Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 91213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
My lips tip upward in amusement. “Because they want to meet the woman carrying their grandchild.”
“Shit,” she mutters, and both Simone and I laugh at her.
“Suck it up, buttercup,” Simone teases. “Whether you like it or not, you’re stuck with this family now.”
I note with alarm that Stephanie actually goes a little pale. I can almost read her emotions, like she just got hit with a shocking wave of realization that there’s no getting away from my family.
The panic coming off her is almost palpable as she realizes she’s going from being utterly alone in the world to having a huge support system that she didn’t ask for, nor did she think she ever needed.
She swallows and puts on a brave smile, and it makes me fall for her even harder. I loop my arm around her neck and pull her into me so I can guide her up the steps.
I lean over and kiss the top of her head, murmuring, “Don’t worry, Stephy. You’ll get used to all of this eventually.”
She snorts. “Or it will drive me to drink.”
“Not until after the delivery, though,” I say sternly.
Her response is an elbow to the ribs, which makes me laugh and squeeze her harder into me.
Chapter 18
Stephanie
I reach across my kitchen table, which is now littered with so much paper I can’t even see the wood of the tabletop. I flip through a few things and pull out my stack of credit card statements for the last three months. I flip through them, placing a check beside essential needs I’d purchased and crossing through items that were nothing more than wants.
After that’s done, I use the calculator on my phone and add up all of the checked items to determine what would be my average monthly credit card debt if I cut back my spending to just the bare necessities.
Turns out there’s not much to cut, as I’ve never been one to succumb to extravagant purchases.
With a frustrated sigh, I push the statements away and grab the stack of bills for my utilities. It’s pointless to look at them because there’s nothing I can really cut. I need electricity and water, and I don’t have cable. I only pay for Internet access, and that’s unfortunately a necessity as well.
Sitting back in my chair, I throw the bills and pen down, looking at the mess before me. It looks as jumbled and out of sorts as the mess that’s become my life in the last eleven hours.
I had walked into work eager to start my day, but instead I found Mr. Wagoner waiting for me in my office.
Correction. Not my office anymore.
Seems the budget constraints could not be overcome and unfortunately my job was one of five eliminated.
“It’s with a pained and heavy heart that we’re terminating your position immediately,” he’d said, and truthfully, he did look distressed. I was numb, however, and nothing really penetrated. Not even when he finished with, “But we are going to give you two weeks of severance pay.”
That was nice.
I suppose.
I stayed in sort of a daze for the entire walk back to my apartment, carrying only my purse. I didn’t even have a pathetic little box with my personal items because I didn’t have any photos of family and I’m not really a knickknack person. I only had a paperweight in the shape of a NC State Wolfpack head and that felt heavy in my purse.
I came home, took off my work clothes, put on jammies, and I crawled into bed. I pulled the quilt over my head to shut out the bright light of day. I settled into the mattress and opened myself up to hopelessness and depression that I was essentially jobless and only weeks away from abject poverty if I continued to ignore the trust fund from my parents, as I’ve done since I was twenty-one when it came to me.
I lie there, and lie there, and lie there, waiting to fall into a deep slumber that had an “I don’t give a shit about anything” vibe written all over it.
But then I got a call, and for the first time ever, I can admit my mom did something good for me. It was short, because I cut it off pretty quickly, but it was impactful.
“Stephanie,” my mom said in her professional boardroom voice. “I’ve been thinking about this pregnancy.”
“Okay,” I’d said, shocked as hell she called. Shocked as hell I even picked up. And shocked as hell that she wanted to discuss something so personal.
My shock turned to inflamed outrage when she said, “Have you considered an abortion? It would be an easy solution to your problem.”
I couldn’t even respond I was so blown away by her words. She continued. “You’re not really equipped to handle a baby. You’ve got a useless degree, a career with no upward mobility, and you really just job hop around, living more hand to mouth than anything.”