Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 51959 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 260(@200wpm)___ 208(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51959 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 260(@200wpm)___ 208(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
“I don’t know if I can…continue it. If I should,” Mandy stammers. I’ve never seen my sister like this— I’ve never seen any woman in my family like this. We’re controlled, put together. We don’t cry and we don’t crack, at least, not where anyone can see.
“You can make that decision later, and you know I support you no matter what you choose,” I say. “Let’s just get through today, okay, Mandy?”
The doctor looks appreciative, then goes on. “Are you on any medications right now? Anything out of the ordinary?”
Mandy thinks on this, then shrugs. “The health center gave me some medicine for a UTI I had a week or two ago. I get them all the time.”
“An antibiotic?” the doctor asks. My sister nods, and the doctor exhales. “That’s probably it, then. Antibiotics lower the effectiveness of oral contraceptive.”
“Holy shit,” Mandy says, voice choking her words. “I got pregnant because I had a UTI?”
“You got pregnant unexpectedly because it happens,” the doctor says. “To lots of people. I promise. So— here’s your information, and just give me a call back in one week. We’ll get you set up with whatever you need, whatever you decide to do. In the meantime, pick up some pre-natal vitamins and go ahead and start taking them, just to be safe.”
We leave the doctor’s office in relative silence; as we get on the interstate to head back to Atlanta, I finally dare to ask. “Does Bradley know?”
Mandy shakes her head. “I didn’t want to tell him until the doctor confirmed it. I don’t know what he’s going to do. Probably be super nice about it and make me feel even worse.”
“It’s not your fault. You didn’t know about the antibiotics. That’s an insane thing to know. I didn’t know it,” I point out.
“Yeah, but still. I mean, I’m the one that’s pregnant, not him. It feels like my fault,” Mandy says, and I grit my teeth to keep every hard-won feminist argument my mother ever drilled into our brains from bubbling up. Is Mandy even hearing herself? They both got into this mess. Seeing her lose so much of her resolve makes my own confidence falter. What would I do, if I were Mandy? Would I handle it any better? Probably not. I’d be so worried about what Finn would say—
It wouldn’t be Finn’s— you aren’t with him anymore, I remind myself, then feel immediately guilty for daring to think about Finn at a time like this. I press my tongue to my teeth is self-disgust. “Are you going to tell Bradley?”
“Of course,” Mandy says, and she takes a breath. Something seems to calm a bit. “Of course, I have to tell him. I’ll tell him tomorrow night— he’s coming over after a crew thing.”
“That sounds like a good plan,” I say, nodding.
I hang around the house the following day, ignoring my huge to-do list, because I get the impression my being there— even if we aren’t really directly interacting— is giving Mandy some comfort. I catch her crying in the mirror a few times, see her stare at her stomach in the mirror, like she can’t figure out how it could look so normal yet be so different. She’s asked me to leave, though, when Bradley comes over, because she doesn’t think she’ll be able to tell him if she knows I’m listening in from the other room.
I take some homework and head to Suns Up diner, knowing they’ll have plenty of room for me to spread out across a table. Honestly, it isn’t until I walk in that I remember that the last time I was here was the day I met Finn. My eyes wander over to the table we were at, lingering on the place where he sat, the place where he stood and punched Adams, the place where I waited, mouth gaping, to see what would happen next.
“How many?” A tired looking waitress/cashier/food runner says as she sweeps by, seeming to be doing all three of her jobs in a single instant.
“Just one,” I say, and smile.
“Take a seat anywhere, I’ll be over in a second,” she says, then drops the stack of plates she’d been holding into a bus bin.
I delve into homework, the table quickly becoming a mess of papers and books, abandoning my phone’s social media apps in favor of a fancy calculator app whose creator is basically the Harton math department’s patron saint. I’m so involved that I don’t much notice when someone stops at the end of the table. In fact, I don’t notice until a familiar smell wafts across my nostrils— something spicy, masculine, strong. In the millisecond between inhaling the scent and looking up, I identify who it is.
“Finn,” I say, curbing his name at the last instant so I don’t sound delight or surprised or anything but calm.