Boundless

제 16 장

I bit down on my lip until I tasted blood—
not from pain, but from the pressure building inside me.
I was holding in a storm.

My eyes were squeezed shut, the air trembling around me.
My heart was pounding so loudly, it echoed in my ears like war drums.
It felt like stones were being flung against my ribs,
ricocheting inside the fragile cage of my chest.

How could I have been so careless?

The guilt settled heavy in my bones,
thick like fog clinging to a morning field.
This was no one's fault but mine.
Mine.
And yet, I was terrified that the truth I held in my hands would not bring relief—
but more questions, more fear.
That if it wasn't what I suspected, then something darker might be lurking within me,
and I might be running out of time to name it.

I loosened the grip of my teeth on my lip,
and just then, the soft chime of my phone's timer pierced the silence.

It was time.

My hands trembled.
Every movement was deliberate, like I was opening a letter that could change my entire life.

I opened my eyes.
And I looked down.

Pregnant.

The word didn't shout—it whispered.
But it whispered loud enough to shake the earth beneath me.

I gasped, a sound stolen from somewhere deep,
as if the wind had been knocked from my lungs and replaced with something heavier—
something real.

My lips parted, but no sound came.
Only tears.

They poured, sudden and unstoppable,
like rain from a sky that had been holding back too long.
Warm.
Salted.
Messy.

It hit me all at once—
that day.
The promise I whispered to Jae that I'd start birth control.
I meant to. I did.
But time slipped, and I didn't notice the delay in my cycle.
I had chalked it up to stress, hormones, fatigue.
But the truth had arrived in silence.
In one word.

I sobbed, soft and small.
Not out of sorrow. Not entirely.

Because beneath the storm of fear and panic,
there was something else blooming inside me,
delicate and terrifyingly beautiful.

Joy.

I was scared.
But I was also... happy.

Still, I couldn't tell Jae. Not yet.
If I could, I would keep this secret inside me like a pearl in a shell,
protected from the waves until the tide was right.

It wasn't about deception.
It was about timing.
About love.
About the way I wanted his eyes to light up when I finally told him.
About shielding him, for just a little longer, from the weight of the unknown.

I would go to the hospital first.
Alone.
Confirm it.
Make sure everything was okay.

Then, maybe... I'd tell him.
In a week.
Or two.

Maybe when the world felt just a little more steady.

I cleaned up slowly, deliberately.
Tucked the test away in the drawer beneath my socks.
As if hiding the word would make it less real.

The shower welcomed me with warmth,
and I stood there for a long time, water running over the soft swell of my belly—
not a bump, not yet, but no longer just skin either.

Afterward, I stood naked in front of the mirror,
eyes tracing the shape of myself.
My hips—wide and womanly.
My breasts—slightly fuller.
My stomach—soft, no longer flat, but sacred now.