Chapter 7: Pregnancy Scare

Nine o’clock sharp on a weekday, the house still carried the faint coffee scent from Dad’s hurried breakfast. A soft knock pulled me from half-sleep. Lauren stood in the doorway, face drained of color, clutching a small pink box she must have slipped into her purse days earlier. Her dark hair hung loose, eyes wide with something raw I hadn’t seen before. Dad had already left for the office, car long gone down the street.

She didn’t speak at first, just stepped inside and closed the door. “I bought this ... just in case,” she whispered, voice cracking on the last word. The box trembled in her hand. Early-detection test, two pink lines promised on the packaging. My stomach dropped like a stone.

We moved to my bathroom. She lifted the toilet seat, hiked the crotchless leggings she still wore from yesterday’s edge, and sat. The plastic stick caught the light as she held it steady. I waited outside the door, heart thundering against my ribs, listening to the faint splash of her stream. Two minutes felt like hours. The silence pressed in, thick with every creampie we’d risked, every whispered breeding line that had once felt like dirty play.

The door opened. Lauren’s hand shook as she held the stick toward me. Two distinct lines stared back, stark against the white window. “Alex ... it’s positive.”

The floor tilted. Flashbacks slammed through me—my release pulsing deep while Dad’s voice echoed from upstairs, the parking-lot fog, the way her walls had milked me on the phone call. I’d flooded her dozens of times, raw and reckless, and now this slim plastic strip said it might have taken. We sank onto the edge of my bed, shoulders touching. She curled into my chest, a single tear sliding down her cheek. I held her tight, arms wrapped around the woman who’d raised me, the one whose body I now knew better than my own.