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Marie

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T wo solid pink lines. I keep blinking at it as if something will change. My hand is shaking, causing the white stick in my hand to seem a little fuzzy. Maybe I’m not looking at it correctly. It’s not possible, right?

One… Two… Why are they so freaking dark and solid? Smack my ass and just call me Juno, my eggo is prego.

Shit. Do I shake it like she did? I literally just stood up, flushed the toilet.

I washed my hands… doesn’t it take five minutes for the results to show up?

I’m a fucking physician’s assistant, I know how these work…

Given we don’t use them in my field that I work in.

But still, I’m a woman. I’ve used these plenty of times over the years.

Never have I ever had a positive result before though.

I drop to my knees and search through the small trash bin for the box. I pull out the instructions and read them over and over. Two lines means pregnant. Yep. Great.

I place my hand over my mouth and try not to scream.

The girls are still getting ready for school.

If I start to scream my head off like I want to, they will definitely be running in here like their asses are on fire to figure out what the hell is going on.

‘ Sorry girls, your brother knocked me up. Just freaking out over here.’

I’m the calm one. The one that’s always collected. Steady. Fun at parties. I’m the responsible one, keeping our feet on the ground and our heads from touching the clouds. I just, I don’t understand why and how… Why is this happening to me?

Not today, Satan… not today.

Shit. I stand up and run my fingers through my frizzy, thick hair and close my eyes.

Leaning down on the counter tops, pressing the cool countertop into my pelvis, I smack my forehead on the mirror and shake my head against it slowly, feeling the cold glass against my skin.

Please let this be a dream or a nightmare. Please.

I’m fucked. James is fucked. The girls are fucked. We’re all, you guessed it, fucked.

I sigh as I jostle all of the mess back into the white box, shoving it all under the sink so that James can’t see any of it. Not that he ever comes into my bathroom, but still. Better safe than sorry.

And I’ll definitely be sorry. So will he.

He’s been my best friend since we were toddlers.

We’ve been attached at the hip since before we could even walk.

I was there when the twins were born. I was there when he got the call that his parents were in an accident and didn’t survive…

I was there when he got the call that he got the scholarship and when the college begged for him to play hockey, on the other side of the continent.

From California to Minnesota. We’ve been each other’s rocks.

I stepped up, changed my own plans, and moved in with him to take care of Alyssa and Caroline so that he could focus on hockey and his degree.

What else was I supposed to do? Watch his dreams crumble?

Nothing was waiting for me back home. My parents hate me, each other, and themselves.

My only friend was James. It was a no-brainer.

Of course, the man he is, in turn, took care of me.

Pushed me to follow my own dreams. Meanwhile, my parents are more concerned about the trust fund that Grandpa Bernard left for me, since they think they’re entitled to the money he busted his ass for.

I don’t even get a penny until I turn thirty, four years from now.

My parents blew through all of their shares within a couple of years. We’re talking millions. They went from living the high life, clubs, yachts, penthouses and mansions… to snorting coke on the rusted and peeling counter tops in a trailer park.

Begging for money and spending what they con from others on beer and cocaine.

That same trailer park is where I met James.

All these years later, the twins are sixteen, James is in the NHL, the captain of the Minnesota Maverick and one of the of the highest scoring right wingers this season to date.

Oh my god, what have we done?

He’s been adamant for as long as I could remember that he never wanted kids.

He’s raised the twins since they were essentially born.

We were ten years old and had to learn how to make bottles, how to change diapers, what solids to feed them when they were around six months old.

We have been raising them full-time since their parents wrecked their junker of a car into a power line and then flipped into a ditch.

He doesn’t want to end up like our parents.

Our parents weren’t the best role models. Period.

We both grew up in poverty. I worked two jobs from when I was thirteen until James forced me to quit so that I could focus on my studies.

We moved to Minnesota merely weeks after he got the scholarship offer, and I went to the local community college until I transferred two years later for my bachelors in microbiology at the university he played at.

He didn’t even get to graduate before he was drafted.

