I mean, it could happen. I remember him using a condom. But with a groan, I knew that my birth control taking had been ... hit or miss ... those first couple of weeks while I adjusted to the time difference.
Claire had been telling me for years that I should set reminders on my phone for my medication. But past advice coming back to haunt me was not what I needed.
What I needed was a freaking pregnancy test. As I leaned down to find my phone where it'd dropped on the floor, I knew I needed to call ... I didn't know. Claire. Isabel. Finn ... no, not Finn, he'd be terrible in this situation. Plus, there was the whole in medical school and has a new girlfriend thing. Paige. No. She'd hop on a plane and make me pee on a stick. As I mulled over my options, I noticed that the screen on my phone was on the news app, and before I could navigate away from it, I caught a glimpse of a sports headline, the top portion of someone's very familiar face in a picture.
Hey, Jude, Don't Let Me Down it proclaimed, a nod to the Beatles song. My hand was shaking so badly as I tried to scroll down to see the picture even though I knew—oh my sweet baby Jesus in the manger, I knew—by the messy dark hair and the eyes it was him.
My other hand covered my mouth as his face came into full view. In the shot, he was mid-kick, muscular leg swinging toward a ball suspended midair. His face, just as stupidly hot as I remember, was frozen in concentration, his muscular body covered in a blue and white uniform. Maybe if I wasn't freaking the fuck out, I would've thought about how insane it was that the guy I'd been text flirting with all day—the guy I'd slept with after making fun of the sport that employed him—was apparently a professional soccer player.
Football.
Whatever.
The hysterical laughter bubbled up in my throat, unbidden. I thought of his face when I said how boring the game was. I thought of his texts, telling me he'd been too busy playing football to text me sooner. Pretty soon, I was hunched over, wiping tears from my eyes because I couldn't stop the sounds coming from my mouth.
That was when it happened.
The head spinning.
The nausea.
My stomach roiled slowly, unpleasantly, and I barely made it to the bathroom before I puked.
Chapter Seven
Lia
"It's fine. It'll be fine."
I'd said it a thousand times since I hastily packed my shit and hopped back on a train to Oxford. Sorry, Brontës, but I needed to be back in my own flat if I was going to find out I was carrying a little baby soccer player inside my body.
I groaned. Also for the thousandth time.
Maybe I'd just had a bad breakfast. Or lunch. Or tea.
My pace picked up as I booked it from the station back to my place. Yes. I liked that train of thought.
And honestly, I had to stick with it because as I approached the building that I would call home for a few months, I knew I absolutely had to convince myself it was true until I was safely ensconced behind locked doors and out of sight.
Have you ever seen someone fumble with a bottle of champagne? The really big expensive ones that would probably kill someone if you used it as a weapon. Molly got one for a party once, some fancy Amazon shindig for work that we were all invited to. She struggled to open it, and because it got jostled, the bubbles were angry, looking for a place to go once the pressure was released.
Once she got the cork off, oh, did they explode.
I imagined that happening inside my poor body. I could hardly pay attention to any aspect of my surroundings, wearing veritable blinders the entire time I left Haworth, the entire time I was on the train staring blankly out the window, and the entire time I hoofed it back to my flat.
So much pressure was building in me that the moment that cork came out, holy shit, I was going to erupt like a hormonal Vesuvius. Tears. Snot. Splotchy skin.
Somewhere, in that part of me that hated putting labels on shit like this, I knew exactly what this was.
Panic.
It felt like bottled panic.
Even putting a name to that emotion had my skin vibrating at a dangerous frequency as I took the steps up to my flat. My teeth clenched. My fingers curled into tight balls.
As I hit the top step, my breath sawed in and out of my lungs like I'd just run a freaking marathon. Alishiya was coming out of her apartment with a polite smile on her face. I knew the moment she saw all that angry, bubbling panic because her eyebrows bent in concern.
"Are you all right?"
Tight-lipped, I gave her a, "Mm-hmm," in response because honestly, I couldn't handle anything besides that.
