LOGIN“What happened?”Adrian put the pharmacy bag on the desk and looked at me for a second before saying, “I ran into a teacher friend of mine on the way back, and honestly, Elena, she knows we have been fucking. I do not know how she knows, okay? She just figured it out.”“What do you mean she knows?”“I mean exactly that. She saw the tests, asked questions, and then your name came up.”“My name came up how?”“She asked if they were for you.”I felt my whole face change. “Why the hell would she ask that? Out of every woman in this entire city, why would she see you with pregnancy tests and think of me?”“That is what I asked her.”“And what did she say?”Adrian exhaled slowly and rubbed the back of his neck like he already knew I was about to lose my mind. “She said she has seen the way we move around each other. Apparently some of the professors have talked about how often you are around my office, and someone saw you leaving my office the other day looking… not exactly put together.”H
ELENAThe second Adrian left, I locked the office door behind him like somehow pregnancy could not get me if nobody else came inside.Then I stood there.Just stood there in the middle of his office with both hands on my hips, breathing too fast and staring at absolutely nothing because apparently my life had reached the point where I was waiting for my boyfriend’s father to come back with pregnancy tests.Amazing.Beautiful.Exactly where I saw myself at this age.I walked to the chair, sat down, stood back up almost immediately, then started pacing because sitting still felt disrespectful to the level of panic currently happening inside my body.“Okay,” I whispered to myself. “Okay. We are not doing this. We are not pregnant. We are simply late. Late is normal. People are late. Flights are late. Deliveries are late. Periods can be late. Everything in life is late.”That actually made me feel better for approximately three seconds.Then I looked down at my stomach.“No.”I pointed at
“And what exactly makes you think they are for Elena, huh?”Naomi looked at me for a second, then gave me this slow, almost offended look like I had just asked the dumbest question possible.“You really want me to say it?”“I asked you, didn’t I?”“Okay then. Because I think you and that girl have been fucking.”I stared at her.She shrugged. “What? You told me to talk.”“Watch your mouth.”“Oh, please. Now you want me to watch my mouth?” She stepped closer and lowered her voice, but somehow that made it worse because now she sounded even more serious. “Adrian, I have been watching the two of you for weeks. I am not stupid. Half the time Elena is around you, she looks guilty as hell, and you look like you are trying so hard not to look at her that it becomes obvious you want to look at her.”“That is your evidence?”“No. That is one thing. Do you want the whole list? Because I have time.”I stared at her.Naomi nodded like she had expected that answer. “Exactly. First of all, we alrea
ADRIANThe second I stepped out of my office, I knew leaving her alone in there was probably a terrible idea.Elena did not handle silence well when she was scared. She filled it. With talking, with jokes, with panic, with whatever came into her head first. If I left her alone for fifteen minutes, there was a fair chance I would come back and find her halfway through planning the child’s college education despite not knowing whether there was a child at all.I shut the door behind me and stood there for a second.Pregnant? NahI started down the hall.Students were everywhere. Talking, laughing, moving between classes like the world had not just changed shape inside my office.I kept walking.The pharmacy was only a few minutes away, and normally I would have sent someone. Normally, I would not leave the school in the middle of the day for something I could have had delivered.This was not something I wanted delivered.I wanted the test in my hand.I wanted an answer.If the test was
I could not help it. I actually looked at this man and laughed right in his face because out of everything he could have said, that was what he came up with.“Pregnant?” I repeated. “Adrian, please. I said I feel sick. I did not say I am carrying your child.”He did not laugh.Of course he did not laugh. This man could make a joke feel like a board meeting.“I am serious.”“Well, I am not.” I laughed again and pushed his hand off my waist. “People get nauseous. Maybe I ate something bad. Maybe I am tired. Maybe my body is finally rejecting me because of all the terrible decisions I have been making lately.”His eyebrow went up.I immediately regretted that last part.“Not you,” I added.“Elena.”“Okay, maybe partly you.”He just kept looking at me, and the longer he looked, the less funny it became because now he had put the thought in my head.Which was rude.Very rude actually.Because five seconds ago I was just nauseous. Now suddenly I was trying to remember when I last saw blood
~Next Morning~“So you lied to him??”Raina said it before I even shut the door all the way.Zia was on my bed with her shoes still on like she came ready to fight me. Both of them looking at me like they already knew. I hated that. I also could not even pretend because my mouth was already twitching and my face was hot and I still felt Lucian from the car and I still felt Adrian from before that and I was a whole mess.“Can you not start like that.”“Start like what,” Raina said. “Like you just walked in here looking guilty as hell? So you lied to him??”I dropped my bag and sat on the floor because the bed felt too close to them. I needed space. I needed a hole. I needed them to stop staring.“Yes,” I said. “I lied.”Zia sat up. “Elena. Look at me. You told Lucian you were not fucking his dad.”My stomach flipped.“Yes.”“And you are.”I put my face in my hands.“Yes.”Raina screamed. Actual scream. Then she hit my mattress with both hands.“Are you stupid. Are you actually stupid.







