My beautiful girlfriend shakes her head. “Are you crazy?”
“Nope,” I answer. “Not crazy. Just in love with you.” It’s the first time I’ve said those words, not just to Maggie, but to anyone. They aren’t familiar words to me, and they’re not ones I say lightly. But they’re true.
“JT, we…” her words trail off and she starts to bury her head in the pillow, so I tip her chin up to look at me.
“We’re doing this, Maggie. You can trust me.”
“We might not be,” she says. “I mean, all the signs point to yes, but we haven’t looked at the test yet. It could be negative.”
I shake my head. “I’m not talking about the test. I’m talking about this—us. We’re together, Maggie, no matter what that test says.”
“What about the other four I have stashed in my drawer?” She’s biting her lip and doing her best to be sweet and brave, but she can be a fucking mess and I’ll still love her.
“Doesn’t matter. We’re happening. You and me, Maggie. And anybody who may or may not join us in the near or distant future.”
“The words are right. Not just right,” she says, shaking her head. “Perfect. They’re perfect.”
“I’m not perfect, Maggie. But I’m honest. And loyal as they fucking come. And so damn in love with you that I’m eyeing up drainpipes and sneaking into storage closets.” And lying. I’m lying to my coach, to my teammates and I hate it. I’m ready to come clean, regardless of what that white plastic stick says.
She blinks up at me. “I’m bruised and damaged and not whole enough to take on a relationship right now, JT. If I’m…All my energy needs to be there, you know?”
She’s killing me. I’m gonna dissolve into nothingness right here in her bed. “What can I say to make you believe that I will be right here with you?”
Her pretty blue eyes are full of sadness. “It’s not you I don’t believe in. It’s me. It’s love. It’s…my trust was shattered by someone else and I’m sorry, JT, but you’re standing in the ruins of it. That’s not fair to you, I know. It’s not that I don’t want to trust you. It’s not even that I don’t think you believe what you’re saying. It’s just that…I’m all out of trust. There’s none left. It’s just dust.”
I smile at her. “Trust dust…That’s enough for me, Cinderella.”
“It can’t be. That’s?—"
“It is. For now,” I say, just as the timer on her phone goes off.
Her hands are shaking, so I take them in my own. “Everything good in my life has been unexpected. Everything. So, this is a good thing. I can feel it.”
“I think it’s a good thing, too. If I am actually…” Her words trail off as she bites her lip. “JT, we’re at different places in our lives. I’m about to graduate. You still have two years left. You have such a different path than I do.”
“I don’t, though,” I counter. “I haven’t since the night I met you. I wanted you back then, two months ago, last week, yesterday, five minutes ago. Right the fuck now. This,” I say, pointing to the open bathroom door, “changes nothing.”
Maggie quirks her brow at me.
“It just makes things more exciting,” I tell her. “You ready to look?”
She nods and steps out of bed, grabbing my hand and dragging me with her. The test is laid out on a paper towel, and I’m not surprised. Maggie and germs do not get along.
Those two pink lines are practically neon. I can see them from the doorway. I bet I could see them from the street. They’re damn near glowing.
And so is Maggie as tears stream down her face. I kiss them away as I lift her up and carry her back to bed.
“I’m pregnant,” she says, like she’s tasting the words for the first time.
“Yeah,” I agree, realizing that we probably should have come to this conclusion sooner. “How far along do you think you are?”
“I don’t know. I started to wonder earlier this week. I’ve been feeling like crap forever, but we’ve never gone without a condom. It’s…at first, I just thought my period was coming. I’ve never been regular. And then I just sort of…got used to feeling blah? I mean, life’s been crazy, right? I came here to lie low. To lick my wounds. To put my head down and study and get my degree…in risk management. So, the sneaking around…that’s not me. Okay, I know in this situation, it’s all me. It’s just not the way I usually operate. But nothing is going according to plan. It hasn’t for almost a year and?—"
“And plans change, Maggie,” I say, holding her gazebecause she’s starting to spiral. “Also, fuck plans. I was just trying to figure out how long we have until…well, until there are three of us. I have a guess, but you’d know better than I would.”
She reaches for her phone and taps a little icon. “Oh, shit.”
“What’s wrong?”