She didn't push, which I would thank her for later. She must not have three sisters and a mama bear mother figure because holy hell, if I was at home right now, they'd be all up in my face.
"Shit," I whispered, my voice wavering, my chin wobbling.
What a stupid thought to have in my current predicament. If I was at home right now.
The first tear slipped out, and it took every shred of self-control to hold in the sob that wanted to follow it. My hand was shaking so badly that the key clanged in the door. From behind me, Alishiya laid a gentle hand on my shoulder.
"Let me help you," she said, in her lovely Scottish accent. The key taken from my hand, I pressed my fist against my mouth like a fucking cork because all the things had to stay right where they were for just five more seconds.
The door unlocked, and I gave her a grateful look. But honestly, if I tried to talk ... if I opened my mouth even a little ... I'd lose everything I'd held in for the past five and a half hours since I puked up my granola bar.
She smiled. "It'll be all right. Whatever it is."
With a jerky nod, I slid into my apartment and closed the door behind me. For a minute, it served as the only thing keeping me from crumpling down onto the floor. My phone buzzed, and I was slow in pulling it out of my backpack because I had a feeling it was Jude. I'd dropped off our conversation really freaking fast once the whole I might be pregnant and holy shit, he plays professional soccer bombshell hit.
I dumped my bag onto the floor and lurched forward to my little couch, fumbling with my purse as I did because I needed one thing.
I needed Claire.
Ignoring the text notifications, I went straight for the FaceTime. We were not even messing around with phone calls. The camera pulled up while I waited for her to pick up, and I winced. I looked like a crazy person.
When the call connected, when I saw her smiling face—identical to mine, but like, not crazy looking—the cork slipped.
Claire's smile disappeared immediately. "What's wrong?"
My chin wobbled.
"Oh my gosh, what's wrong?" Now her chin wobbled. "Lia, are you okay? Are you hurt?"
"I …" I whispered, but my voice was practically inaudible. "I'm not hurt."
"Okay." She sighed. But her face, it was all scrunchy and worried. "Talk to me because my thoughts are going everywhere from brain tumor, to you were robbed, to I don't even know."
I exhaled a laugh, but even that sounded pained.
"Do I need to get on a plane?"
I shook my head. "No, I just ... I need you to be here with me while I do something."
"Okay." Claire looked off camera and shook her head, waving her boyfriend, Bauer, away when he said something. "Hang on, Lee, let me move to the bedroom."
Her camera whirled, and I tried not to focus on the movement, pinching my eyes shut when that didn't work because the last thing I needed to do was puke while on FaceTime. Gross. Hearing the click of a door, I opened my eyes, and Claire was sitting on her bed.
"All right, sorry. What are we doing?"
We.
For my entire life, I'd been part of a we. That was the thing about having an identical twin. It's a guaranteed playmate—someone to tell your secrets to, someone to get in trouble with, and someone to hold space for you when you need it. Yes, I loved Molly and Isabel, but Claire turned me into something more.
Slowly blowing out a br
eath through puffed cheeks, I reached over, unzipped my overnight bag, and grabbed the pregnancy test that I'd picked up from a pharmacy that I passed on the way to the train station in Haworth. I lifted the box up next to my face, and it took a couple of seconds for it to register.
Claire blinked, leaning in toward her phone screen, and I watched her mouth form the words. Her jaw fell open. Her eyes widened.
"Holy shit," she whispered.
Another tear escaped, and I wiped it away using the back of the hand holding the box.
"Oh, Lia."
"Yeah."
Claire licked her lips, rubbing them together before she spoke again. Oh, it was never, ever good when she was being careful about what words she chose. "What happened? Was it ... did you ...?" She blew out a breath of her own and gave me weird, intense eyes. "Did someone hurt you?"
"Oh, my gosh, no," I insisted. "No, it's not like that. I-I wanted to. I met him a couple of weeks after I got here."
Claire's entire frame relaxed. "Okay. Good. You know I had to ask. It's not ... it's not like you not to tell me when you slept with someone."
