Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 60165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 301(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 301(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
But when I opened the door to the bedroom, the twins were gone. Bruce and Burke had vanished, the way they always did, but this time I knew it was for good. But why? Hurt coursed through my veins, as well as regret. Why didn’t I just say yes immediately? Of course they’d left – they’d just poured out all of their secrets in the hopes of letting me in on their lives, and I’d rejected them.
Pain crashed through my frame. I’d let them down. They probably thought they couldn’t trust me, and the worst part was that I understood why. Sobbing, I’d collapsed into a heap as my grief rushed out in the form of painful keels and moans. In fact, I continued to sob for most of the weekend, locking myself in my bedroom to suffer alone.
When my parents returned from the Hamptons, it got even worse because it was very obvious that that weekend had done absolutely nothing to make life better for me at home. My mother’s feeble hope of working on her marriage with my father, and talking some sense into him about my college fund, had backfired. They’d fought the whole weekend; that much was obvious from the slamming of doors and my mother’s muffled sobbing from her room.
Ever since then, Marisa’s been unable to look at me, and my father has simply continued in his usual cruel manner. The only act of mercy is that Roger’s pretending my “outburst” never happened. He seems uninterested in punishing me, probably because I mean so little in the grand scheme of things.
As a result, I decide to keep still at the dinner table. To let the insults wash over me. To eat my dinner and enjoy the food as best I can before retreating to the solitude of my room. It’s not like Marisa and Roger care, anyways. We never talk to each other. We literally eat in silence, except for when my dad decides to bring up something that happened at work or some random news articles. Then my mom smiles like a zombie and I stare at my plate while letting the words flow in one ear and out the other. We might as well be strangers. In fact, strangers would be more polite to one another.
Tonight, unfortunately, my dad’s decided to discuss my future.
“Graduation, Annabel,” barks Roger from his side of the table, making me jump. He’d been digging away at his meal with a newspaper in his hand, and I’d started to hope we might be able to make it through dinner without any conversation at all. “I got your cap and gown order form in the mail. Did you know that the bigger your size, the more the gown costs?”
That’s private school for you, I think to myself. I sigh, dreading what’s coming next. I don’t even want to look at him because my usually curvy body has gotten even plumper over the last three months, and that hasn’t gone unnoticed. They assume I’m just stuffing my face and putting on weight, but I know the truth: I’m pregnant. I started suspecting a while back, and finally worked up the nerve to go to the drugstore and buy a pregnancy test. I came home, and almost didn’t know what to do.
My fingers shook as I unwrapped the test. Did one stripe mean pregnant, or two stripes? The instructions on the box literally blurred before my eyes because I was so nervous and scared at the same time that there were tears in my eyes. Yet, there was also a feeling of calm because if I was pregnant, the baby was conceived in love. I shared something real with my two lovers, and this baby was wanted.
With my breath in my throat, I peed on the stick and then put it on the counter to wait.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
The second hand on the clock seemed to slow, and every cell in my body was primed to explode. Slowly, blue stripes appeared and I grabbed at the box again: two blue stripes meant I was pregnant.
I’m expecting Bruce and Burke’s baby!
A whoosh of gratitude and happiness slipped through my frame. Never mind that my babydaddies were no longer around. Now, I had direction for my life. This child was my memory of my lovers, and I prayed fervently for a boy who would look just like them, from the coal-black hair to the intense blue eyes. Heck, I didn’t even need that. Maybe a girl with their smile would be enough to remind me of the men I loved.
But I haven’t told anyone yet because no one even knows about Burke and Bruce. How would I explain it? Yes, I’ve been having an illicit affair with two criminals who broke into my room one night. In fact, I’ve fallen head over heels in love with them despite the fact that they wanted to rob my family blind.