“It’s negative,” I said happily.

All of the guys smiled, and a wave of relief washed over everyone in the room. It wasn’t like having a baby would have been the worst thing in the world; it just wasn’t time for that yet.

“See?” Rob said. “Nothing to worry about.”

Adam smacked him on the shoulder.

“Oh please,” Adam said as he rolled his eyes at Rob. “You were just as worried as we all were.”

“I’m sorry, guys,” I said. “I didn’t mean to scare everyone. I will be much more careful about taking my pill from now on.”

Adam huffed.

“Well, I guess that really only affects Michael and not us now, doesn’t it?” he said. He was still unhappy with the arrangement, but I felt like it was starting to sink in a bit better with everyone.

Michael looked the most relieved of all, but he also looked pretty rattled still. He had that kind of look that happens when a big tragedy is averted, and afterwards you allow yourself to process the fight or flight response that you had been ignoring while going though whatever the ordeal was.

“You okay?” I asked him.

“Yeah,” he assured me with a smile that I could spot as a fake from a thousand miles away.

He changed the subject off of himself and back onto me.

“So should you go to a doctor to find out why your body is off-schedule then?” he asked with genuine concern.

“No, I think it’ll be okay,” I said. “I’ve been under so much stress lately, and haven’t gotten any sleep, and have barely been eating right. I think everything has just thrown my body for a bit of a loop, but I’m sure it will straighten itself out soon.”

Sure enough, it did. Less than a week later, I got my period.

With that scare averted, I thought that things would quickly get back to normal. Adam and Rob started looking for apartments in Asheville that were pretty near to the cabin, and the greenhouse was getting all finished up before they made plans to move out. But Michael still seemed to be acting strangely and I didn’t know why.

Maybe the thought of having a baby and then ending up not being up pregnant at all, disappointed him.

Although it sure didn’t seem like it was something he had even considered wanting yet, and if I knew Michael; I knew that he wanted all the alone time with just the two of us that he could possibly get. It didn’t make sense to think that he might have been let down. There must have been something else that was bothering him. I tried to ignore it for a while, but it just kept getting more and more obvious, as if there was a giant wedge between us. He wasn’t really touching me or being intimate with me at all; not even a hand on my thigh or a kiss on my cheek. When I came up behind him in the kitchen and wrapped my arms around to the front of his waist, he quickly found something that he needed to “go and do”.

Something was definitely wrong.

“Hey, what’s going on with you?” I asked when I found him outside in the greenhouse alone.

He looked like he was lost in thought as he worked on some of the finishing touches to the interior.

“Nothing, just finishing up in here. It’s really looking good, don’t you think?” he asked as if he was completely clueless as to what I was actually asking him about.

He knew what I had meant with my question. He was just trying to avoid answering me again.

“Yeah, it’s really pretty,” I said with an appreciative smile for all the work he had done on the greenhouse. “But you know that’s not what I meant. You’ve been acting differently—more distant, and I want to know why. Are you upset about something?”

Michael quickly brushed my question off again.

“Not at all,” he said casually. “There’s nothing for me to be upset about. Hey, do you want to go into town today and get some plants to start off with in your greenhouse?”

I wasn’t going to let him keep averting an answer.

“Michael,” I said as I sat down beside him on the carpet of living grass that he had somehow managed to put inside here like he said he would. “We promised each other that we would be open and honest, remember?”

He sighed and the weight of his heavy eyelids almost made his eyes close shut as he did.

“Please tell me,” I continued. “You’ve barely touched me in weeks now and I can tell that something is wrong. If you don’t tell me, then I’m going to assume that it’s me that you’re upset with since I can’t think of anything else that it could possibly be.”

“No,” he said as he shook his head. “It’s not you, Lisette—it’s me.”

“I don’t understand,” I said as I looked at his troubled face.

Michael turned to look at me and I was surprised by what I saw in his eyes. It seemed like he was sad, or scared, or both.

“That pregnancy scare really freaked me out,” he said.

“It freaked us all out,” I said. “See, this is why I didn’t want to tell any of you until I was sure about it.”

“No, I’m still glad that you told me. I never want you to feel like you have to go through anything alone. You and I are in everything together now, and that is the way that it needs to stay.”

I nodded my head in agreement. He was right; we needed to stay tight.

“But I just can’t chance that happening again,” he said.

“What happening?” I asked.

“I can’t take the chance on getting you pregnant. I can’t be a dad,” Michael said with a shake in his voice.

“Ever?” I asked.

“I’m not sure about ever, but I know that I can’t be one now, or anytime soon. Lisette, my childhood was so awful; my parents were so bad. I’m terrified of becoming a parent myself.”

“Michael,” I said calmly as I reached out to take his hand against his lap. “We were all scared when the possibility was there, but that doesn’t mean that we wouldn’t have been able to figure it out along the way.”

“No,” he said abruptly. “It can’t happen.”

“Okay,” I said carefully. I could see that he was very serious about this. It was fear that I had seen in his eyes, and it was a deep and very real fear.

“I’ll be extra careful,” I reassured him. “I’ll make sure that I take that pill religiously at the same time every day.”

“That pill isn’t always a hundred percent effective,” he said.

“Is this why you haven’t been touching me or kissing me at all?” I asked. I could feel my forehead wrinkling as my eyebrows raised. “We can’t go through life together with you now afraid to come near me in any sort of intimate way. The birth control pill is like nearly perfectly effective and I promise that I will set a daily alarm from now on and make sure to take it without fail, okay? There’s nothing to worry about now.”

I reached out and held the side of his face with my palm. I had seen Michael in many situations before, but honestly, he looked more shaken up than any other time. I knew that he had a shitty childhood, and that his parents were downright awful; but that couldn’t be what was making him this upset. It was as if he was terrified of absolutely nothing.

“Okay,” he said finally. “Just make sure you don’t forget to take it okay?”