Steven looked at me for a long moment, then scrubbed a hand over his face. He grabbed a pregnancy test from the shelf and dropped it in the cart.
“I don’t need that,” I said. A whole team of doctors had assured me of that.
But the universe decided that was the perfect time to prove me wrong because a rancher smelling like he had rolled in cow patties cut brushed past us. It was too much, and I had been fighting it for too long. I didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of stopping it.
The vomit was instantaneous.
“Your shoes!” Steven hollered, lunging forward, palms outstretched.
I puked directly into his bare hands.
Of courseI was wide awake at 3 a.m., alternating doomscrolling analysis of the vicious drought hitting the western states with soothing videos of dogs guarding ducks, tryingnotto picture Steven’s hands full of my vomit and how I had made my humiliated escape while he was washing up in the grocery store bathroom because that made me feel ill all over again, when his text came through.
Steven
Well?
Chloe
Well, what?
Steven
Did you take the test?
Chloe
No
Steven
Why not?
Chloe
I don’t want to.
Steven
For fuck’s sake, princess.
Text me your address.
Chloe
36 Second Street
Steven
I’ll be there in 20.
13
STEVEN
What the hellwas I thinking?
I wasn’t thinking. That was the problem. But Chloe texted me her address, so clearly I wasn’t alone in the One Braincell Club. We weren’t friends. She was never going to forgive me for what I did to James. No, she was going to hate me until her dying breath, and even then, I’d hazard a guess that she’d carry that grudge to heaven with her and give the angels an earful. I knew that.
