“Wait.” Now I think the color has probably drained from my face. “What do you mean?”
She cocks an eyebrow, staring at me like I’m an idiot. “I had an IUD. When I went to my doctor after my positive pregnancy test, they removed it after confirming I was pregnant.”
“Okay, but why didn’t it work? Was yours inserted wrong?”
“Brynn, you do know that no birth control is one hundred percent effective, right?”
“Well, yes, but the IUD is supposed to work!” I stand up, pacing the room, fully hysterical now. “I depend on that little fucker! If the condom malfunctions, I’m still supposed be covered! You mean to tell me it might turn on me?”
“Yeah.” She laughs, and I guess I should at least be happy that my internal crisis has lightened her mood. “But you still have to have sex, and I’ve never even heard you talk about a guy.”
That’s because I’m on a strict one-night-stand regimen. No relationships. Hell, I don’t even like getting their numbers most of the time.
Dammit.
Looks like I have to make better choices.
This sucks.
“I mean, IUDs are still pretty effective. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
She’s right. I’ve been living my best, slightly skanky (but I’m grown and I have needs too) life for a long time and I’ve never gotten pregnant. I take a deep breath, turn my attention back to her.
“I’m back,” I say. Her eyes are dancing with laughter, but also questions, and I know I’m going to have to share my exploits with her soon. “How far along are you?”
“Ten weeks. But!” She holds up her hands and hurries on. “I just found out on Wednesday. I thought it was just stress from school and construction.”
“Wait here.” I know it’s a crapshoot on whether or not she’ll listen. I unlock the office door and run to the bar, grabbing her purse from Vonnie’s lap, and sprint back to Poppy before anybody can question me. “Go home and tell TK,” I say when I return.
“But—”
“Nope.” I cut her off before she can think of an excuse. “You did your last pregnancy on your own, and as much as I don’t mind holding your hair while you dry heave into my overpriced Crate and Barrel trash can, TK is going to spoil the shit out of you, and you deserve that.” I shove her purse into her arms, grab my keys from my desk, and pull her out the back door. “Let’s go.”
“Dammit.” She sighs, knowing she has been defeated. “You’re a bossy bitch.”
“I’m the boss, bitch.” I unlock the doors to my SUV. “Now let me take your pregnant ass home.”
Seven
The city of Denver is building a new rec center down the street from HERS. It’s a huge project. They’ve been working on it for almost a year already and aren’t even remotely close to finished. Every day before going to HERS, I drive or walk by the construction site to see what progress they’ve made over the last twenty-four hours.
Every day since they broke ground, that has been my routine.
And the only consequence has been frustration because of how freaking slow they move.
Until today.
I guess when my dad told me I should avoid construction sites because nails and all sorts of shit (my word, not his) get tossed around, I should’ve listened.
Because it’s nearing midnight and I’m stuck on the side of I-25 with a flat tire thanks to a giant nail. And, because I’m apparently still a fourteen-year-old who lives to defy her father, I never replaced the spare tire in my trunk and I canceled my roadside assistance program to help save money for the two-thousand-dollar pair of sneakers I’ve been dying for.
So if you’re keeping score, my life is basically an accumulation of shit decisions.
My dad is the first SOS call I put out, but when he doesn’t answer, I don’t even attempt to call again. Although he will never admit it, Frank Sterling has a sleep disorder. Once he falls asleep, he is dead to the world. He will not, I repeat, will not wake up until he has had a full eight hours of sleep.
Since it’s a Monday, Paisley and Tanya are alone at HERS until close. It’s slow, but not slow enough to only have one person. Plus, safety in numbers and all that jazz. I don’t like any of my girls being alone. So they’re out too.
I shoot Marlee a text. She lives in New York, but I feel like being stuck on the side of a highway means I could meet my doom and she should have one last text to remember me by.
If I die tonight, know that I love you. And also if you’d kept your ass in Colorado, you could have prevented my untimely death. PS Kiss those babies for me.
I attach a selfie of me standing on the hill opposite of the guardrail, my bottom lip sticking out with my Land Rover sitting sadly behind me.
She doesn’t respond. Probably because it’s the middle of the night and she has two psycho children who suck all the energy out of her on a daily basis.
I scroll down my contacts until I hit TK. He’ll save me.
“Brynny Bear!” he booms into the phone, too chipper to have been asleep. This bodes well for my future. “What it do?”
“I’m stuck on—”
“Oh shit. Poppy just ran for the bathroom again. That’s the fourth time tonight. Is this normal? I don’t think this is normal. We’re calling the doctor tomorrow.” He rambles on, talking more to himself than me. “Here,” I hear him say. “Talk to Brynn for a second.”
“Wait.” I try and yell into the receiver to get his attention. “Just call me back!” I shout, but it’s too late. I hear the phone drop on what I’m assuming is their pillow-covered couch.
School started a month or two ago, so I doubt Ace would still be up at this hour, but with Poppy out of commission, who knows what shenanigans TK is up to.
“Brynn?” Maxwell’s deep, quiet voice comes over the line. “Everything okay?”
“I . . . I’ve been better.” I try to focus on all those clip shows where people get hit by cars on the shoulder of the highway and not fall into a Maxwell-induced trance.
“What’s wrong?” His voice takes on an edge that I haven’t heard before. There’s an urgency that cuts through his calm and laid-back composure now.
“Ummm . . .” I stall, thrown by his reaction.
“Brynn,” he barks into the phone. “Where are you?”
I want to whisper, feeling super ashamed of how irresponsible I am all of a sudden. But a semi passes by, tons of metal roaring yanking away the silence and any sense of safety I pretended the small guardrail could provide. Its power causes the ground to shake and the pieces of trash littered around me to take flight. “On the side of I-25, right after University,” I scream, my heart in my throat.