I rubbed my forehead. "I know. But I knew you'd worry if I told you I met a guy in a pub and …" I waved my hand in a vague gesture.
She mimicked my hand movement. "And ...?"
"Shut up."
Claire grinned. "What's his name?"
Immediately, I shook my head. "I'll give you the recap later. Right now, I just need to know."
She sat up, and I couldn't help but smile at the change in her demeanor. My younger by two minutes twin was going into Mom-mode. "Okay. Are we doing this now?"
"I think so."
I hauled my ass off the couch and into the tiny bathroom. Once the box was ripped open, I exhaled. Hard.
"What?" she asked.
Studying the piece of plastic in my hand, I shrugged. "It's just ... what a weird little contraption, right? You pee on the thing, and it tells you whether you're pregnant with a hot British man's baby."
Claire smiled. "How hot?"
"Really, really hot." My answer was so glum, she burst out laughing.
"'Kay, let's do this thing." Her phone must have been propped on something, because suddenly, her laptop was in her lap, and she was typing. One shoulder shrugged. "It does say it's best to wait until the morning when your urine is the strongest. Or something." The incredulous look I gave her had her holding up her hands. "Fine, fine. We're not waiting. Got it. I'm sure your pee is spectacular right now too."
Using the sink and the knobs on the faucet, I did some propping of my own. Once the angle was good, I ripped open the package and set it carefully on the edge of the sink. "Look away if you don't want to see ass," I warned her before shoving my pants down.
"I'm nervous," she admitted.
"You are?"
"Yes! I never thought we'd do our first pregnancy test on FaceTime."
My eyebrows raised slowly. "The fact that you've given our first pregnancy tests any thought at all is freaking me out."
She waved that away. "I know. It's just ... I'm so far away from you."
I kept my face averted from the camera, partially because, well, I was peeing on a stick, and also because if I saw her face when she said that ... I'd lose it.
The cap went into place with a tiny click, and I balanced the test on the ledge of the mirror above the sink.
It felt important to leave the bathroom for my eternal five-minute wait, so I tugged my pants back up and went into the bedroom. And with strategic pillow placement, I propped the phone up next to me in a way where I could convince myself that Claire was cuddling in the twin-size bed with me.
"Remember when Paige and Logan first got married?" she asked. She laid down on her bed too, arranging the phone to mirror my position. "You climbed into the top bunk with me, and we'd lay like this, planning all the pranks you wanted to play on her."
A tear slid down my temple, and my answering laugh was watery. "Yeah. Logan had been both parents for so many years, and I just wanted her to go away so I didn't get too used to her."
"I'm still not used to her," Claire said dryly.
We both laughed at that.
"What's his name?" she whispered.
Before I answered, I filled my lungs, letting them expand fully before I let the oxygen out. "Jude. I met him ... and ..."—I waved my hand—"well, you know that day I was at Buckingham Palace and you asked me if I was bored because I missed home?"
She smiled softly. "Yeah."
"It was that night."
"Ahh." Claire was giving me worried eyes when she spoke again. "Have you seen him since?"
I shook my head. "Just some texting the past few days. He's been busy with work."
"And he was ... is ... nice?"
My shrug was pitiful. "For as much as I talked to him, he seemed like it."
The times I thought about Jude, it wasn't like I was reflecting on his manners.
Oh, how politely he'd ripped my underwear off!
"And you used protection?"
"Yup." I rubbed my face.
Claire was quiet.
"I wish I was there, Lee." She sniffed. "This is really hard."
My hands stayed right the hell over my face. "I know."
I wished she was with me too. I'd make her walk the mile into my tiny bathroom. I'd make her check the test against the instructions because she was more patient than I was and she'd actually read them. I'd lay in this bed until she walked out of the bathroom, until she climbed back into bed with me and told me if I was going to have a baby about a decade earlier than I'd ever planned.
"Lia, you have to go look." Her voice was all wobbly, and I pressed my fingers into my eye sockets.
