Page 42 of Teaching Roman

Usually I kept a calendar, but in the last few months, seeing the days tick by had become depressing. I’d switched to a notebook of deadlines and to-do lists. I’d had it since Mexico and their had only been that one time in his office. But even without a calendar, I knew what a full box of tampons I didn’t remember buying meant. It had just taken a simple question in my study guide to remind me.

We were not going out.Possibly ever again. Or, at least, I wasn’t. My head swam as I tried to process exactly what was happening. I’d been careless. I knew that much. But that didn’t make standing in the aisle of the drug store reading pregnancy test boxes feel any less surreal.

“I just don’t understand how this happened,” Jillian said next to me. She had four different boxes in her hands and she threw them all into the hand basket.

“I don’t think we need that many,” I said flatly.

“Do you want proof? Or do you want proof?”

Never mind that I’d never taken one of these before, but I was smart enough to know that any one of them would provide me with a definitive answer, so I threw three boxes back on the shelf. I wasn’t going to spend all night peeing on sticks. “This will be fine.”

“So, you haven’t had your period since Mexico?” She didn’t bother hiding the astonishment in her voice, and I cringed.

“I might have,” I hedged. There was no point keeping this from her now, but that didn’t make me want to come clean.

Jillian stopped in front of me and crossed her arms, blocking me from leaving the aisle. “Confess or I will track him down and drag it out of him.

I sighed and braced myself for a tongue-lashing. “I ran into Roman a few weeks ago. Things happened.”

She didn’t really need to know more than that. I had no doubt that Jillian was schooled on the general basics of getting knocked up. Maybe she’d even listened when they hammered the importance of condoms and birth control and forethought, which was why she was standing there staring at me like I’d grown a second head.

“Things happened?” Her voice pitched up an octave. “How the hell could you have gotten pregnant?”

“Well, when two people love each other very much, sometimes the man puts his penis inside—”

“Spare me the sex ed. It sounds like you’re the one who needs a refresher course.” She rolled her eyes in typical Jillian fashion. “You didn’t realize you were late?”

Obviously I hadn’t realized that. Between classes and stress and endless, mind-numbing activities, I barely knew what day it was. My life had become like clockwork, which is why I should have noticed. Maybe I’d forgotten simply because I’d spent the last month trying to forget my vagina even existed since I’d forced it into an early retirement. “I didn’t.”

“Oh my god, you’re going to be one of those women who goes to the bathroom and a baby falls out!”

“I’m sure that would give my future patients great comfort.” If I ever had patients. If I ever made it to med school. My stomach clenched at the thought. Maybe it was better if I didn’t become a doctor, since I wasn’t even capable of contraception.

“Aren’t you on the pill?”

“Nope,” I admitted. “Do you know how horrible that is for your body? The risks associated with hormonal contraception include…” I rattled off a list of known side effects, but Jillian wasn’t budging.

“I’m on the pill,” she reminded me, “and you’ve never expressed concern.”

“And you’ve been going bareback with Liam for how long?” This time I was the one who rolled my eyes. It made me feel childish, which was a strange combination given the very adult anxiety I was currently facing. She’d confided that information to me in private, and I’d thrown it in her face as a defense.

“Because I’m on the pill!”

There was no point arguing about this. It was as futile as my life felt at the moment. Tears welled in my eyes and I did my best to blink them back. Jillian’s stony expression softened and she wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Is it?” I asked. Not because I wanted an answer, but because I couldn’t fathom how it would be. I was in the middle of prepping for med school entrance exams and weighing my university options. A baby wasn’t part of those plans. Not to mention that I’d ran out on the father, who just so happened to be a freaking instructor at my school. Things were definitely not going to be okay.

“Let’s not worry until you take the test,” she suggested softly.

That was impossible. I couldn’t see how it would work out in my favor, either. I’d royally fucked up this time. There would be consequences. Decisions I didn’t want to face. Not alone.

Jillian purchased the test, because I was too numb to do it myself. It was an out-of-body experience as though I was floating overhead and watching someone else’s life. This was not Jess Stone. She had crusaded for free condoms in the campus clinic. She had always used one, and she had harassed her friends to carry them. So who was I and where had she gone? In three years of university, none of us had a pregnancy scare, and I’d have bet money that I wouldn’t be the first one.

I guess the odds weren’t in my favor.

But when we climbed the steps to our apartment, I realized my reproductive status wasn’t the only surprise I had in store for me that evening.

Roman was standing at our door.