Snow

47 | no, no, no

❝and i will take cold showers from now on
until i learn that once you fuck the fire,
all that's left to do is burn.❞

❘❘

I WAIT.

I wait—with trembling fingers, shaky hands, weak knees, gnawing on my bottom lip, swallowing a sob, choking on the fleeting memories, praying that it's not... real.

I wait for something, for anything, for nothing.

It feels like una eternidad, caught in a twisted tragedy, staring down at dirty tiles beneath tattered shoes, counting breaths and blinks, counting heartbeats, counting days, counting nights.

Everything is blurry, too blurry, and there are too many people, too many men, too many nights that fade to black, unraveling into a tangled tenderness of stripping clothes and kissing skin, skin, skin. As my lashes flutter, butterfly wings cascading down my cheeks with warm tears, I'm left with nothing—only a hazy reel of hands and lips and fingers and feelings. Nothing makes sense.

No pensé. I was never thinking.

"Neva?"

My throat tightens. No, no, no. Emmy can't know. No one can fucking know. If this is... si esto es real... then I...

"Neva?" Emmy knocks on the door gently. "Are you okay?"

Nausea churns through me, threatening to buckle my knees. Emmy didn't seem to suspect anything when I ducked into a CVS on our way to Kellogg's Diner, muttering an excuse about a headache, about withdrawals, about needing Advil.

"Sí, sí, sí." I drop the pregnancy test on the back of the sink. "Estoy bien."

"Are you throwing up again?"

Chingados. Throwing up. I'd been throwing up for days. I'd thought it was just withdrawals, those ripples of aching pain wracking through my body, flipping my stomach inside out, my mouth tasting like acid and bile and—

"Neva?"

"Sorry, I'll... I'll be out in a minute," I say quickly, my gaze falling to my fiddling fingers, empty, feeling so fucking empty, empty, empty. "Just... just give me a second, Emmy."

"Okay, I'll just order you something."

My stomach lurches at the thought of the shitty, greasy diner food, but I nod numbly. "Yeah, thanks."

"But text me if you need anything, Neva."

As her footsteps fade, something inside of me deflates. I sag in relief, shoulders slumping and eyes fluttering closed. A tendril of heat ropes around me, thick and heavy and suffocating.

Hace demasiado calor, and breathing hurts.

Swiping at my forehead, I let out a ragged sigh and straighten. My sweaty palms meet cold porcelain, and I... I... can't stay steady. No puedo respirar.

Every breath is short and painful, ripping through my chest, twisting and catching in my throat with the impossible possibility that I could... be... embarazada.

Fuck. No.

A soft cry falls from my lips. There's no fucking way. This can't be happening. Ahora no. No a mí.

Slowly, so fucking slowly, I open my eyes, fingers curling around the sink, heart fluttering, head spinning, still so fucking dizzy, and... I... look down, and...

... and the entire world dims.

Two pink lines stare back at me.

Pregnant.

Too many emotions slam into me, knocking the breath from my lungs. My heart claws up my throat in dread, or panic, or... or disgust.

Jesse didn't... Jesse didn't use...

But how many times did I get fucked up with Rio or Julian and... forget? How many times did we surrender to a reckless release, tumbling into each other clumsily, faded, high, just... prying off each other's clothes and fucking?

Through the heights of anxiety, stripping ourselves into bare skin and broken laughter, lost in the motions of endless summer nights.

Half? Half didn't... We didn't...

¿Cuándo pasó? When did I fall into this fucked up fantasy of sensations and... and sex? When did I stop caring? When did I stop thinking?

When did I stop taking the pill?

Fuck, I must've stopped taking it in September. I must've stopped, suddenly stuck in something destructive, something self-sabotaging, something so fucking toxic that things stopped mattering.

Nothing can hurt you if you're numb. Nothing matters if you just don't care.

Nothing mattered, and I... I don't even know what... or who—

"Fuck." I toss the test into the trash and whirl around frantically, tearing a shaky hand through my hair. "Fuck, fuck fuck."

It can't be happening. It can't. ¿Qué voy a hacer?

As I dig into my bottom lip to keep a cry from ripping free, my gaze falls to the jacket hung on the hook.

And then in the desaturated daze of a seedy diner bathroom, I fucking fall apart.

Fuck this. Fuck this.

Too quick, too quick, too quick, a crumpled dollar bill comes fishing out of the pockets, and I'm chasing it with a card and the tiny plastic bag—a gram of beautiful white powder.

Coke, blow, snow. Whatever the fuck they want to call it.

Frustrated tears spill out over my cheeks. My fingers tremble uncontrollably, quivering in the blurry slew of lights until the bag slips away. I fumble to my hands and knees, scooping it from the floor, desperately snatching it from cold tiles. When I stand, clutching it to my chest, the walls start to close in on me.

"No."

This isn't happening. I can't be pregnant.

They're all gone. Everyone is gone. Julian, Rio, Half, Jesse. Everyone is fucking gone. This is just me, just me and... a baby. Alone.

"No, no, no."

I stumble to the sink, hyperventilating, gasps tearing out of me in short, panicked bursts of air, and I watch myself in fucking slow motion as I dig the corner of the card into the bag and let the flutter of cocaine spill onto the sink. The movements are choppy and clumsy—leaning down to prep a messy line, rolling a crumpled bill tight, dipping, snorting, staggering back.

Crying.

As I surrender to silent tears, sniffling, swiping at my nose, shaking my head, my pulse spikes. It skyrockets, flying to the sky, ripping to the ceiling of a grungy diner bathroom, and somewhere, deep in a defeated delusion, I can feel it.

Through the rush, through the high, through the fleetingly fractured forever, I can feel a heartbeat. I can feel it inside of me, throbbing and hammering and skidding and stopping.

No. This can't be fucking real. It's not... it's not real.

Nada es real.

❘❘

**I know that this one is kind of short, but it took a lot out of me. It's a big moment, one of the last big moments of the story, and it's so HARD to really put this feeling into words, but it's the beginning of the end for Neva. ❄️