Page 7 of Only for Tonight (Only For #1)

six

Ariella

One month later

“I’m on my way to my Pilates class,” she replies, “and thought I would check in.”

“It’s like the ass crack of dawn.” I take a sip of coffee before I walk down the hallway to my bedroom.

Looking into the cup of coffee, it tastes a bit sour.

I turn back and walk over to the fridge, taking out the carton of milk and checking the date, which expires in two weeks.

I take another sip and it tastes off, but I turn and add one more pump of vanilla syrup before I go back to my bedroom.

“Yes, but Trent is up early with surgery,” she says of her husband, who she has been with for the past ten years.

Even though they have been married for over ten years, I feel like I’ve met him maybe four times.

To be honest, I usually see her when she comes to town with him, but other than that, it’s been just FaceTimes and phone calls.

She’s missed a good chunk of all the other events because of her husband’s busy schedule.

It seems that whenever her family plans something, that’s when he’s able to whisk her away. “I thought I would get up with him.”

“You are such a good wife,” I tell her. Putting the cup of coffee down on my bedside table, I make my way to my closet.

“So what’s life like in Phoenix this week?

” We spend about twenty minutes chatting about what she has planned for this week and then what I have planned.

When she finally gets to her destination, she lets me go, telling me she’ll call me later.

I hang up the phone, and the second I do, the phone rings again. I pull it out of the pocket of the cashmere robe I’m wearing. The display shows me it’s my mother. “Good morning.”

“Hi, sweetheart,” she says softly and I smile at her voice. Without fail, she calls me every single morning at around the same time, except for the weekends when the calls come later in the day. She knows how much I like to sleep in.

“Hi, Mom,” I reply as I stare at the clothes hanging in my closet.

“How are you?” she asks me like she didn’t talk to me less than twenty-four hours ago. “Are you ready to slay the day?”

“I’m getting ready to fuck the day in the mouth,” I tell her and she laughs.

“My coffee tasted like shit this morning”—I exhale as I grab one of the hangers and move it to the side, looking at the second shirt—“which did not start the day off on a good note , and I’ve only been up for about twenty-five minutes. ”

She laughs at my dramatic story. “Was the milk bad?”

“That’s what I thought.” I grab the hanger that has the white shirt on it before snagging a pair of black pants. “Then I checked the date and it said it’s good for another two weeks.”

“You know milk can still go bad, even if it has a best before date,” she informs me and I gasp.

“Why do they put a date on it, then?” I sit on my bed, picking up the cup of coffee and smelling it.

“It smells fine,” I tell her and then take a sip, but it tastes worse than it did the last time, so I spit it back into the cup.

“That’s gross.” I grab the cup of water I have beside my bed every night and take a sip of it to rinse my mouth. “Maybe my fridge is broken.”

“Is it still cold?” she asks me and I’m walking back down toward my kitchen, opening the fridge, and touching my milk.

“It’s still cold.” I pick it up and open the top, smelling it and gagging a little bit. “I think it’s bad.” I feel my stomach become queasy. “Will it make me vomit?” I ask her, pouring the milk down the sink. “I took one and a half sips.”

“You’ll be fine.” She sighs. “I have to go and make sure your sister gets to school. Talk to you later.”

“Bye, Mom,” I say as I hang up the phone.

I think about ordering myself a coffee, but then the thought of the sour milk makes me nauseated, so I opt out of doing that and instead stick to water.

I dress in my black pants and white sweater before going back to the kitchen and filling my cup with fresh water and ice.

Pulling out my desk chair when I get into my home office, I put the glass down beside the keyboard before walking over to the two small windows at the back of the room.

Even though they face another building and no sun really gets into the room, I like having them open and then closing them at night.

I sit down and start my computer, plugging in my phone beside the keyboard as the sound of pinging alerts me to emails coming in.

Only when my stomach grumbles do I stop typing an email and look at the top of the screen, seeing it’s just after six.

