Midnight Mass (Camren)

CHAPTER 12

"What?!"

I exploded out of my seat, practically tackling her. She let out peals of laughter as I picked her up and swung her around, burying my face in her neck.

Oh my God, I thought dizzily. I'm going to be a mother.

A mother.

To a baby.

My baby.

I spun her and spun her until we fell onto the couch with her on top of me, me making sure that her fall was gentle and safe. She raised up on her arms and looked down at me.

"I love you," I said and I meant it more than I ever had before.

"I love you," she said back with a huge grin. But then that grin faltered. "I know I've been...difficult these last two weeks. And I'm sorry. I am also sorry I didn't tell you sooner."

"You've known?" I didn't want to sound accusatory or make her feel badly, but this seemed like the kind of thing I should have known about seconds after she did.

She sighed and pushed herself back so that she was sitting in between my legs. "I found out the Monday before Thanksgiving. My period was a week late, and I remembered that I'd had the stomach flu the month before, and I thought maybe that had affected my birth control. So I took a drugstore test while I was at work and it was positive."

The Monday before Thanksgiving. The text message she'd sent me flashed through my mind.

Come home early tonight. I am excited to tell you about my day!

I thought she'd had a great day at work or something like that. Guilt crushed into me as I realized she'd been about to tell me that night. And then I'd been late.

"I wanted to tell you in person," she continued. "And I wanted it to be the right moment, you know? Just the two of us, here in our home. And then it kept not happening, and then I began to suspect that it would never happen. And then I began to think, 'Oh my God. If she isn't even around for me to tell her, how the hell is she going to be around to raise a child?'"

My eyes burned hot and I squeezed them shut. "Camila..."

"And then the gala happened and you were late, and I panicked. It wasn't even about the gala itself, it wasn't about the reason you were late, it was just about how I didn't know if I could trust you to help me with this. To be there for me."

The entire conversation replayed in my mind. "But Anton knew," I said quietly.

"Anton knew. He went down to the deli and bought me Sprites and ran interference for me while I napped in the office. He's been great."

I couldn't be angry about that. I couldn't be angry about Anton when the only one I had to blame was myself. But it still stung. It still scratched and scrabbled at the thin skin of my heart.

"But after Millie's funeral and your eulogy about knowing people and how sweet you've been to me this weekend, I realized something. That it wasn't you that made me scared. It was me."

I opened my eyes.

She rubbed self-consciously at her arms, hugging herself. "I'm scared, Lauren. I'm scared of being a mother. I'm scared of the baby taking time away from my foundation or my foundation taking time away from the baby. I'm scared of the baby changing us and the way we love each other." Her tears started falling, hard and fast now. "I mean, look at us! This baby has already changed us and hurt us! What if I've ruined everything by becoming pregnant?"