Thank goodness we were able to stay local and not have to move anywhere else while I was finishing up my degree.

I would have made it work though, we always do.

Except for this, anything but this. We have sacrificed everything for him, my career, and the girls.

I just, I don’t have words right now. Even my college classes were curated to being able to work around everyone else’s schedule.

Most of my classes were online so that I could focus on everyone else.

Between James’s schedule, dates with other women, out with friends, and being with the team… I stepped up. Like always.

Alyssa and Caroline are old enough to be home alone for a few hours now, I need to get the hell out of here… They can handle being home after school until James gets home.

It’s been eight years since I moved in with James and the girls. Eight years of pining after him, begging him to see me as more than a best friend… a sister. A nanny. Well, begging him in my own mind. Never verbally. He didn’t even bat an eye when his teammates have asked me out over the years.

And that’s what hurts the most. I love him more than anything, I always have. And he will never see me more than as a sister.

I know, I know. How did I get into this situation, then? Well, shit happens, right? Drunken nights happen. And he hasn’t even acted like anything happened.

I’ve even dated a few of his friends. Three to be exact.

Logan, Landon, and Nolan. We’re all just best friends now, but that’s when I knew that he never saw me as an attractive woman, or someone he would date.

He would just clap his friends on the back and tell them to treat me right or he would kick their asses.

Not that we were ever in serious relationships. Mostly having fun… okay, mostly sex.

Maybe he just sees me as more of a live-in nanny. A built in best friend since we were basically born. Someone that he’s stuck with, maybe?

Of course, I make a lot more than a nanny as a physician assistant, or PA.

.. James even keeps a separate bank account with my name on it for anything the girls or I need, so it’s not like I’m hurting for money.

Only four more years until I get my trust fund anyway.

If there’s even any money left in the trust. I have no idea what my parents touched before and after my last grandparent passed away.

Or if they were even allowed to. I really need to find the number for that lawyer. Maybe there are other ways for me to get it sooner. Prove I am not like my parents. Oh… and you know, I’m fucking pregnant and have a while baby to raise now.

Neither of us have any student loans, James paid those all off after he signed on the dotted line with the NHL, without me asking. Then there are the sponsorships, endorsements, his NHL paycheck, he will be fine, he can definitely afford some help with the girls if I can’t help.

He’s never going to hurt for money. But I sure as hell might.

What if the girls want to live with me? I sigh as I turn around and sit down on my bed. The clothes I had piling up all over the place fall off around me and I don’t even care. Let them rain down. I want to scream, I want to cry. I don’t even know what I actually want right now.

I’m scared, mad, terrified.

What if he cuts me off completely and runs away? Loses his life-long dreams?

He can’t know about the baby. Ever. Oh my god, what do I do?

I sigh out loud and slowly lay my shaking hand over my lower stomach. I flinch when someone bangs on my door.

“Marie! Lyss wants to drive, is that okay?”

I blow out a slow breath and open up the bedroom door with a fake smile. “Of course. Take my car, I’ll take an Uber to the office. Text me when you get to school, please.”

Caroline nods and throws her arms around my shoulders.

I press my lips together as hard as I can to keep them from trembling.

Oh this sweet girl, I love her so much. “We will! Love you!” She spins around and races to the stairs and calls out excitedly to her sister that they’re good to go. I chuckle and shake my head.

They both look so much like their brother that it’s scary, especially as they grow taller and older.

Several inches taller than me already. They both have light blonde hair, bright blue eyes.

They’re all so tall, the three of them, and their golden skin makes them look like gods instead of mere mortals.

Me? I’m plain Jane, all the way. Brown hair, brown eyes, and pale skin. Freckles from my head to my toes. I’m short, curvy, and just… plain.

Nothing like the little puck bunnies that chase the boys around in and out of the rink. The girls that James laps up like ice cold water on a blazing hot day in Phoenix, Arizona.

As soon as I hear the garage door open and my car starting up, I drop to my knees and cry.

We fucked everything up, didn’t we?

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