Page 1 of Your Second Chance
part one
1
nova hart/thatcher
I was crammed into an airplane bathroom on a transatlantic flight, clutching a stick that told me, without question, I’d royally fucked myself.
Somehow, Luna squeezed in here with me, and three hours into this flight—three hours of pretending everything was fine—my entire life flipped upside down. As if moving halfway across the world for a new job wasn’t enough. As if my mom dying and my husband—er, ex-husband—heading to rehab somewhere wasn’t all the change I needed.
“No. This has to be wrong.” My voice shook as I stared at the two bright pink lines. “I can’t get pregnant. Ican’t. The doctor said Icouldn’t.”
Luna glanced down, then at me, her lips pressed into a thin line. “I think they lied.”
“Clearly, Lune. Fuckingclearly.”
She gave me a half-hearted shrug. “It’s like the universe saw you flipping your whole life and said, ‘Why not throw this in too?’”
I glared down at the test again. I’d made Luna buy it right before we boarded—just to ease my mind, I’d told her—but it still took me three hours to work up the nerve to actually use it.
“I’ll go to a doctor when I get there,” I muttered. “Make sure this is real. Then I’ll call...” I swallowed hard. “Austin.” His name tasted like gravel.
I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to call him—couldn’t stomach it—but this...thingwould tie us together forever. And I wasn’t sure I could live with that.
I took a shaky breath. “I-I need to get back to my seat.”
I tossed the stick into the trash and looked at Luna. No tears came. Maybe my body knew I’d already used them all at my mom’s funeral.
“Are you okay?” Luna asked, resting a hand on my arm.
“No.”
I looked down at my hands, which were shaking with fear, and shoved them into the pocket of my hoodie. I wasn’t okay. Nothing about this was okay. This was supposed to be my fresh start.
“I really want to go back to my seat,” I said softly.
Luna nodded, opened the bathroom door, and slipped out.
For a second, I stood there, staring at the test in the trash, the walls closing in on me. Then I pushed out of the bathroom. A couple of people nearby glanced up as I emerged, but I kept my head down, not giving them anything to see. I walked straight back to my seat.
Thankfully, we’d upgraded to premium economy, and the two of us had the row to ourselves. No small talk. No strangers asking if I was okay. Not even Luna tried to fill the silence.
And I didn’t want her to. Nothing—no one—could make this better.
I grabbed my headphones from my bag, curled into a ball facing the window, and disappeared into myself. Outside, the sky shifted slowly from day to sunset to night, a kaleidoscope of colors I barely registered. I didn’t eat. I didn’t drink.
It felt like no time and all the time in the world had passed when the announcement came that we’d landed. London—my new home.
2
nova
Two Weeks Later
“Although there isn’t much to see right now, it looks like you’re roughly seven weeks pregnant.” The doctor pulled out the scans that I’d done a half hour earlier to show me a little tiny piece of rice in the middle of a dark black ultrasound.
Luna squeezed my hand as we stared at the little... person... inside my belly. “What organ is she making today, Doc? A hand? A foot? A dick?”
“Luna.” I chastised and playfully swatted at her.
