Page 38 of Pieces

Her eyes widen. “You’ve peed on the stick already?”

I nod, and another wave of nausea threatens to make an appearance. “I’m so scared, Liv.”

“I know,” she says softly. “But you’re brave too. And I’ll be right here.”

I take a deep inhale and exhale it through my mouth. “The timer probably has, like, one minute left now, but it’ll go off on my phone. Distract me?”

“Okay,” she says. “Did I tell you that my professor wants me to consider being a TA for her next year?”

“No, you didn’t tell me that!”

“Yeah, her current TA graduates and, well, she thinks I’m a dream student. Imagine that, little old me, and she wants to help me with my course selection so I can get the most out of studying history.”

“Liv, that’s amazing. I’m so proud of you.” A wedge of emotion clogs my throat as I think of how it feels like my best friend is thriving, while I’m over here, staring down the barrel of being a teenage pregnancy statistic and wishing that there was an easier way to make changes in the field I want to study.

“Yeah, but you know me, I change my mind all the time. I like history now, but maybe I won’t next year. We’ll see.”

My alarm blares through the phone speaker, only heard by me, and I press the red square to stop it. “That’s the timer.”

“Okay,” Liv says. “You can do this. Just flip it over.”

Swallowing hard, I nod. “Yeah.”

She gives me a small nod of encouragement, her dark gaze steady, offering me a kind of calm I don’t feel.

I stand slowly, the bed creaking beneath me as I cross the room to my desk, phone still in hand. The test is sitting there, face down. My hands are trembling so badly that I almost knock it off when I reach for it.

“Take a breath,” Liv tells me, probably noticing how I’m hesitating.

I follow her instructions, taking a shaky inhale and exhaling through my mouth in a whoosh, my stomach churning as saliva pools, threatening revolt.

I finally manage to pick up the test.

Flipping it over, all the air disappears from my lungs.

Two lines.

I blink, my brain stuttering to process what I’m seeing. Two lines. Two very clear, very unmistakable lines.

“Daph?” Liv pulls me out of my daze.

“Two…there’s t-t—” And then I turn to hurl into my wastebasket by my desk, throwing up nothing because I haven’t been able to eat all day, except a mouthful of that salad I didn’t want. When I settle again, Liv is still on the phone. I grab a tissue, clean myself up, and look at my screen.

“There’s two lines?” she asks when I don’t say anything.

“I’m pregnant,” I whisper, the words tasting foreign in my mouth. My knees feel weak, and I stumble back until my legs hit the bed, clutching the phone in one hand and the test in the other. “It’s…positive.”

“Okay,” she says after a beat. “Okay. Daph, look at me.”

I tear my eyes away from the test and meet hers on the screen, but everything is blurry.

“You’re going to be okay,” she says firmly. “I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but you will be.”

“How?” I sob, my voice breaking as hot tears stain my cheeks. “I don’t even know his last name.” My chest heaves with shallow and jagged breaths as my hands shake uncontrollably. “I have no idea where he lives, no idea how to find him, or—or how to even tell him.”

I grip the edge of my bed, my knuckles white, as another sob tears from my mouth. “Oh my god, I can’t do this. Ican’tdo this. My dad is going to lose his mind. My mom is going to be so mad.” My worries tumble out in a frantic rush, barely coherent as my heart races.

Pressing my palms to my forehead, I try to steady myself, but the panic swirls tighter, louder, crushing me.

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