Page 37 of Exile
“Shit, Rennie. When are you due to start?” Her voice takes on a hushed, serious tone when she asks the question that might upend my entire world.
“Three days ago…”
I’m sitting in the bathroom, staring blankly at the line of pregnancy tests on the counter as the timer on my phone counts down three minutes. After my shift ended, I made a stop at the pharmacy and picked up three different pregnancy tests to bring home. Marie offered to come with me for moral support, but the idea of her watching me have a mental breakdown over being pregnant while knocked up herself was more than I could bear.
Being faced with the very real possibility of carrying a child at this stage of my life has my stomach in knots, and it feels like I can’t breathe. As the timer on my phone goes off, the sound of the front door opening and closing carries up the stairs to where I am. Shit, Dom is home. Hurriedly I attempt to decipher the lines and symbols on the little sticks in front of me, desperate for answers.
“Hey, Kitten, you home? What’s for dinner?” Dominick’s voice calls out as he makes his way up to our bedroom.
I ignore Dominick’s call as my eyes scan over the tests. One horizontal line. One vertical line. One digital readout that says not pregnant. Not pregnant. Not pregnant. My eyes blur with tears as I crumple to the floor in relief.
“Hey, baby, what’s going on?” Dominick finds me in a heap, sobbing. I must look like a disaster, surrounded by empty pregnancy test boxes, still in my coffee-stained Brewed Awakening hoodie, makeup already half-ruined by tears.
“Are you hurt? What happened? What—” Dominick’s line of questioning cuts off as he takes in the mess surrounding me. I wipe the tears from my face in a bid to compose myself enough to tell him that I’m okay. Before I can say anything, I see his face light up as he realizes I’ve taken a pregnancy test. Multiple pregnancy tests.
“Serena…are…are we—” There is a manic glee in his words, so I cut him off before the excitement takes hold.
“No, Dom. No. I’m not. I, uh, thought I might be. I’m late, but the tests are all negative.”
“Negative?” Dom’s voice almost sounds…disappointed.
“Yeah, it’s okay. It must be the stress of the move making me late.” Something dark passes over Dominick’s face that forces the relieved smile on my face to falter.
“You’re right. It’s okay, Kitten. We can keep trying.” Dominick pulls me into a hug while patting my back reassuringly. It takes a moment for my brain to catch up to his words.
“Keep trying?” I push away from Dom, unsure if I heard him right.
“Yeah, we can try again. You’re right, you have been under a lot of stress. It’s not your fault; we can keep trying.” Dom pulls me to my feet and leads me to the bedroom while I try to process his words. When he leans in to place a kiss on my neck I pull away from him, my spine stiff with fear.
“We weren’t trying Dom. I am not in a stage of my life right now where I need to be pregnant. I’m not ready.” I back away from Dominick, needing space. The dark shadow that had passed over his face moments ago was back. “You can’t be disappointed. We’re nowhere close to being ready to have kids. I have another year of college to finish. We just started dating months ago… I’m only twenty-one.”
“I can’t be disappointed? You’re telling me what I’m allowed to be feeling? I’m not allowed to be disappointed the woman of my dreams isn’t pregnant with my child? Do you know how much hope you gave me when I walked into that bathroom and I saw those pregnancy tests? The idea of your body growing my child is the fucking hottest thing I can think of. We live together. We are getting married. Is having a child really so unthinkable?” My back hits the wall, and I realize Dominick has advanced on me during his tirade and has me caged in by his hard body. My pulse kicks up as fear floods my system at the harshness in his voice.
“Are you saying you don’t want to have my children?” Dominick’s eyes are the color of a storm over the sea, and my mouth goes dry at the coldness of his stare. Swallowing, I do my best to diffuse the situation.
“I-I just mean I’m not ready yet. I’m still enjoying our relationship being just us and getting to know you. We’ve had a lot of big changes recently and maybe we should settle in to our new life first before bringing a new one in. Of course I want to have babies. Just not right now.” I cup his cheek and lean up, placing a soft pleading kiss on his lips. After a long tense moment Dom pushes away from the wall and walks across the room.
When he turns back to me, he looks stricken with remorse. “I’m sorry, Kitten. I just got so excited when I saw those tests. The idea of your carrying my child, it’s…it’s everything.” My heart crumples at his confession, and I stride across the room, wrapping my arms around him in a hug. Selfishly, I was so consumed in my relief of not being pregnant I didn’t think about how Dominick would handle the news. I didn’t realize he was so eager to be a father. Silently I chide myself for being so self-absorbed.
“You’re right, baby. We’ve got time. We’ve got all the time in the world.” Dom’s words sound reassuring, but they don’t feel reassuring at all.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
SERENA
Because Mother Nature has a sick sense of humor, I wake up the next morning with unbearable cramps and my boy shorts covered in blood. Grumbling, I shut off my alarm, roll out of bed, and carefully make my way to the bathroom to clean myself up. Hellacious periods and I aren’t strangers, so I pop a couple of painkillers and hop in the shower to get ready for work.
In a perfect world, I’d call out and stay home curled up in bed with a heating pad, chocolate and my favorite 2000s rom-coms on the TV, but the guilt from already missing so much work the last few weeks spurs me on. Not to mention, based on the size of Marie’s baby bump, I’m convinced she is just days away from recreating the chestburster scene from Alien, so I need to be at work in case she goes into labor.
By the time I’m done getting ready for work, I’ve decided that this-regular-periods-with unbearable-cramps-and-free-bleeding-from-my-vagina-plus-the-pregnancy-scares, is for the birds, so I make plans to call my local health clinic to have an IUD inserted.
Dominick is still sleeping soundly when I leave the bathroom, so after a quick check of the sheets to make sure my mess was contained to my underwear, I drop a kiss on his head and leave for work.
“Girl, don’t take this the wrong way, but you still look like run over dogshit.” Rolling my eyes, I ignore Marie’s comment and throw my hair up in a bun before tying on my apron.
“For the record, I feel like run over dogshit. I woke up this morning with my period, and I’m cramping like a mofo.” My tone is snippier than I intend for it to be, but I can’t be blamed for my level of bitchiness this early in the morning on the first day of shark week.
“Ah, so no tiny little Dominicks in our immediate future? Damn, I was hoping our babies could be cousins.” Marie mock pouts at me while I scowl at her.