Page 135 of Faking It With My Pucking Protector

She sets her takeout container aside. “When was your last period?”

The question lands like a slap. I open my mouth to answer and then pause. My brain scrambles, flipping through weeks like calendar pages.

“Oh my god.”

Jenna’s brows lift.

“I—I thought it was just late,” I say slowly. “I figured it was the stress and the schedule and everything with Brad. And I have an IUD. It’s not supposed to—” I stop, because the words sound flimsy, even to me.

Jenna gives a gentle shrug. “No birth control is perfect.”

My stomach drops.

I press the heels of my hands to my eyes like that’ll reset my brain. Like this moment will disappear if I squeeze hard enough.

“This can’t be happening,” I murmur.

Jenna doesn’t say anything right away. She just waits. Calm. Steady. The opposite of whatever’s spiraling through me right now.

I drop my hands to my lap. “My IUD’s been working fine,” I say again, like repeating it will undo something. “I never even think about it.”

“But you missed a period,” she says gently. “You’ve been nauseous. Exhausted. And don’t hate me, but you’ve been kind of… glowy. The way people get when they’re—”

“Don’t,” I cut in, voice a little too sharp.

She stops. “Okay.”

Silence stretches.

I twist the edge of the blanket between my fingers, heart pounding harder now. I feel hot all of a sudden, like my skin can’t decide if it’s too cold or too flushed.

“I’m not ready for this,” I whisper. “I don’t even know what this is yet.”

“You don’t have to figure it all out right now,” Jenna says softly. “You just have to take a test.”

My stomach lurches. “What if it’s positive?”

“Then we deal with it. Together.”

I nod, barely.

Because the truth is, I already know what my body’s been trying to tell me. I just didn’t want to listen. Didn’t want to name it. Because once you name it, you can’t un-know it.

I don’t move for a long moment.

The logical part of me (the part that planned every inch of the gala and color-coded our silent auction tracking sheet) wants to run through every possibility. Wants to look up IUD failure rates, read every statistic, and turn it all into something measurable.

But the rest of me? The human part? The part that’s scared and tired and still hasn’t fully come down from the last six weeks?

That part just whispers:you already know.

She rises from the couch, grabs her purse, checks her keys. “There’s a pharmacy two minutes from here. I’ll be right back.”

No hesitation, no questions, just action. That’s Jenna.

“I could go—”

“Nope,” she says gently, already heading for the door. “You sit there, drink some water, and try not to overthink yourself into a coma.”