Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 83102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
“How was your lunch?” Queenie asks.
“Uneventful.”
Marge waves a little cardboard box for me. “More stuff got delivered while we were gone.”
“Open it! Open it!” Queenie claps excitedly.
I can’t look at them. “You do it.”
I get to my desk and click-click-click my laptop’s trackpad, willing it to wake up faster. I study the screen as they exclaim over what’s in the box.
“Now that is too cute. They didn’t have anything like this when I was pregnant with David and Madison.”
“What is it? Oh, a little book with pregnancy milestones,” Marge explains. “Compares the baby to various fruit. How many weeks are you, Madison?”
“Zero,” I spout acerbically under my breath.
My faint response isn’t loud enough to reach them, especially with Marge’s hearing.
“How many’d you say?” Marge asks.
My burst of bravery evades me now. “Uhh, I don’t know.”
“Well it’s real cute. You’ll have to flip through it later.”
Queenie drops it on the corner of my desk, but I don’t look at it. I’m in my own world. Outwardly, I’m smiling, chatting, checking emails, reviewing newly paid invoices. Inwardly, I’m collapsing into myself. My hands shake over my keyboard. What should be a simple adjustment of expectations feels like a blow I can’t process.
Trying to reason with myself doesn’t help.
This wasn’t planned.
It would have been difficult to pull off.
Maybe this is for the best.
It all feels like hollow lies.
I wanted this baby. I wanted to be a mom. I was prepared to do it with or without Sawyer, and the fact that he seemed so eager to step up—excited even—now makes me feel doubly guilty. I should have never said anything to him, to Queenie, to Marge. Because of it, something I could have processed quietly on my own now demands a public announcement.
It doesn’t help that my desk is littered with the baby stuff Sawyer’s been sending over, not just the milestone book. The huge pregnancy pillow winds behind my laptop like a snake. The half-eaten box of morning sickness cookies taunts me from beside my jar of pens.
I stay at the office long after Marge and Queenie go home. I can’t bear to leave, though I’m not even being productive anymore. At first, I was organizing a box of linen samples, but now I’m just sitting at my desk. I need dinner. I need sleep. I need to put my phone away and stop googling questions about pregnancy that feel like I’m pressing on a fresh bruise.
I’m not all that surprised when Sawyer arrives at the office sometime after eight PM. The front door opens, and when I look up to see him, the first feeling that washes over me is guilt. His expression is closed off and reserved, making me wonder if Queenie called him. She must have if he knew to come here instead of going to her house.
I don’t say anything as he walks over, his gaze dropping to all the gifts I no longer have use for. My eyes sting. Emotion feels like a weight on my chest, tightening around my neck.
I rip the Band-Aid right off, wanting him to know everything immediately. I can’t keep this secret for one more second.
“I’m not pregnant. So whatever we’ve been playing at, all this pretend family stuff, we can forget about it. You don’t have to keep being nice to me.”
His brown eyes flare with the shock of what I said; he looks as if I just slapped him. Slowly, he comprehends the news, and his gaze scans down my body—what little of it he can see behind my desk—like he’s looking to see for himself if there’s any evidence of what I’ve told him. “How do you know?” he asks gently.
I squeeze my eyes closed, annoyed that he doesn’t just accept the news at face value. I don’t want to keep talking about it.
“I know because I took a few tests. All negative. No faint line, nothing. So yeah, it’s done.”
“I’m sor—”
I cut him off immediately. “You don’t have to say anything. We don’t have to do this.” I open my eyes and shake my head. “In fact, let’s not. I’m going to box up this pregnancy stuff and give it to Queenie. She’ll know someone who needs it, unless you want to take it all?”
He looks at all the items, seemingly at a loss for what to say or do. “Whatever you think is best.”
Sawyer is absolutely shell-shocked, even more out of sorts than the day I sprung my potential pregnancy announcement on him. Go figure.
My words and my tone are hurting him. I see how they’re affecting him, and yet I can’t bring myself to soften. It’d do me in. I can’t hold his hand and support him through this and make it out alive myself. I’m white-knuckling our encounter, willing it to end quickly and efficiently by any means necessary.