I finish the email, before making my to-do list for the next day and then closing it down.

It was something I made clear when I started, if it wasn’t done in the workday, it would get done the next day.

The world is not going to come to an end if I don’t respond to an email.

That is not to say I don’t check it when I’m not at my desk, but I’ve come to terms with a balance of it.

I close the shades in the room before I call my mother as I drag my feet to my bedroom.

I listen to the sound of it ringing at the same time I collapse on my bed. “It’s a good thing I wasn’t in jail,” I tease her when she finally answers after five rings.

She laughs and I can hear the television in the background, along with my father talking with my sister and the sound of plates. “How are you doing?”

“Well, I didn’t die from drinking rotten milk.” I turn on my side and close my eyes before curling my feet up to my chest. “So I’m still alive.”

“I’m happy about that,” she deadpans and I can see her smile in my head. “Did you eat?”

“I was so nauseated all day because of that sour milk, I couldn’t even think about food,” I admit to her. “Now I’m just so tired that all I want to do is sleep, but I know I have to eat something.” She laughs. “I wish you could cook for me. What are you making for dinner?”

“I bought a rotisserie chicken to make quesadillas.”

“Mom, I just got over being sick from milk and you're mentioning oozing cheese,” I groan and put my hand to my stomach. “I think I’m going to make a cup of soup and just crawl into bed.”

“Sweetheart, it’s been almost a week that you’ve been feeling run-down, and you slept for like eleven hours on Saturday night.”

“Wow, Mom, way to tell me I’m living my best life without telling me I’m living my best life. Just out here living the dream .”

“You literally had plans to go to the hockey game and cancelled so you could sleep,” she reminds me. “Maybe you are coming down with the flu or something.”

“Great, I’m sick now.” I put my hand on my forehead. “I feel a bit warm.” I move my palm off of my forehead to the back of my hand to see if it feels hotter.

“You are not warm.” She laughs. “Go and take your temperature. If it’s over one hundred point four, call me back.”

“What if it isn’t but I feel sick?” I groan.

“Then google your symptoms and then call me back,” she suggests.

“It’s going to tell me I’m dying.” I laugh as I hear my sister yelling in the background. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, I guess, if I don’t die tonight.”

“I will keep my fingers crossed you survive the night.” She laughs at me and disconnects but not before she says, “Love you, baby girl.”

Lying on my side, I open up my browser. “Okay, let’s see what it says,” I talk to myself as I type in nauseated and extremely tired, pressing send.

“And the cause is…” I say, reading what comes up right away.

“Fatigue and nausea are symptoms that commonly occur together,” I start to read, “some causes are the result of lifestyle habits, or an underlying mental or physical health issue that requires treatment.” I snort when I see poor diet, and the phone falls out of my hand and hits my nipple and I hiss out in pain.

“Fuck,” I swear, rubbing my achy boob when I move back up to the search bar and put in “and sore boobs.” Pressing send, I turn on my back and hold up the phone and the blood stops in my veins. “Common symptoms of early pregnancy.” I shoot up, sitting on the bed and laugh.

“That’s not right.” My heart starts to pick up so much speed it feels like I’m running on the treadmill at a seven speed.

“That is definitely not right,” I state, opening my period app.

The circle goes around as it opens and I’m expecting it to tell me my period is expected in two days or whatever, but instead there is a gray circle and it says ten days late.

“Oh my God.” I get off the bed and I don’t know if I got off too fast, but my head starts to spin and I feel like I’m going to vomit all over the place.

I dry heave for a couple of seconds before I think about what to do. “I need a pregnancy test.”

I close my eyes and call the one person I know I can call in this sort of situation, and she answers after half a ring. “Hey, gorgeous,” Zoey says and my eyes suddenly sting.

“Remember when I was in high school and you told me I could come to you for anything and you would never ask me anything, but you would support me.” I put it on speakerphone as I pull up my apps and pick the pharmacy app.

