Page 98 of Star-Crossed
“I have an IUD,” Lyra said. “So that’s probably not it.”
“That’s exactly it,” the doctor insisted like a fucking know-it-all. “I’d say you were about four weeks along...”
The words hung in the air like a lead balloon.
Pregnant.
She waspregnant.
And ithadto be Cy’s.
TWENTY
Parent Branch or Stem
THE TREE TRUNK OR THE LARGER LIMB FROM WHICH LATERAL BRANCHES ARE GROWING.
Pregnant.
Cy stared at the doctor in disbelief, the word repeating in his head like an echo.
Pregnant…nant…nant…
The white walls seemed to close in on him, making the room feel even more claustrophobic. A persistent beep from the heart monitor punctuated a silence that seemed to stretch on without end.
Only when he registered that he couldtastethe disinfectant did he realize that his mouth was hanging open.
“Y-you’re sure?” he stammered, his hands clamped into claws on the bed railing. “I mean, is there any chance this could be a mistake?”
“It might have been an accident,” the doctor said, “but it’s not a mistake. The blood test is ninety-nine percent accurate.”
Cy’s mind raced, his thoughts a whirlwind of confusion and disbelief as he glanced over at Lyra.
Her beautiful face was pale as milk, her eyes peeled wide enough to show white around the entire circumference of her irises. Unlike Cy, she hadn’t yet seemed to realize that her mouth was frozen open.
“Buthow?” Cy asked.
The doctor squinted at him behind his wire frames, trying to gauge the nature of the question.
“She has an IUD,” Cy said. “That’s supposed to be at least as effective as the test you just gave her, right?” Hearing the edge of hysteria in his voice, he clamped his jaw shut.
“The odds are slim,” the doctor began, “but—”
“But given our history, are you honestly surprised?”
Lyra’s voice startled him. For a moment, shock had made Cy forget she was in the room entirely.
“Oh shit.” He spun to face her. “Are you okay?”
She blinked, nodded, then burst into tears.
No, not tears.
Body-racking, breath-stealing, voice-contorting sobs.
Were they characters in one of the cartoons Cy had been so obsessed with as a kid, the tears would have been squirting sideways from the corners of her eyes.
But this was real life, where a real woman incubating a real embryo as a result of his really shitty choices was howling like a wounded coyote.
