Page 44 of Screwed

TWELVE

Iris

I’ve been hidingfrom the world and reality in my cabin for the last few days but I know that it can’t last forever. I need to get back to my life, back to the real world.

It’s just… I’m pregnant.

I’ve been trying to wrap my head around it ever since I took the test but I still don’t think that it’s completely sunk in yet. I even woke up the next morning thinking that maybe I had dreamed it, but the pregnancy test was still sitting on top of the trash can in the bathroom.

I had ended up taking the second test that morning. I don’t know what I was hoping for. Maybe that it would be a false positive and I could forget all about the way that my life was about to change.

It wasn’t a false positive though. I’m still pregnant. I’m going to have a baby.

Madelyn stayed with me that night. We had lain in my bed and she let me stare off into space for a while before she got up and made me some soup and grilled cheese. It had tasted good that night but not so much the next morning when I threw it up.

Arlo has tried to call me and come by to take care of me the last couple of days but I keep telling him no. I’ve been telling him that I don’t want him to get what I have and he keeps insisting that he doesn’t mind, that he just wants to see me. He’s so sweet and I know that I need to tell him that I’m pregnant soon, but I want to have a handle on how I’m feeling about all of this before I add his feelings into the mix.

I thought about just blurting it out to him the last time that we were on the phone, but this feels like news that I need to tell him face to face. How do I even go about bringing up that topic though? Tell him that we need to talk and then just lay it on him? Is there an easier way to ease into all of this?

I tried searching that question on Google but it wasn’t much help. Madelyn says that I should do something cute like make a onesie with something funny on it and give it to him as a gift but I’m honestly not sure how that would go over. Going the gift route should probably just be left for couples who were actively trying for a baby, not for ones who conceived by accident and barely know each other.

I can’t stop wondering about how he’ll react to the news. Will he be upset? Freaked out like I was? It seems like too much to hope for that he would be excited as soon as I tell him. We’ve only been dating for a few weeks and I’m not even sure if he’ll want to be with me still after I tell him.

There are times when I regret sleeping with him so quickly. I was the girl who thought everything through and while we used protection, or at least I thought that we were using protection, I knew that there was a chance that it would fail.

I used to dissect a choice from every angle, carefully weighing the pros and cons before I made a decision. So why did I jump without looking with Arlo?

Madelyn, Sutton, and Lyla have all come by and they’re the only ones who know that I’m pregnant. They’ve been trying to help by bringing over food and offering to watch the shop for me while I take some time off but I know that they have jobs and lives of their own and they can’t drop everything for me.

I appreciate all that they’ve done for me over the last few days but I need to get back to my real life which is why I woke up this morning, threw up as per my new usual, and then dragged my tired ass down to Blast From The Past and flipped the closed sign over to open.

I’m here before anything else on Main Street is open so that I have time to catch up on any orders that came in while I was out. I need to get back into a new routine so that I can go out to estate sales or garage sales and look for new pieces. My shop won’t last long if I don’t have any antiques in it.

Maybe I should hire someone to help out at the shop. Lord knows that I can barely keep my eyes open most afternoons and that’s when I get quite a few tourists coming into the store.

“Hey,” Madelyn says as she pushes open the front door.

I’m leaning on the front counter, trying not to throw up again and she must see it on my face because she holds up a bottle of ginger ale and a bag of suckers.

“I got you some pregnancy pops. I was going to bring them by your place but then I drove by and saw your car parked out front here.”

She passes me a sucker and the cold drink and I tentatively take a sip. I should have thought about ordering something for my morning sickness. I need to get my head on straight. I should be buying pregnancy and baby books, looking into what else I might need before the little bean gets here.

“Thanks,” I say when it looks like I’m not going to immediately throw up that small bit of pop.

“No problem.”

She leans on the other side of the counter and I sigh as I unwrap a sucker and pop it in my mouth. It doesn’t taste great but I’m willing to try anything if it means not spending half of the morning with my head in the toilet or a wastebasket anymore.

“So… have you broke the good news to Arlo yet?” She asks and I shake my head.

“No, but I’m going to. Today,” I say firmly, trying to psych myself up for that conversation. “I have a feeling that the gossip will spread around town and I want him to hear it from me and not someone else.”

She nods.

“Yeah, that’s probably smart. Are you nervous?”

“Yeah,” I admit.

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