Page 59 of Love Me Ever After
When she finally shooed me out of the office, I had a little over fifteen minutes before I was meeting Georgie at the pharmacy. On my way, I stopped at the supermarket and bought a huge bunch of bananas. Nothing like being prepared.
Georgie was already there, waiting. “How are you?” She drew me in for a hug, then held me at arm’s length, checking out my appearance. “Stupid question. You ready?”
Unable to speak, I nodded. We went inside and walked up and down the aisles, looking for what we needed. There was no way in hell I was asking an assistant to help us. Finally, we got to the right section. The amount of choices overwhelmed me.
“Christ, who knew there were so many options.” I scanned the shelves, looking for the one which would be the easiest and simplest. There seemed to be one which said ‘pregnant’ or ‘not pregnant’ along with the potential number of weeks. I grabbed a couple, better to be sure.
Once we’d paid, we stopped at The Blue Goose on the way back to my house. Georgie bought us hot chocolates and iced cupcakes, figuring that either way we’d need something to help us deal with the results.
I’d never expected to be peeing on a stick, alone in my bathroom, with the potential father not having any clue about what was going on. In my fantasy version of this scenario, he would have been holding my hand while we waited for three minutes to pass. Instead, I had to make do with Georgie.
Neither of us spoke as we waited.
Both scenarios played out in my mind. If I wasn’t pregnant, Mason need never have to know. But if I was… The thought alone was enough to make me retch.
“How much longer?” Georgie squeezed my hand as I checked.
Almost on cue, the timer on my phone sounded and I fumbled to stop it.
My heart jumped into my throat.
Now was the time my life was potentially about to change forever.
I took the test from the side of the sink and glanced at it.
Pregnant.
3-4 weeks.
My vision swam with tears as I passed the stick to Georgie. At least I could pinpoint the time of conception to when we were in Mallorca with Clive and Suzanne. We had taken a few risks, but because of me being on the pill, I thought it would be fine.
“Oh, hon.” She wrapped her arms around me. I wished it was Mason instead. “Do you want to try the other test to be sure?”
Wordlessly, I nodded. I didn’t trust myself to speak without breaking down. Georgie waited outside the bathroom as I peed again. Then we both scrolled on our phones as the second longest three minutes of my life ticked by.
When the timer went off this time, I almost didn’t need to look to know it had produced exactly the same results.
I didn’t know whether I wanted to be sick, to cry, to be happy, or maybe all of those things.
I’d always known I wanted kids and would have them one day, when I had settled down. Mason and I were anything but settled. He was in another fucking country for a start, and I was still cross with him.
This wasn’t how it was meant to be.
“What are you going to do?” asked Georgie. “I guess you need to make an appointment with the doctor?”
“I have no idea.” The overwhelming rush of responsibility flooded through me. There were so many things I had no clue about, not least of all what to do next. “I think maybe I need that cupcake…”
“You got it.”
We went downstairs to the kitchen, where Georgie warmed our drinks in the microwave. I sat down at the kitchen table, overwhelmed by the events of the past few minutes.
“You need to tell Mason,” Georgie said. “He needs to know asap.”
I nodded and called him.
Unsurprisingly, it went to voicemail. I suspected he would just have started his last day of interviews and presentations.
“Mason, it’s me. We need to talk.”
