ten weeks along, which if the math is correct, means I got pregnant the first time we hadsex.”

Taking a deep breath and pressing my fists to my eyes to keep my tears at bay, I laughed. “I waited forever to have sex and then bam! First time out the gate, knockedup.”

“I don’t mean to sound insensitive,” Tanya said, her voice tentative, “but why weren’t you on birth control?”

“Iwas.”

“Ah,” she answered. “No condomsthen?”

I shook my head. “Never.”

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