“Maybe you should talk to her about it.”
“And say what?” I asked. “I was hard on Ryan for not wanting anything to do with her, and now I’m in exactly the same place. Maybe I was wrong expecting him to make things right.”
The kettle boiled and I took it off the burner, pouring hot water onto the fresh slices of ginger in my cup. When the smell reached my nostrils, my stomach turned again.
“Oh, God,” I wailed, and put the kettle down fast. I turned and threw up in the kitchen sink. I retched until my stomach was empty. I leaned on the edge of the sink with my elbows and tried to keep my hair out of the vomit.
After I felt composed enough that I could risk moving away from the sink, I opened the faucet and let the water run the sink clean before I took a sip.
When I turned to Sadie, she looked worried.
“So, the ginger might not work,” she suggested.
“Yeah, I just need to let it get out of my system naturally.” I pressed my hand against my forehead. I didn’t feel feverish or anything like how I’d felt when I’d had a bug before.
“Are you sure it’s a bug?” Sadie asked.
“What else could it be? I haven’t even eaten today.”
Sadie hesitated. “What if you’re pregnant?”
“What!?” I cried out. “No way. There’s no way.”
“Do you guys have sex?”
“We use a condom.”
“Every time? And condoms aren’t bulletproof, Em,” Sadie said. “They put percentages on the box for a reason.”
I shook my head. “It’s not possible. I can’t be pregnant. We’re so careful all the time. Hell, he’s the most responsible person I know.”
Sadie watched me without answering. My stomach turned again and I felt pale.
“I can’t be pregnant,” I said softly. “I can’t be ...”
“You should test,” Sadie said.
“I can’t!”
“Because what if it’s positive?” Sadie asked. “You need to know, Emily. You can’t just let it go.”
I shook my head. I wasn’t going to test because she was wrong. It was just a stomach bug. But at the back of my mind, that small nagging voice kept telling me that it wasn’t impossible. We had had sex. Lots of sex. And condoms weren’t foolproof.
What if Iwerepregnant?
“I’ll run out and get the tests for you, if you want,” Sadie offered when I looked up at her. She could see the defeat on my face.
“Please,” I whispered.
Sadie grabbed her bag. “I’ll be right back.”
She disappeared through the front door. My stomach turned but nothing happened, so I walked to the living room and collapsed on the couch. My mind spun and my head ached dully. This couldn’t be. But getting a test was a good idea—it would prove what I already knew. I wasn’t pregnant. It was good to know for sure, so I could stop stressing about something that was ridiculous.
It felt like Sadie was gone forever. When she finally came back, she didn’t just have a brown paper bag from the drugstore. She had a box of donuts with her too.
“What are those for?” I asked.
“For whatever happens next,” she said.