5- Yes or no?

Arielle.

I didn’t know how many hours I had spent just staring at the ceiling of Kurt’s apartment listening to the muffled sounds of the city pressing against the thin walls. It had been almost a week since that night and almost a week since I dragged myself in here like a wounded animal and refused to come back out.

College felt like a distant dream something that belonged to another version of me and that is a better version, the girl who still believed she could fix her life with a pen and a degree.

Now I just lay here every morning staring at cracks in a ceiling that wasn’t mine and breathing air that felt too heavy for my chest, wondering if I had already ruined everything before I even had the chance to begin.

Kurt didn’t push me maybe because he understood more than I thought he did and maybe because he was just tired of dealing with broken people and knew that sometimes silence was the only safe thing to give them.

I tried to study once. I pulled out my notebook, the one I had stuffed into my bag in a rush before coming here and I spread my medical notes out on the small table near his window. The pages looked strange and the words blurry and meaningless like they had been written in a language I used to know but had forgotten overnight.

I read a line three times and the same definition about human anatomy and I still couldn’t make it stick in my head. All I could think of was him. His face and his voice. The way my body still remembered his touch even when I tried to scrub it away in the shower until my skin turned pink.

It disgusted me, this weakness and this strange pull that made me feel like my soul wasn’t mine anymore. Every time my pen slipped from my fingers and hit the desk I just ended up clutching my stomach like I could squeeze the thoughts out.

Sometimes when Kurt was gone I would drift around the apartment like a ghost. The space was too small and too cold but it was safer than outside. I boiled water and made instant noodles more times than I could count sitting cross legged on the floor while the steam burned my face and shoving down mouthfuls even though I didn’t feel hungry.

I cleaned his kitchen once wiping every surface just to keep myself busy but the smell of bleach made me gag so hard I had to stop halfway. I told myself it was just stress amd just nerves but deep inside I was terrified that it was more than that.

The worst part was the silence when the sun went down. At night I lay awake on the thin mattress biting my lip so I wouldn’t cry loud enough for Kurt to hear and I thought about what it would mean if I was pregnant. The word itself felt too big for me.

Pregnant.

I wasn’t supposed to be that girl, not the one who threw her whole future away because of a man who didn’t even know her name. And yet the thought of carrying his child lit something dark and shameful inside me. I hated myself for even imagining it but I couldn’t stop.

Would the baby have his eyes? His power? Would it be cursed like everyone said I was? I pressed a pillow against my stomach like I could hide the possibility even from myself.

Jealousy ate me alive too. It was pathetic and I knew it was but I couldn’t shake the memory of the harem, the whispers that followed him everywhere. I know he had women. Beautiful amd flawless women who didn’t need to sell their bodies under dim lights or hide behind textbooks just to feel like they mattered.

He had them all yet he had still taken me and the thought twisted me into knots. I hated that I wanted to matter to him in a way none of them did. I hated that I wanted to believe that night wasn’t just one mistake he would forget as soon as he washed the scent off his skin.

The days blended together until I stopped counting them. A week and maybe more. My phone was filled with unanswered calls from classmates reminders from professors even a message from the landlord demanding my rent.

Not that I have classmates that care but they would definitely want me to write their assignments and solve their mysteries. The professors would miss having someone answering their questions and my so called landlord? Huff! He won’t even care if I die today.

Reality waited for me just outside Kurt’s door but I couldn’t bring myself to face it. It wasn’t until the nausea got worse, not just once or twice but every single morning, that I realized I couldn’t keep pretending. Something was happening to me and something I couldn’t ignore anymore.

That was when I knew I had to find out the truth. Even if it destroyed me even if it confirmed the fear that gnawed at my chest every night, I needed to know.

So one evening when the sky outside the window had turned purple and Kurt still wasn’t home, I pulled on a hoodie and walked out of the apartment for the first time in days. The streets felt too bright and too loud with every stranger’s glance made me feel naked but I forced my legs to move until I found myself in front of a small pharmacy.

My hands shook so badly I almost dropped the little box when I picked it up. The woman behind the counter didn’t even look at me just scanned it and told me the price and I was grateful for that. I shoved the box into the pocket of my hoodie before anyone could see and hurried out into the night.

Standing there on the sidewalk with the test pressing against my ribs, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I pressed my back against the brick wall and whispered into the air.

“Please no… or please yes?” I didn’t even know which one I wanted more.