Broken (Broken #1) by A. E. Murphy

is the stick.
    “ You’re
seriously going to stand there and watch?” I quirk a brow at
Caleb.
    He closes the door and leans
against it. “Yep. I’m not missing this. I should take
pictures.”
    “ Why the hell
would you want pictures?” I gape at him in disbelief.
    “ Because then
we’ll be able to show our son or daughter the moment we found out
about them.”
    “ Son or
daughter?” I choke and sit on the toilet. Once that’s done I rest
the stick on the side of the back and wash my hands. “What do you
mean son or daughter?”
    He shrugs, “Well, what else
does a pregnancy lead to?”
    My jaw hits the floor, “I don’t
want it to lead to anything.”
    He freezes, his eyes on the
stick as the pee starts slowly moving across the white paper behind
the little window. “You don’t want kids?”
    “ Not right
now,” I cry and run my damp fingers through my hair. “It’s… we
can’t afford a kid. We’re both in University. I don’t want to give
up my education.” How did this even happen? “I haven’t missed a
pill. Not one. I haven’t been sick, I haven’t had any kind of
medication that can mess with it and I haven’t suddenly changed my
eating habits. I don’t get it.”
    “ We’ll figure
it out,” he looks way too happy about this. Way too happy. He picks
up the stick after a few more moments and compares it to the back
of the box that I dropped on my way in. His smile widens,
“Positive.”
    Sob.
    His arms wrap around me, “It’ll
be fine. We’ll figure it out, I promise. I love you so much
Gwenny.”
    This only makes me sob harder.
I don’t want a baby right now. I want to finish school and get
married and all of the other stuff that comes with growing up.
    “ We’re still
kids,” I sniff and wipe my nose on a piece of tissue. “We need to
deal with this, I can’t be more than a couple of weeks. I’ve only
missed one period.”
    His eyes darken to an intensity
I’ve never seen before, I wish I hadn’t blurted that so callously.
“Deal with it? What do you mean deal with it?”
    I tread cautiously, my words
soft and hopefully convincing, “The doctor can have it solved in no
time. It’s just a minor problem and then as soon as I finish
University and we have our own house and jobs we can try again.
Obviously we’ll be married then too.”
    He stares at me, his mouth
hanging open in shock.
    I continue, “It’s what’s best,
Caleb.”
    Pain flits through his
beautiful browns, his hands fist on the counter in front of
him.
    “ It sucks, if
it’s… look,” I sigh, hating that I’ve put this look on his face.
“We’ll talk about it later. I have to get to class.”
    I throw my bag over my shoulder
and lean down to touch my lips to his unresponsive ones. He doesn’t
look at me and of course this worries me, but I have a test in
twenty minutes. I need to go.

    On the way to class I meet up
with my closest friend Sasha. I admire her hair choice of the day,
it hangs in loose, blonde waves to her shoulders and a black clip
holds her fringe out of her eyes. “Hey,” she grins and links her
arm through mine. “How’s tricks?”
    “ Same old,” I
lie but she doesn’t see through it. “I’m so not looking forward to
this test. Have you got a placement sorted yet?”
    “ Me too and
nope. We aren’t all as fortunate or as smart as you,” she jokes and
elbows me in the ribs playfully. “How’s the husband?”
    “ He’s fine,”
I lie again and again she doesn’t see through it. “He’s got a
placement at Anderson’s firm. He’ll finish his remaining year
there.”
    She shakes her head, “I’m so
jealous.”
    “ Of?”
    “ Your life,
it’s so organised and you know what you’re doing. Not to mention
the fact you have the best guy in the world and he worships
you.”
    HA! How wrong she is right now.
Still I reassure her as a good friend does, “You’ll get sorted
babe. You’ll see, it’ll all work out in the end.”
    “ Hey Tommy!”
She calls to