Novels by Chris Klever

BRABRA The conference room feels smaller than usual this morning, though nothing about it has actually changed. Same long table. Same too-bright lights humming overhead. Same nervous energy running through everyone gathered around it, myself included, though I'm doing my best not to let it show."They're already downstairs," my coworker says, sliding into the seat beside me, her voice pitched low the way it always gets before something important. "Word is this client could double our contracts for the year if the meeting goes well.""No pressure, then," I say, and manage something close to a smile.I press my palm flat against my thigh under the table, a habit I've started doing without meaning to — checking, reassuring, as if I need to remind the two small lives beneath my clothes that I'm still here, still holding steady, even when my stomach is doing slow, nervous turns that have nothing to do with them this time.I haven't slept properly in days. I've been living on toast and tea

Sleep doesn't come, no matter how many times I close my eyes and beg my body to let go.I lie on my side, knees drawn up, one hand resting against my stomach the way it has every night since the appointment. Outside, the city hums faintly through the window — a distant siren, a car horn, someone's laughter carried up from the street below. Ordinary sounds from an ordinary night that no longer feels ordinary to me at all.I turn onto my back and stare at the ceiling instead.At some point past midnight, I give up pretending sleep is coming and pad barefoot into the kitchen for a glass of water. The floor is cold under my feet. I don't bother with the light — I know this apartment well enough to move through it in the dark, past the table, past the counter, to the sink where I fill a glass and drink it standing up, staring out at the sliver of city visible between the buildings across the street.A light is on in a window somewhere out there. I wonder, briefly, who else is awake at this

The clinic smells like antiseptic and lavender hand soap, an odd combination that makes my stomach turn the moment I walk through the door.I sign in at the front desk with a pen that skips halfway through my own name. My hand isn't steady enough to notice or care. I sit in a plastic chair in the waiting room, my knees pressed together, my bag clutched in my lap like it might anchor me to the floor.Around me, other women wait too. One rests both hands over a stomach that's already round and full. Another scrolls through her phone, bored, unbothered, like this is just another Tuesday. I wonder what it would feel like to be either of them. Calm. Certain. Not alone."Brabra?"A nurse in pale blue scrubs holds a clipboard against her chest, scanning the room until her eyes land on me.I stand too quickly. My bag nearly slides off my shoulder."That's me."She smiles, kind and unbothered, and leads me down a narrow hallway into a small room with a paper-covered exam table and a poster of

The box sits on the bathroom counter for a long time before I touch it.I've read the instructions twice already, though there isn't much to read. Pee on the stick. Wait three minutes. Two lines means one thing. One line means another.Simple. Except nothing about this feels simple.I sit on the edge of the bathtub with the test wrapped in a square of toilet paper, waiting, my knee bouncing without my permission. The bathroom light hums faintly overhead, too white, too honest. I can hear my own heartbeat in my ears.I set my phone on the sink and start the timer.Three minutes.One hundred and eighty seconds to find out whether the last two weeks of exhaustion and pain and unexplained tears have a name.I press my palm flat against my stomach, the way I did this morning at the kitchen table, except this time it isn't pain I'm bracing for."Please," I whisper, though I don't even know what I'm asking for. Please let it be nothing. Please let it be something. I don't know which answer I

The pain arrives before the sun is even up, curling low in my stomach like a fist closing slowly around something that refuses to let go.I sit up too fast. The room tilts. I press one hand flat against my stomach and the other into the mattress, waiting for it to pass.It doesn't pass.It gets worse.I count my breaths the way my mother taught me. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. She always said pain ends if you count long enough. She never told me what to do when it doesn't.By the time I make it to the kitchen, my legs are shaking. I grip the edge of the table and hold on like it's the only solid thing left in the room.Another wave rolls through me.I bite down on my lip until I taste blood."Not now," I whisper. "Please. Not now."I don't know who I'm talking to. There's no one in this apartment but me. There hasn't been anyone else in a long time.I lower myself into a chair, one hand still pressed against my stomach, and wait for the room to stop spinning. My reflect