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I should have prepared better. Usually, I would have, but everything with Robert and Jeremy had really shaken me up. The conversation with Jeremy, Robert not calling me for weeks, and then the weird lunch where Jeremy had almost caught me being bent over by Robert...
The memory of that lunch made me cringe. First, Jeremy asked me to dine with both of them, and then Robert had the nerve to be mad that I’d made conversation with him. As though he hadn’t seen him ask me right in front of him.
His territorial anger had boiled over while he’d touched me under the table, right under Jeremy’s nose, almost bringing me to an orgasm right then and there. And if that wasn’t enough,Jeremy had almost walked in on us in the bathroom. Just the memory made me blush.
But the real kicker was that Robert had done all that after dismissing me after we had sex for the first time at his place. Dismissed me and then ghosted me, disappeared completely in the wind, never to be heard from again. After saving me from that man at the bar who wanted to abduct me— or worse.
It was enough to drive anyone crazy, and I was no exception. It had been difficult to get my groove back after all that. Two weeks had passed, and I still felt like I was floating through life, the weight of everything a heavy blanket across me.
I walked the aisles with my grocery list clutched in my hand like a lifeline. A turkey, onions, noodles, milk, flour, cheese, asparagus, lemon, butter, spices…all the spices. Usually, my cooking was pretty standard. I relied on microwavable food a lot. I didn’t have any spices besides salt, pepper, and garlic powder. I wasn’t exactly a chef.
I stood in front of the cheeses, my phone in my hand, googling “most meltable fancy cheese for mac and cheese.” The search results weren’t helpful—it was between Gruyère and Fontina—when the smell I’d been trying to ignore the entire trip became overpowering.
It hit me like a punch to the gut: raw sewage, absurdly strong and unrelenting. I gagged slightly, covering my nose with my sleeve as I glanced around at the crowd of people. They were busy with their lists, scanning the shelves in chaoticconcentration. No one else seemed to notice. No one was holding their nose or gagging.
How was I the only one? It was so overwhelming I couldn’t believe the entire store wasn’t sick.
I turned to a woman nearby, who was putting brie in her cart, and asked gently, “Excuse me, sorry to bother you, but do you smell that?”
“Smell what?” she asked, pausing and sniffing the air with exaggerated effort.
Her cartoonish sniff made me feel suddenly embarrassed. “The garbage smell?” I pressed, my voice quieter. “It smells so much like garbage. It’s awful.”
She tilted her head, studying me with mild confusion. “Maybe you mean the sewage outside? It comes up sometimes when it rains.”
“But it rains so much in Seattle. I’ve never smelled it before,” I muttered, mostly to myself.
She laughed lightly and waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, I was the same way when I was pregnant. I had, like, a super smeller. It was kind of a blessing—I could tell if milk was going to expire the next day, I swear. But mostly, it was a burden, because bad smells? Awful. I was so nauseated all the time. Peppermint oil under the nose was the only thing that helped.”
“I’m not pregna—” I started, but the words died on my lips as she walked away, apparently already done with the conversation.
I stood there, a block of cheddar cheese in my hand, doing mental math as my heart plummeted into my stomach.
Three weeks ago. I had sex with Robert three weeks ago. I hadn’t been on my period.
When was I supposed to get my period?
Fumbling for my phone, I opened my period tracker app with shaky fingers. My breath caught as I stared at the screen.
I was supposed to start it...three days ago.
The realization hit me like a freight train, and my face went cold. My phone slipped from my sweaty hand into the cart, clanging loudly against the metal. I gasped, my hands flying to cover my face as my mind spun. But I had an IUD. My IUD had never failed me. This had to be stress or something. It didn’t make any sense for me to be pregnant.
I tried to comfort myself with the thought even as I abandoned my cart and walked through the grocery store straight toward the pharmacy. My feet moved mechanically, disconnected from my body, like I was in a dream. The air felt thick, pulsing, and everything around me tunneled, collapsing in on itself.
When I reached the pharmacy aisle, I grabbed the first pregnancy test I saw. Then I froze, looking around as if I was introuble, before frantically filling my arms with every test I could fit.
At the checkout, the woman raised an eyebrow at my armful of tests. “You know, these are pretty accurate these days,” she said with a smirk. “You don’t need…eight.”
Her words barely registered. I stared at her blankly, disbelief coursing through me. Could she see me? I felt invisible as I’d wandered through the store moments ago like I was stuck in some surreal dream.
But now, standing there with this cashier staring at me, the truth began to sink in. I was real. This was real.
“I’ll take all eight,” I mumbled, my voice barely audible.
The cashier hesitated for a moment, then shrugged. “Okay, all eight it is,” she said, sliding the tests across the scanner.
I paid for the tests and then went back for the rest of my groceries like nothing was wrong. Thanksgiving was still going to happen. I wanted to pretend everything was normal for as long as I could.