SAFEHOUSE

“I think I need to go lie down. Is Julien back?" my words jumbled together, and I clutched at my stomach tightly, hoping to keep from throwing up. Sweat broke out over my brow and my upper lip. I had no idea what had gotten into me, but whatever it was I didn't like it.

I groaned, wishing the bubbling in my stomach would just go away. If Julien was home, this was and not the time or place to be getting sick. I wanted to see him, wanted to touch him and kiss him, tell him how much I missed him. How much I loved him.

"How long have you felt like this?" Marie asked me, pulling me by my elbow to us sit down on the bench at the table.

"A few days. I’m just feeling nauseous. Do you know of anyone else in the château is sick?"

She looked at me, her eyes steady, and slowly shook her head no. "No… No one else."

It'd been a while since I had been out in public, so to think that I suddenly just picked something up was strange to me. It didn't matter though, I just wanted to see Julien. Hopefully seeing his face would make me feel better…

A claminess settled over my skin like a ghost. I patiently sat there, hoping for the worst to pass. A few minutes later it did just that, even though deep down I could feel that it wasn't all the way gone. I was still sick, but at least I could get up now.

Marie helped me walk back to my bedroom, equipped with a plastic wastebasket and a cool pack for my forehead. I found my way to the bed, gingerly pulling myself up onto the massive mattress.

It didn't take long before there was a knock at my door. My heart raced.

"Come in," I rasped, my voice still unsteady from before.

Julien burst through the door, his eyes darting all over the place before he realized I was in bed. He made a beeline to me, his arms immediately pulling me in and crushing me against his chest. "Ma chérie, what is wrong? I heard you were ill."

I nodded feebly, but still tried to put on a brave face. The last thing I needed was for him to worry about me. He had a lot of other things going on at the moment, I was sure.

"I'll be fine. I must have some sort of bug. Your guess is as good as mine. It's just strange, because I haven't been anywhere to catch anything. Or maybe it's one of those illnesses that take a few days to show up. Other than that, I have no clue."

Julien narrowed his eyes at me, taking me in. Usually I loved when he stared at me like this, but the intensity in his eyes was more disconcerting than usual. He was trying to figure out something in his head, I was sure of it.

He placed his hands on my knees, gently rubbing my kneecaps, before looking back up at me and softening his eyes. "Amira . . . is it possible that you are…..”

I raised my brow at him, his words taking a while to sink in. He paused without finishing his sentence, but slowly, a lightbulb went off in my head.

It couldn't be… there is no way.

Except… of course there was a way. We hadn't been careful like we should have been. And between the first time we made love and the many times afterward, well, I couldn't be totally shocked if something had happened because of it, could I?

Julien bit his lip, casting his eyes downward. I hoped he wasn't disappointed. We should've been more careful—it was that simple. We were two grown adults acting like young teenagers. And while part of me had been enthralled in the last six weeks or so, I had to admit that we definitely could've been more careful.

He sighed, pulling himself away for me. "We need to be sure. I won't be too long, my love," Julien said, rising up off of the bed.

I nodded, feeling almost numb at that point. There I was, feeling nauseous one minute, and possibly being pregnant the next.

If there was one thing I had learned during the past year of my life, it was that things had the tendency to change and just a snap of the fingers. And we were about to find out just how much they could change…

It had taken Julien twenty-seven minutes and thirty-nine seconds to get back to my bedroom with a small plastic bag in hand. I know this because I had been watching my phone, my eyes glued to it. It felt like forever to me, of course.

I took the box from his hand, taking in a deep breath before heading over to my bathroom and quietly shutting the door behind me. Part of me wanted him to hold my hand the whole time…

I tried to take slow breaths as I finished preparing the test and washed my hands. It was so hard not to keep my eyes on the test, and I had to continuously find a new spot in the bathroom to stare at every ten seconds or so, to keep my mind and eyes from traveling back to it.

To busy myself, I pulled out the two-page instructions to the pregnancy tests reading over them with without really taking them in. I couldn't concentrate, at least not until I was able to look and see what the results for. This deep breathing is not helping me worth a damn, I groaned inwardly.

With both of my hands I grabbed the edge of the countertop, bracing myself against it as I looked at myself in the mirror in front of me. My hair had certainly grown out some since I had been in France, and I had been keeping it up in my usual French twist, trying to keep it simple and pretty. Suddenly I felt the need to do something completely different with it, but the only person I trusted with my hair was my neighbor Raquel Morrison, and she was over three-thousand miles away.

I rolled my eyes at myself at my flippancy and tried to see past the makeup I was wearing… to really see inside myself.

Would I be able to handle the news? Was I strong enough to face what might happen?

I knew what my sister would say. She’d tell me to get a grip, and to deal with whatever consequences I might be facing. She'd be over the moon, of course. She loved babies.