“Everything,” he answered.

I could actually feel the look of shock on my face as I stared at him.

“Everything?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Michael nodded. “Everything about my parents, what went on at Lineage and in Charlotte, and even about you and a lot of the shit that we went through to get here. Pretty sure the only thing that I didn’t tell them about was the stone room. That’s why the interview took so long. I told them everything.”

“I’m surprised that you would tell all of that to anyone,” I said in a continued disbelief. “What made you decide to do that?”

He shrugged.

“I guess I just figured that I needed to get it all off my chest, that I couldn’t really let go of my old life and start a new one here if I was still carrying around all of that baggage and all of those secrets.”

“And that is what got you the job here?” I still couldn’t believe it.

“Yeah,” Michael chuckled. “I figured they would most likely throw me out of the room after they heard it all, to be honest. Or that they would at least call security or look at me with a whole lot of apprehension. But instead, they did something that no one else had ever done.”

“What was it?

“The head of the hiring board, an old man with a white beard that touched all the way down to his collarbone, reached across the desk and patted me on the front of my shoulder. He told me that because of everything that I went through to try to save and fight for the people and places that I cared about that I was the perfect candidate to be headmaster of their school. Even after he said that I still didn’t think that he would formally offer me the position, but then he did.”

It filled me with happiness to know that the people here would value Michael as much as they already did. He deserved that after all the years of his life that he lived without being valued at all by his parents and those around him.

“Even after he offered me the job, I still tried to sabotage myself by telling him that I would have no idea how to run the school. I don’t even know why I tried to backpedal out of it, but it just seemed like it was too good and too surreal to be truly happening.”

“And what did he say to that?” I asked.

“He told me that I would learn along the way. After that, I just had to accept the job. I knew that it was the right thing for me to do.”

I threw my arms around Michael’s neck and hugged him as I kissed him on the cheek.

“What was that for?” he chuckled.

“That was because I love you, and I love what we’re creating here.”

“Me too,” he smiled.

“We need to celebrate,” I said. “Like actually celebrate, with a bottle of champagne and stuff.”

“Okay,” he laughed. “We can do that. Tonight?”

“Sure. But let’s go check out that bookstore now. I could use a fancy student-made latte.”

This was nice. It was so nice that I was mad at my brain for trying to ruin it. My thoughts were distracted by how tight my jeans felt, and how angsty I felt, and how much I was craving another coffee. The last time I missed my period, I didn’t feel this way. The last time there was a pregnancy scare, I felt tired, sick, and stressed. This time I felt fine, and very hormonal. I wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or not. But I definitely descended into worrying about it again.

After we hung out at the coffee shop for a bit, and then stopped at the market to get some fresh ingredients for dinner, we headed back to the apartment. Adam was coming home at the same time and he had Anna on his arm in the apartment lobby.

“Hey guys,” he said as he and Anna both smiled.

Michael was balancing a paper sack of fresh meats and produce in his arm while he fumbled to pull the apartment key out of his pocket.

“You want to get together for dinner tonight?” Adam asked.

Michael and I exchanged glances since we had been planning to celebrate his new job with a bottle of champagne tonight, but Adam’s expression was so eager and Anna’s smile was so pleasant, that it was hard to say no.

“Sure,” I said with a friendly smile. “We just got dinner ingredients, how about you guys bring over a bottle of wine in an hour and we can hang out with food and drinks.”

“Sounds perfect!” he said as they headed back to his apartment to grab a bottle or two.

“Was that okay?” I asked Michael once we had stepped inside our own apartment. I realized that I should have asked him before actually inviting Adam and Anna over.

“Of course,” he said as he set the bag down on the counter and pulled me close for a kiss. “They looked too excited to come over, so I would have done the same thing.”

“No you wouldn’t have,” I laughed. “You would have turned them down in exchange for a night of drinking and lovemaking alone.”

“True,” he nodded as he lifted me up and then set me back down, letting me slide down the front front of his body as he did. It was a tantalizing movement that filled me with warmth in all the right places.

“But” he said. “We can continue our celebration tomorrow instead.”

The next morning when I woke up, there was only one thing on my mind. Even though we had a wonderful night with Adam and Anna, complete with lots of fun and even some poignant reminiscing that ended in all of us falling asleep in the living room until the early hours of the morning—I woke up with a singular thought.

My period still wasn’t here. I was done with the placebo pills and starting on a new pack today. I took a shower, listened to Michael talk about starting his new job tomorrow over breakfast, and decided this was ridiculous. I was not going to put myself through the same stress and drama as I had before. I was simply going to go to the drugstore, buy a test to take, and then when it showed up negative again, I would go on with life and my period would eventually show up just as it had the last time. The only difference was that this time I wasn’t going to torture myself for additional days thinking about it.

“I’m going to run out to the store real quick,” I said as I got up and set my breakfast dishes in the sink. “Do you need anything?”

“No,” Michael answered as he stood up from the counter. “Want me to come with you?”

“Nah, thanks though. I just need to pick up some new shampoo. I don’t like how the one I have made my hair feel all tangly. I won’t be long.”

“Okay,” he said as he kissed me on the cheek and then headed off toward the bedroom. “I’ll take a shower and who knows, maybe I’ll still be undressed when you get back.”

The thought of it made me want to salivate with desire.

“Hurry home,” he grinned invitingly as he took his shirt off while he walked away.

When I got to the drugstore, the cashier looked at me with a longer glance than normal as she rang up the pregnancy test. I thought at first that it might have been my imagination, but then she handed me the bag and said “good luck” with a half-smile that only curved up one side of her mouth. Why did people say that when someone might be pregnant? Like how was that comment even supposed to be received? Was it a compliment or well wishes for something they thought you wanted and had planned? Or was it the kind of “good luck” that someone says right before you go off to do something terrible?

I tried not to think about it on my way back to the apartment. Just before I got to the door of the apartment building, I remembered what had happened the last time when Michael found the test that I had thrown into the trash can. I didn’t want to relive all of that. First of all, he would be upset that I kept the concern of it from him again. And secondly, he would worry. Even when it comes up negative, he would still worry about the fact that it had even been a consideration again. I wondered if he even remembered that night in the woods that we needed each other so badly that we risked it just to feel our bodies connected in that passionate moment. Regardless, I couldn’t take this test up into the apartment, and I didn’t want to walk all the way back to the store to use the restroom there.

I looked down the hallway at Adam’s apartment. Before I gave myself a chance to think better of it, I found myself knocking on his door.

“Hey,” Adam smiled as he opened the door. “What’s up?”

“Is Anna here?” I asked.

“Nope, just me. She went home this morning to get some things ready for work tomorrow. Everything okay?”