I didn’t think I’d be able to do what she did. It would have completely broken me if I lost Asa.

The thought that he could be taken from me at any time ran through my mind on a constant loop. I started to hate the club he belonged to, resenting every minute he had to spend there. It was the reason Echo had been gunned down, the reason Asa and I were living apart, and the reason Farrah had been abused for years. It became such a demon in my mind that I couldn’t hear anything about it anymore without inwardly flinching.

I started having nightmares again for the first time in months. I’d wake up in a cold sweat, curled against Asa on the couch, and burrow into him, sometimes waking him up just so I could hear his voice. I no longer dreamed about my parents’ deaths—I dreamed of Asa’s. I barely slept.

A week after Echo’s funeral, I woke up slowly, having gotten only an hour’s worth of sleep the night before. The nightmares had plagued me every time I shut my eyes. They became so vivid that I hadn’t been sure if I was awake or asleep, and had laid on the couch, terrified, as I listened to Asa’s heartbeat.

“Callie Rose, get dressed!” Gram called from the stove. “Need to run a few errands this morning and you’re coming with me.”

I grumbled as I rolled off the couch and onto my hands and knees. “Gah! I feel like shit,” I griped as I dragged myself to my feet.

“Umhmmm,” Gram scoffed from the kitchen.

“Where’s Asa?” I rasped as I walked toward my room.

“Took Farrah to some sort of appointment,” she called back over her shoulder.

God, I was tired. It took me twice as long to get dressed as it usually did, and by the time I made my way back out, Gram was standing at the front door.

“I’m gonna brush my teeth and stuff—I’ll be right out,” I mumbled.

“No!” she snapped, and then smiled. “We’re just doing a couple errands. Let’s go.”

I complained in my head as she asked me to drive her to a pharmacy a few blocks away from the apartment, but followed her out of the car when she snapped her fingers at me. Snapped her fingers—like I was a dog. It wasn’t until we were in the tampon aisle that I started to get a little weirded out—she was way past the need for those.

“You need to pick a test,” she told me, pointing to a plethora of pregnancy tests ironically surrounded by condoms. “It’s been a long damn time since I’ve been pregnant, and we didn’t use these things.”

I gaped at her, shocked silent as she watched me through narrowed eyes.

“Well?”

“Um…” I looked back and forth between the tests and Gram, completely at a loss for words.

“I’m guessing you and Asa haven’t been very careful,” she commented, looking over her glasses at me. “I’m pretty sure you’re pregnant.”

“Why would you think that?” I asked, licking my suddenly dry lips.

“Because you’re tired all the time, you’re barely eating, and you look like you have four boobs under that shirt because your bra is too small,” she told me matter-of-factly as I looked down at my four breasts.

“Oh,” I sighed. “Yeah. Maybe we should grab one… since we’re already here.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you for the ten minutes we’ve been standing here, Calliope,” she answered as she bent over and picked up a lime-green package of ribbed condoms. “Hmm, interesting.”

“Oh. My. God,” I mumbled, my face flushing as I reached out to grab the closest test. “This one will work!”

“Well, that one doesn’t detect pregnancy early like that one right there,” she argued, pointing at a test that cost twice as much. “You should probably get the early one.”

“Okay, I’ll get this one then.” I picked up a different test.

“No, that one next to it has two tests in one box—in case you drop the first one in the toilet or something.”

“Gram, do you just want to choose?” I asked her, frustrated.

“Oh, fine.” She grabbed the box she wanted off the shelf and turned her back on me, walking toward the front of the store as I scrambled to put all the discarded tests back in their proper places.

We made our way to the car in silence as my mind raced. Asa and I hadn’t been trying to get pregnant—but we hadn’t been not trying, either. The condom situation had been pretty hit or miss for the past year, but I’d never gotten pregnant, so I’d just assumed that I wouldn’t. Asa was only visiting once every six weeks or so, and I knew that the timing had to be just right for conception.

I couldn’t decide if I was really freaked out or really excited.

Gram didn’t have any more errands that day—she’d just wanted me to go with her to the drug store. The sneaky old broad. We drove straight back to the apartment while I held an almost transparent grocery bag in my hands with the pregnancy test’s bright pink lettering mocking me through the side of the bag.

I really hoped that no one was home when we got there—I wasn’t sure how I could hide it.

I breathed a sigh of relief as we pulled into my parking lot and Asa’s bike was still gone. I only had to worry about Cody, who I’d assumed had been out on his morning run when Gram and I had left. I didn’t know how he could stand to go running after sleeping on the floor all night.

My house was beginning to feel like a train station with all of the people staying in it—sleeping on every available surface.