“She’sstanding right here,” Violet said. “And she is twenty-two, and not a baby. And fully capable of managing her own schedule.”
“But anybody that can frown that hard over a cheese platter—especially cheese from her own family—is not in the best frame of mind.”
She rolled her eyes, doing her best impersonation of herself at seventeen, and grabbed a stack of different cheeses. Her family owned the biggest dairy in the area, and they had gourmet cheese, among other things. And truly, it was usually one of her life’s great delights. She took a bite of one of the cheeses, and her throat pushed back on it. She spit it out on her plate without thinking.
“That’s gross,” she said.
“It’s smoked cheddar,” Alex said. He grabbed a piece off the tray. “It’s good.” He shoved it into his mouth as if she required a demonstration.
“Well, thanks, Alex,” she said. “I think it’s nasty.”
Something tickled at the back of her brain, and she chose to push it to the side. But then she caught Clara staring at her, and she couldn’t quite banish the thought.
Of Kate Monaghan picking cheese out of her sandwich.
“What?” she asked Clara, as horror made her stomach hollow out.
“Why does the cheese taste bad, Violet?”
“I just don’t want cheese,” she said, because it wasn’t possible. There was no way. There was absolutely no way. Because they had... But not all that careful sometimes. Especially that night... That night in every room. The shower... It had been intermittent. And she hadn’t been willing to admit it to herself. That they’d made some very serious condom mistakes sometimes.
And she also had been ignoring her period. Or lack of it. But she felt terrible the entire time, and so she put it down to hormones being impacted by emotions. But...
“I’m not,” she said.
“You’re sure that you’re not?”
“I’m not bleeding right this second if that’s what you mean.”
“Have you at all? Since he left?”
“I... I’ve been under a lot of stress.”
“Yeah, do you know what kind of stress makes you not bleed after you engage in a torrid physical affair?”
“Clara...”
“That would be a baby.”
“Please don’t,” Violet whispered. “I can’t handle this right now.”
Not in the living room with the whole rest of her family. Just not.
“You have to take a test,” Clara whispered, fierce now.
“Not now,” she said.
And all the denial that she’d been holding back over the past few days started to knock at the door.
“Then when?” Clara asked.
“Give me a few days. Maybe I’ll start my period.”
“I think we both know you’re not going to.”
“Maybe I will.”
“Oh, Violet,” Clara said. “I’ll do whatever you need me to do. I’ll support you...”