“Yeah,” she says softly and I can hear her moving around on her side. “What’s this all about?”

“I’m like ten days late.”

“Oh my God,” she gasps and then starts to chant it while I add pregnancy tests to my cart. I pick two of each and then check out. It tells me they will be here in less than twenty minutes. “Have you taken a test?”

“No,” I tell her, “I just found out I’m late.” My voice is almost shrieking at this point as I put my hand on my forehead, feeling my clammy head while I pace my bedroom. “This morning, my coffee tasted bad,” I start to tell her all my symptoms.

“What? You didn’t realize you had all the symptoms of a pregnancy?”

“Zoey, we had a deal.”

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. So the first thing you have to do is go and take a test.”

“I ordered them.”

“You ordered pregnancy tests?” she gasps again.

“Of course I did, you don’t think I’m going to go to the pharmacy and pick them up. What if I see someone I know?” My phone beeps in my hand and it tells me Lizzie has my order. “It’s going to be here in fifteen minutes.”

“Ariella,” she says softly, “who are you dating?”

“No one,” I admit to her and close my eyes. “I had a thing with someone. It was a one-night thing”—I sit on my bed—“but we used protection.”

“It’s going to be okay,” she states, trying to sound supportive. “Like, do you know him?”

“Oh yeah, I know him.” I sit down on the floor with my back to my bed as I look at the status of my order. I follow her on the map as if my life depends on it, and I guess it does. “I can’t even believe this.”

“Do you have to pee?” she asks me and I look down between my legs. “If you do, you should do it in a cup.”

“In a cup?” I ask, grossed out. “I’m not using one of my cups to pee in.”

“You don’t have a cup that you can throw out?” I get up and walk to the kitchen, going through my cups, and finally find a small plastic one I got from a coffee shop and never threw away.

“I’m scared, Zoey,” I confess to her as a tear starts to fall down my cheek.

“Ariella, it’s going to be okay. It’ll all be okay,” she comforts and the sound of the doorbell ringing has me yelling out as I run toward the door and open it. The plastic bag is on the stoop and I grab it, looking right and left before running back inside.

“Okay, I’ll call you back,” I tell her and she yells.

“I don’t think so!” she shrieks. “Start peeing.” I put the phone on the counter as I pull my pants down and look at the cup between my legs. “What’s happening now?” Zoey asks me.

“I’m trying to pee but it’s like I have stage fright or something,” I say frantically, getting up and turning on the water in the sink.

“That might help,” I add, sitting back down and trying to force myself to pee.

“Come on, come on, come on,” I start to chant as I start to pee in the cup.

I gasp. “We have pee,” I tell her and she cheers on her end.

I fill the cup up halfway before putting it on the counter, trying not to get grossed out that a cup of my pee is on my counter.

Getting up and pulling up my pants, I grab the first box of pregnancy tests. “I don’t know how this works,” I admit to her, turning the box over and quickly looking at the directions. “Okay, start a timer,” I say, as I stick the tip of the test in the cup of pee, “for three minutes.”

“Okay, three minutes and counting down.” I take another box out and read the instructions to that one before I ask.

“How much time left now?”

“Two minutes forty-seven seconds,” she replies and my leg starts to move up and down with nerves as I sit on the toilet seat.

“How you doing?”

“About as good as I can be,” I answer her nervously. “Trying not to think about what happens next if it’s positive.”

“You could just be late,” she soothes softly, “you know stress fucks with your cycle, along with a thousand other things.” I don’t know who she is trying to reassure. Me or herself.

“Have you ever been ten days late?” I ask her and she snorts.

“Yeah, once, and now we have a child.”

“Oh great,” I deadpan and then I hear bells on her end. “Is that three minutes?” I ask her and I look at the test, my hand shaking as I take it out and hold it over the sink.

“What does it say?” she asks in a whisper.

My eyes are on the two pink lines. “It has two pink lines,” I answer, putting one hand to my stomach. “I guess that means I’m having a baby.”