Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 92254 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 461(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92254 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 461(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
But what about next time? What if I’m not interested anymore? I start to feel cold all over, and I retreat into my room, my face buried in my pillow. Wet hair soaks down my back and gets my sheets damp. Fuck, I’m so far over my head right now that I’m pretty sure I’m drowning.
Arsen murdered a guy. I watched him do it. Now I’m sleeping with him again, and I don’t know where any of my lines are. If anyone asked me a few weeks back, I would’ve said there’s no way I’d ever fuck and suck a murderer’s dick.
Guess I don’t know myself all that well.
My phone starts buzzing. I can barely work up the energy to look at it, but the stupid thing is insistent. I’m cursing as I grab it, ready to throw it across the room, but the name on the screen makes me pause.
It’s Arsen.
What the hell does he want? Already horny and ready for another round?
“What do you want?” I snap at him.
“Come to your door.”
I sit up straight. “Sorry, what?”
“Your apartment door. I have something for you.”
“You have—” But he already hung up. I glare at the phone, heart racing. What’s going on right now? I thought he ditched me after getting what he wanted, but maybe I was too fast to judge. I sneak out of my room, feeling like a stupid teenager again. I don’t want my mother to catch me talking to Arsen. I reach the door and gently ease it open, and there he is, lurking on my threshold.
He shoves a paper bag from the pharmacy on the corner into my hands.
“Take those,” he says. His expression is hard to read. It’s like he’s pissed but also concerned.
“Take what? Look, I’m so sorry I got sick earlier, I just—”
“Take them,” he repeats. “I’ll wait here.”
“In the hallway?”
“I can come in if you’d rather.”
“I don’t even know—” I open the bag and words fail me.
They’re pregnancy tests.
Two of them. Different brands.
“Take them,” he says and leans up against the wall. “I’ll wait.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I ask, barely able to keep from shrieking. “You think I’m pregnant?”
He looks at me like I’ve gone absolutely insane. “You don’t?”
I open my mouth to tell him that obviously I don’t think I’m pregnant because that’s impossible—
But it makes sense.
We weren’t careful that first time. I thought I had my days down right, but if I screwed up and he came inside of me while I was ovulating, that would explain everything. My nausea, my weird aches and pains, all the physical problems I’ve been ignoring the last couple of weeks.
I feel like a robot as I shuffle back into the apartment and close the door behind me.
“Who was that?” Mom calls from the living room. “Were you talking to someone?”
“Just a neighbor,” I say woodenly. “No worries. It’s fine.”
She says something else but I don’t hear it. I close the bathroom door, lock it, turn on the shower, and take out the tests.
My heart slams in my skull. Pregnant. Pregnant. Pregnant. I follow the directions and leave the stick on the counter while I get started on the second brand. Pregnant. Pregnant. Pregnant.
This can’t be happening. Here I was, moping in my room thinking he abandoned me, only for the truth to be so much worse.
He thinks I’m pregnant.
And he’s right.
The first test stares at me with its mocking little symbols. I read the instructions a dozen times and they never change.
Pregnant. I’m pregnant.
I don’t need the second test to confirm it, but it does anyway.
I’m numb as I shove the tests and the boxes back into the paper bag and shuffle out into the hall. Mom’s show is turned up loud and she laughs at something on the TV. I feel like I might be sick again, but this time, it’s not morning sickness.
Because that’s what it’s been, right? Morning sickness.
I’m so freaking stupid. I should’ve seen this sooner. It’s just that I don’t have much experience with sex and I’ve been so distracted by my mother’s cancer that it never even occurred to me.
He’s still in the hall where I left him. Arsen stares at me with those dark, stormy eyes of his and runs a hand back through his thick, dark hair. It’s something he does when he’s agitated, even though he doesn’t show it on his face. When did I start noticing his mannerisms? I don’t know, but the silence stretches between us.
“Positive,” I whisper.
He looms over me. His face twists into something—agony? Anger? Then he grabs my arm and drags me to his apartment.
“What are you doing?” I gasp at him as he takes me back to his place, slams the door behind him, and hammers the bolt closed.
He keeps his back to me, his hands against the frame. His back rises and falls as he sucks in air. I’m reminded that he’s a killer, that I watched him murder a man not that long ago, and he’ll happily do that to me. I won’t even put up a fight.