Page 4 of Intersect

A sob wells in my chest. He’s joking but it’s true. We’ve got no space for a baby. He’s just started his residency and I’ve just started grad school and—my God—we’ve barely been married a month. “Is this going to be okay?” I ask, as my tears start to soak through his shirt.

“It’s going to be better than okay,” he whispers, tucking me closer, pressing his mouth to the top of my head. “I’m so happy right now I can’t even put it into words.”

I continue to cry, though. There’s so much he doesn’t know.

He tips my chin up with his index finger. “Honey, I know the timing isn’t perfect but we’ll figure it out. My parents will lend us money for a bigger place. We’ll get someone to help with the baby so you don’t miss class. It’s going to be fine.”

His joy hurts, twists something inside me, because I want this. I want it for him, I want it for myself. I can’t bear the idea of telling him we’re having a baby and tearing it all away from him, but I’m worried that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

“I think this has happened before. When we were teenagers,” I whisper. “That dream I always have, where you’re in the convenience store and I realize I’m going to lose you? I think we were running somewhere because I was pregnant. And I feel like we got pregnant right away then too.”

He’s silent, and when I look up at him, his smile has disappeared. “Why does that worry you?”

I swallow down the lump in my throat. “Because if it happened before, how come I don’t remember a baby?”

* * *

I wake with a start on Caroline’s deck, my chest as tight as it was in my dream. I sit up, putting it all together, and the pain gives way to shock. Nick and I got pregnant the first time we were together, and it possibly happened in two different lives. Not just as young, stupid teenagers, but as adults who would have been extremely careful about contraception. With anyone else I’d attribute it to chance, or to carelessness, but this feels…unnatural. Rose said there were other qualities that accompanied the mutation—could some kind of super fertility be among them?

I spend the day able to focus on little but that dream. I’m not sure why, but it feels like a warning somehow, just like my father’s dying pleas did. Our lives end before we have a child, and we seem to follow the exact same steps every time.

The real problem is that I think we’re following them now too.

Now that I’ve seen it unfold, I want that future we had ahead of us as badly as I did in London. I want to be the one who makes Nick’s face light up when he gets the news. I want it to be our child he holds for the first time. But it won’t be. All those firsts will go to someone who comes after me.

I force the thoughts out of my head as I start to get ready to see Nick. I could very easily be newly married to Jeff right now, stuck at Washington Insider for the rest of my short, miserable life. But instead I’m with someone who is more than I could ever have imagined, and I’m going back to school. I need to appreciate what I have.

Caroline comes home just before I leave. Having no respect for personal boundaries, she pulls at the neckline of my dress to see which bra I’m wearing without asking, and then demands I go change it. “No dude wants to see that thing when he’s undressing you for the first time. Put on something lacy or freeball it.”

I laugh. As much as I wish the bra I’m wearing would be an issue, I don’t see how it could be, given that there’s no place we can be alone. “No one is getting undressed,” I tell her primly. “This is only our second date.”

“I’ve had sex on a second date,” she argues.

I grin. “That would probably carry more weight if you didn’t also have sex when there’s been no date at all. I’m sleeping on your couch and he’s got his ex-girlfriend dropping by all the time, so it can’t happen.”

She frowns. “That is a huge red flag, by the way. Why does she still have a key?”

“She’s taking over his lease,” I reply, rubbing lip balm on. “It’s really not a big deal.”

She ignores me. “Remember Russell? The guy who always had an excuse for why he needed to stay here instead of his own place? He was homeless. I didn’t find out until a few months later.”

I laugh again. Caroline has had some good experiences with men and a wealth of abysmal ones. I’m sure she has a horror story for every possible situation. “Nick is a neurologist. Russell wasn’t employed. I feel like their situations are somewhat different.”

“I’m just saying that no matter how hot the guy is, you’ve got to watch out for red flags. Go change your bra.”

I push her away from me as she reaches for my zipper. “He’s not going to see my bra! Where would that even happen?”

“Public restroom, back of his car, parking garage, mail room, alleyway, that couch because I’m happy to clear out on your behalf…” she says, ticking them off on her fingers. “Shall I continue or are you going to change your bra?”

I stick my tongue out at her. “Fine, but the joke’s on you when nothing happens.”

Her face grows grave. “Oh Quinn, that won’t be a joke at all. That will be a tragedy, because you need a good shag more than anyone I’ve ever known.”

I don’t argue. Given how I respond when Nick merely kisses me, I have no doubt she’s correct.

* * *

Because I’m a little unnerved by what might come out of Caroline’s mouth when she meets Nick, I tell him to meet me in the lobby rather than the apartment. He’s already there when I walk off the elevator, his eyes lighting up as I approach.