"No, I don't." Why were my palms wet? I licked my lips, and they came away salty.
"Yes, you do." She sounded so gentle. So understanding. If it were me, I would've gone tough love drill sergeant. "You can do this, Lee."
I dropped my hands, and when I pried my eyes open, I saw Claire crying in earnest right along with me.
"I'm scared," I said, my voice hardly above a whisper.
"That's okay. No matter what that thing says, we'll figure it out, okay?"
Before I could think too hard on it—what it would mean, what it wouldn't mean—I snatched the phone and rolled off the bed.
"Read the label first," she said.
I smiled. "I will."
On the back of the box, I skimmed until I saw what I needed to know, reading it out loud to Claire.
"One line is no; two lines is yes."
She nodded. "Okay."
Tossing the box aside, I took a second and looked at the test lying facedown on the metal ledge. It looked eight feet long lying there. In my mind, it grew bigger and bigger until I imagined it squeezing me out of the room.
"You can do it," she said again.
With a hard puff of air out of pursed lips, I snatched the test and flipped it over.
"Holy shit," I whispered.
Two bright ass purple lines.
Claire inhaled. "Two lines?"
My nod was jerky, and I tossed the test onto the ledge, sinking onto the floor of the bathroom with the phone clutched against me.
"Lia," she said firmly, "I can't see you."
"I don't want you to see me," I cried. "Holy shit, Claire, I'm pregnant. I'm pregnant!"
"Please let me see you. Not that having the camera smashed up to your boobs isn't great, but I'd really like to see my sister's face right now."
Slowly, I pulled the phone back, resting my hands on my bent knees, but with my head against the wall behind me, I decided that staring up at the ceiling was a better life choice for me.
"What am I supposed to do?"
She was quiet. "I don't know."
"I have to tell Jude," I murmured. "Don't I?"
Claire sighed. "I think that's a difficult question to answer when you don't know what kind of person he is. But if I'm answering in generalities, then yes, I t
hink letting him know is the right thing to do. At least give him the opportunity to support you in whatever way you need."
Finally, I met her eyes. "And what if I don't want to keep it?"
She held my gaze, steady as a rock, unwavering as a mountain. "Then we'll figure that out too. You don't have to decide anything right now, Lia. Not one single thing."
A memory popped up, and I emitted a watery laugh. "Remember when Emmett was born?"
She laughed too. "Of course."
The day our nephew was born was so clear in my mind. But in our strange little family tree, he felt like our little brother. Logan and Paige had been married for a year when she got pregnant, and even though Logan had been the legal guardian to four girls, adding a fifth into the mix felt as natural as breathing. We anticipated the birth of their baby like it was the freaking second coming or something.
Claire and I were thirteen at the time, Isabel fifteen, and Molly was seventeen. The four of us stood in that hospital hallway, ears pressed against the door, waiting for the beautiful wailing sound of what we just knew would be another girl. We'd spoil her rotten, the fifth Ward girl, and it was going to be a glorious addition to our girl gang.
Except he didn't emit a wild, loud wail when he was born. He came out clear-eyed and calm. The most peaceful baby that ever existed. When Logan opened the door to let us in, we crowded around Paige—sweat-soaked and wild-haired and holding a tiny little bundle—only to hear the words, "It's a boy."
I looked up at my big brother, and said, "Oh bullshit, it is not."
But the moment I held him, that perfect, scrunched-up, red-faced baby boy, I fell head over heels in love. We all did. He was our baby boy, and the most loved child in existence.
"Remember how we used to fight over who got to hold him?"
Claire smiled. "I got so mad at Isabel that one time she tricked me into setting him down. Didn't she tell me that someone caught sight of Justin Bieber in our neighborhood?"
I laughed, feeling strangely calm. Probably denial, but whatever. "What a bitch."
"She had him for hours that day too. Ate dinner one-handed so no one could take him." Claire fell quiet, and her eyes were heavy on me. "Why the trip down memory lane?"
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