4

Elena's Point of View

It had been a week.

Seven days since the lobby. Seven days since I ran out of Cross Industries with tears on my face and the whole world holding up their phones.

I hadn't left Tessa's apartment since.

I slept on her couch with a blanket pulled over my head. I ate when she put food in front of me. I cried when I thought she wasn't looking, and she always was.

The video was everywhere. Tessa tried to hide it from me, but I saw it anyway. Twelve thousand views on one page. Forty thousand on another. People in the comments calling me a thief, a gold digger, a whore. Somebody had even found my old school photo.

I turned off my phone after that. I didn't want to see my name again.

I still remembered the day it happened.

I had driven straight to Tessa's place with blurry eyes, running two red lights. When she opened the door in her pajamas, I just fell into her arms and started sobbing so hard I couldn't talk.

"Elena? What happened? Who died?"

"Me," I cried. "I did."

She pulled me inside and sat me on the couch. It took me almost an hour to tell her everything. I told her about the meeting and how he yelled at me. I told her about the club. About his suite. About the mirror.

When I got to the part about the lobby, I had to stop and breathe, because I could feel it all over again. The papers. The word. The phones.

Tessa sat there with her mouth open, her hand over her chest.

"He said that? In front of everyone?"

"Everyone."

"That son of a bitch." She grabbed my hand. "I'm going to kill him. I'm going to find out where he lives and set his car on fire."

I laughed a little, but it came out as a sob. "I slept with him, Tessa."

"I know, babe."

"I let him touch me. I was moaning his name like some idiot. And the whole time he thought I was..." My voice broke. "He really believes I stole from him."

"Then he's an even bigger idiot than I thought."

"But why did I do it? Why didn't I just walk away?"

Tessa squeezed my hand tighter. "Because you were drunk, and angry, and he's hot. That doesn't make you stupid. It makes you human. He's the one who should feel ashamed."

I wanted to believe her.

But every night, when the apartment went quiet and the city lights came through the curtains, I lay there and hated myself.

I hated how good it felt. I hated that I could still remember the exact sound he made when he finished. I hated that part of me, some small, sick, stupid part, still wished he had been in that bed in the morning.

"I hate him," I whispered into the darkness. "I hate him so much."

But I hated myself more.

By the second week, something felt wrong.

At first, I thought it was stress. I wasn't eating well. I wasn't sleeping. Of course my body was falling apart.

But the nausea wouldn't stop.

It hit me every morning, like clockwork. I would wake up with my stomach turning, run to the bathroom, and throw up until there was nothing left. The smell of Tessa's coffee made me gag. The sight of eggs made me dizzy. Even the lotion she used smelled too strong.

"You're still sick?" she asked on Tuesday, leaning on the bathroom door while I hugged the toilet.

"It's just stress."

"You've been throwing up for five days."

"I said it's stress, Tessa."

She was quiet. I could feel her looking at me.

"Elena..."

"Don't."

"I'm just asking—"

"Don't ask me." I flushed the toilet and stood up too fast. My legs shook, and I had to grab the sink. "I'm fine. I just need to rest."

But I wasn't fine. I was tired all the time. My arms felt heavy. My breasts were sore, so sore that even my bra hurt. I told myself it was nothing. A stomach bug. Bad food. The stress of losing my job and my name in one single morning.

I didn't want to think about the other thing.

I refused to.

The day my period was supposed to come, I woke up and checked the calendar on my phone twice.

Then three times.

I told myself it was just late. Stress could do that. Everyone said so. Women got late periods all the time.

So I waited.

One day passed. Then two. Then four.

Nothing.

On the fifth day, I sat on the edge of Tessa's bathtub with my phone in my hand, counting the days over and over in my head. Counting backward from the night at the club. My heart started to pound.

No, I thought. No, no, no. That's not possible.

I had been drunk. We had been fast, wild. I couldn't even remember if he had used anything. I remembered his hands. His mouth. His voice against my ear. But I didn't remember a condom.

I put my hand over my mouth.

"Oh God."

I didn't tell Tessa. I couldn't say it out loud. If I said it, it would be real.

But I couldn't ignore it anymore.

The pharmacy was two streets from Tessa's building.

I went in the afternoon, wearing a baseball cap and big sunglasses, even though it wasn't sunny. I kept my head down and walked straight to the back shelves like a criminal. My hands were sweating.

There were so many boxes. Pink ones. Blue ones. Some said early detection. Some said 99% accurate. I grabbed two of them with a shaking hand, and then, because I was too scared to take only two, I grabbed a third.

At the counter, the cashier was an older woman with kind eyes. She scanned the boxes one by one. She didn't say anything, but she looked at me for a moment longer than she needed to.

"Do you need a bag, sweetheart?" she asked softly.

My eyes burned. "Yes. Please."

I walked back to Tessa's apartment so fast I almost ran. She was at work, thank God. The place was empty and quiet. I locked myself in the bathroom, sat on the cold floor, and tore open the first box with my teeth.

I read the instructions three times, even though I already knew them.

Then I did it.

The next three minutes were the longest of my life.

I sat on the edge of the tub and stared at the little white stick on the sink. The clock on my phone moved so slowly. My knees bounced. My fingers dug into my thighs. I prayed to every god I could remember.

Please be negative. Please. I'll never do anything stupid again. I'll never drink again. Just please be negative.

The timer on my phone beeped.

I stood up. My legs felt like water. I took one step, then another, and picked up the test with both hands.

Two lines.

Dark. Clear. Impossible to miss.

I stared at it. I blinked. I wiped my eyes and looked again, and the second line was still there, bright and cruel, like it was laughing at me.

My heart sank so fast I felt it drop in my chest.

The stick slipped from my fingers and clattered against the sink.

I slid down the wall onto the cold bathroom floor, my hand shaking over my mouth.

I was pregnant.

I was pregnant with the baby of the man who had called me a whore in front of the whole world.