Page 51 of Incoronate
“Tessa—”
“I know, okay?” Her voice cracked on the last word. “I know I should have made time and said something. But I just…” She trailed off, her throat working as she tried to find the right words. “Icouldn’t. Every time I tried to think about it, to really face it, I just…couldn’t.”
I watched her for a long moment, taking in the way her shoulders were hunched. The way she was holding herself together by the sheer force of her will alone. My sister, who’d always been the strong one, the fearless one, looked small and lost in a way I’d never seen before. It reminded me of the way she’d looked when Dad died. Like she was trying to hold all the broken pieces of herself together with nothing but her bare hands.
“How far along are you?” I asked gently.
“Almost three months.” She pulled her knees tighter to her chest. “I found out a few weeks ago. Took the test in a gas station bathroom somewhere between here and Temple when I was digging through the grimoires looking for anything that might help you with your Nephilim abilities.”
My heart ached at the thought of her going through that alone. Of standing in some grimy bathroom under buzzing fluorescent lights while staring at two pink lines that would forever changeeverything. I hated that I hadn’t been there with her for it. That she didn’t feel like it was something she could share with me.
“Have you seen a doctor yet?”
She shook her head. “How am I supposed to do that? Walk into a clinic and explain I’m carrying a baby that isn’t exactly human and hope they don’t send me off for a psych eval?” A bitter laugh escaped her. “I’m sure that would go over great.”
The Order had always handled pregnancies for Descendants. For obvious reasons. Human doctors weren’t equipped to deal with the complications that came with supernatural bloodlines, and keeping everything in-house meant keeping everything quiet. But we’d obviously burned that bridge when we walked away from them. Or rather, when they started trying to kill me and left us with no other choice.
Which meant we’d be on our own in this.
“We’ll figure it out,” I said, even though I had no idea how. “We always do.”
“Do we?” She looked at me then, lifting her eyes to mine and holding them, and I saw the fear there. Bare and unguarded and bone-tired. “Because from where I’m sitting, it feels like we’re barely holding it together as is. Like if one more thing goes wrong, the whole house of flimsy cards is going to come crashing down on us.”
I couldn’t really argue with that because she was right. We’d been running on borrowed time and stolen luck for months now. It seemed only logical to assume that, eventually, both would run out.
“Are you…” I hesitated, unsure how to phrase it. “Are you keeping it?”
Her hand drifted to her stomach before she seemed to realize it was moving, cradling the small swell there as though her body had already decided something her mind hadn't worked up the courage to say out loud.
“I don’t know,” she whispered brokenly. “I don’t know anything anymore.” Tears filled her eyes, but she furiously blinked them back. “I’m scared, Jemma. I’m so fucking scared and I don’t know what to do.”
I reached for her hand and took it in mine, her fingers instantly tightening around mine. “You don’t have to know right now. You don’t have to have all the answers, Tess.”
“But I need some of them,” she said, her voice breaking. “I need to know if I can do this. If I even want to.” She stopped, her breath hitching. “If I’m strong enough.”
“You’re the strongest person I know,” I reminded her.
“Then why do I feel like I’m already falling apart completely?” A tear slipped down her cheek, but she didn’t bother wiping it away. “I can’t stop thinking about everything that could go wrong. About all the ways I can screw this up.I don’t know how to be someone’s mother, Jemma. I don’t know the first thing about taking care of a baby.”
“I don’t think anyone does, Tess. Not until they’re actually doing it.”
She quirked her brow at me. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Kind of.” I squeezed her hand and smiled. “It just means you don’t have to figure it all out right now, and you don’t have to have all the answers. You can learn as you go. You just have to decide if you want to try first.”
She was quiet for a long moment, her gaze dropping to where our hands were joined. I could see her working through it. Weighing options. Calculating odds. Because that was my sister. Always three steps ahead, already planning for the worst-case scenario.
She met my eyes again. “What if I make the wrong decision?”
“You mean giving it up and then regretting it?”
“Or keeping it and finding out too late that I’m not cut out for it. That I can’t give the baby what they need.” She looked up at me, her eyes searching mine for reassurance, or maybe for permission to be honest about how lost she really felt. “I keep thinking about what kind of life I could give them. What kind of mother I’d be. And I just…” She let out a ragged breath. “I don’t have a good enough answer for any of it.”
“You don’t have to. We can figure it out together.”
“It just feels like everything is moving faster than I can hold together.”
“That’s usually what happens when you’re trying to process life-changing things,” I reminded her as I scootched in closer to her. “You’re allowed to be scared, and you’re allowed to not have all the answers yet. Whatever you decide,I’m here, Tess. You won’t be doing this alone. Not while I’m still breathing and have a say in it.”
