Immaculate by Katelyn Detweiler Page B

surprised as Izzy. Hannah was supposed to be the predictable one, the stable one, the anchor of the trio. She wasn’t supposed to drop bombshells, not ever, and
especially
not in the middle of my own massive personal crisis.
    â€œI . . . I know we’ve always said that, guys, but I thought that was just us being scared. And naive. I would never discourage either of you from trying to go where you really wanted to go. You’re my best friends, no matter where we live for those four years. Nothing’s going to change that.”
    â€œYeah. Okay. Thanks so much for the heads-up,” Izzy said, refusing to look at her. “Has it been three minutes yet, Meen?”
    I hadn’t let myself peek at the sticks once since I’d handed them to Hannah. No easy feat, though Hannah’s shocking news had, at the very least, distracted me better than I could have imagined possible. A cold, clammy sweat prickled down my neck as I nodded and pushed myself up off the ground, turning back toward the bank where we’d laid the sticks.
    â€œSo just a reminder: it’s a blue minus sign if you’re not pregnant, and a pink plus if you are. And the other test is pretty self-explanatory: pregnant, not pregnant,” Hannah explained, her mothering instinct back in full force, as if the previous conversation hadn’t ever happened.
    I walked slowly, each footstep torn somewhere between running and freezing. I wanted the answer as much as I didn’t want the answer. I could see the tests right below me, waiting to be read, but I didn’t let my eyes focus at first, keeping the indicators a blurry haze. I closed my eyes and squatted down, taking a deep breath.
    I opened my eyes.
    Plus, plus, pregnant, pregnant.

chapter four
    I was pregnant.
    I, Mina Dietrich, an absolute and utter virgin, was pregnant.
    Four tests couldn’t be wrong, could they? Not with all the other symptoms I’d had during the past few months, and not with my fears about Iris’s warning. But how could they
not
be wrong? How could any of this actually be happening to me?
    â€œWhat should we do now?” Hannah whispered. She and Izzy were hovering over me, staring down at the evidence in front of us.
    â€œI need to let Frankie know that I can’t come in tonight,” I said without even pausing to reconsider. For some reason that was the first and only immediate reaction that came to mind. The only answer, the only step forward that made any sense. Even in the face of the most fantastical crisis imaginable, I could still be relied on not to forget to call out of work.
    Under normal circumstances, Izzy would have made endless fun of me for being so dedicated to Frankie’s, but now she was ominously silent. I was afraid to look up at her face, to see whatever was lurking behind her eyes. Izzy couldn’t hide anything, not from me and Hannah, no matter how hard she sometimes tried. Her eyes always insisted on telling us everything we needed to know.
    â€œLet’s get you back to the blanket,” Hannah said, reaching for my hand. “Your cell phone is there in your purse, and then you can lie down while we . . . while we process everything.”
    I gave a weak nod and let them pull me up and steer me. My stomach pinched at the sight of the leftover food, the basket that my mom had packed less than two hours ago for our special tree house picnic. My mom. My adoring, gracious, astoundingly perfect mom. How could I ever possibly tell her about this? How could she believe me? How could she keep trusting me and loving me and being proud of me?
    Too much. The idea of telling my mom was more than my mind could begin to comprehend, not when I’d only known the truth myself for a few entirely surreal minutes.
    I pushed those thoughts to the furthest, blackest corner of my mind, and reached for my phone. I brushed past a few missed calls and messages from Nate, clearing my throat as I