Unintended

Ash looked around the room. “How come you don’t have any cards up yet?”

“I haven’t opened anything yet. I was going to but…” I don’t seem to be able to focus on anything.

“Evie, please,” the worry in his voice drawing my gaze to him. “Tell me what’s happening.”

“I’m pregnant.”

I said the words quickly, my mind still rejecting them, still refusing to let them sink in properly.

Ash’s mouth dropped open. No words came out, he just stared at me.

Great. I’d passed on my inability to create a sentence to him.

“This is… I don’t know what it is,” he said, blinking rapidly.

“Yeah. Me neither.”

Seeming to get a grip of himself, he reached over for my hand. “I… Are you happy?”

Happy.

I hadn’t thought about whether I was happy, but I certainly hadn’t felt anything even close to happiness.

What I had felt was intense fear before I tried to shut it down and get on with my day. But since Ash had asked the question, I had to find a way to explain that.

I shook my head as another tear slipped down my cheek. “No,” I told him, my voice breaking. “Am I a terrible person?”

Ash shook his head. “No. Not at all.”

Although he said the words I needed to hear, his face displayed confusion. And there was no way he could possibly understand, not really. This was too complicated even for me, and I was the one dealing with it.

He squeezed my hand tighter, and I turned mine over, linking our fingers.

“We were careful,” I said. “That night with Jay. We were careful. This shouldn’t be possible.”

“Well, you know… nothing is one hundred percent safe.”

I nodded. “I know, but…” I trailed off, shaking my head. “I don’t know what to do.”

“You don’t have to make any decisions now, Evie. You can only be, what, eight weeks or so? You have some time to think.”

I looked up at him again, and I could see the slight flutter of his long-sleeved top at his chest, letting me know his heart was beating hard. I placed my other hand on top of his and stroked my thumb across it. “I’m scared, Ash. I’m so scared.”

He shuffled closer to me and pulled me into him, his arms tight around me. “It’s okay, Evie. Everything will be okay.”

I didn’t think

it would be, and my tears turned into huge, shuddering sobs as I let fear take over.

“Ash, I can’t… I can’t go through what I went through last time. I can’t be pregnant. What if it happens again? What if I have a miscarriage early on, or something goes wrong during the pregnancy like before? What if I get all the way through and then the baby doesn’t make it after it’s born? I can’t do this. I don’t want to go through it again.”

“Ssh,” Ash said softly, still crushing me against him, making me feel safe at a time when I felt anything but. “You don’t know anything bad will happen. This time will be different.”

“You can’t promise that. You don’t know.” I shook my head against his chest, my tears soaking into his t-shirt. “It’s too much of a risk. I never wanted this!”

“Evie, calm down.” He let go of me and cupped my face in his hands, brushing my tears away with his thumbs. “You have to calm down, okay? Getting this worked up isn’t going to help anything. So… remember what you said to me before? Take some long, slow breaths.”

He breathed in deeply, his eyes on mine, and I nodded, joining him and getting myself under control.