The Marriage Contract by Natasha Black (best novels for teenagers TXT) 📕

one had heard me say the words “I’m pregnant.” Even I hadn’t heard myself say those words.

But as soon as I had fully reassured myself of that, I was right back to questioning and blaming myself.

After a while, I figured Matt wasn’t coming back to the house to talk things through. Part of me had held out hope he’d just gone out to take a walk or drive out his aggression but would come back and we’d be able to sit down and have a real discussion. When half an hour passed, I thought maybe it was a long walk. This was a really big life detour he was processing, and maybe that necessitated a longer walk to get it to settle into his brain.

But twenty minutes after that, he still wasn’t there, and I knew he wasn’t coming back anytime soon. There was no point in me sitting around the house. It was only going to make me feel worse. I needed something to distract me, to keep my mind occupied so I didn’t just spiral into my own state of overwhelmed.

I got dressed and left for the bar. Technically, I was on the schedule for the night. Hannah and Jordan had already told me I didn’t need to come in until I was feeling better, and probably had my shift covered, but it was the only place I could think of to go. Matt wasn’t scheduled for the night, unless they changed it, so I wasn’t going to show up and run into him.

On the way to the bar, I realized my car was getting uncomfortably close to being on empty.

The gas station was on my way to the bar. It only took me slightly away from the main road, and I had it filled up and was on my way again in just a few minutes. The package of crunch donuts now sitting on my passenger side seat may or may not have been my first pregnancy craving. Now was probably as good a time as any to decide if I was one of those women who ate everything and then blamed it on the baby.

I got to the bar, ate two of the donuts, and headed inside. Hannah was standing behind the bar talking to Jordan, and her eyes widened when she saw me coming toward her. She reached in front of her to touch Jordan’s arm, and he glanced over his shoulder.

“Chloe,” he said, sounding shocked to see me. “What are you doing here?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “What do you mean what am I doing here? I work here.”

“Have you talked to Matt?” Hannah asked.

I shook my head. “Not for a couple of hours.”

“Not since he left your house?” Jordan asked.

“Yeah. How did you know he left?” I asked.

“He came here,” Jordan said. No sooner were the words out of my mouth than Jordan’s phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket and looked at it. His eyes rose to me. “It’s Matt.”

“Answer it,” I said as if I really had any control over his decision.

“Hey,” Jordan said into the phone. He paused for a second to let Matt talk. He nodded. “She’s here.”

That perked up my ears. I highly doubted he was talking about Hannah. Jordan made a couple of acknowledging sounds and ended the call.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “What did he say?”

“He was here, but then he left again. He just said that he went to your place to talk to you, but you weren’t there.”

“I must have just left. I had to go by the gas station, so that’s probably why we didn’t notice each other passing on the road,” I said.

“He’s probably on his way back,” Jordan said.

“Why don’t you sit down?” Hannah asked. “Relax for a bit.”

I wondered if they knew. It seemed like they probably did. If Matt came here after getting the news and they could tell he was worked up, they would have asked him what was wrong. But neither Jordan nor Hannah had said anything to me. Hannah hadn’t even asked about the pregnancy test.

I decided not to say anything. Not yet, anyway. I needed to talk to Matt first and figure out if we were on the same page before we started talking about the situation to other people. Right after I figured out what page that was. Instead, I shook my head.

“No, I came here to distract myself, so that’s what I’m going to do,” I said.

We got to work doing all the tasks that needed to be done before the bar opened. An hour later it was time for the bar to open, and Matt still hadn’t arrived. Jordan and Hannah were starting to get worried about him. I was completely panicking. Every worst-scenario possible was running through my head, and I started pacing, unable to stand still.

“It’s going to be okay,” Jordan said. “There’s an explanation for this.”

“There are a lot of possible explanations for it,” I said. “So far, I don’t like any of them.”

“You should go on home,” Hannah said.

“No. No, this is good for me. I can just focus on my job, and everything else will just eventually go away.”

That was one of those arguments I already knew wasn’t going to pan out as it was going across my tongue. They both shook their heads.

“This can’t be good for you. Go on home and get some rest. We already have somebody coming in the next hour to cover your shift. Go on. Just rest, and if we hear anything, we’ll call you,” Jordan said.

I wanted to argue, but I didn’t. The truth was, I was so tired, it was a fight just to keep my eyes open, and I didn’t know how I was going to get all the way through the rest of the night if I had to.

I got home and went inside. Part of me was hoping Matt would be there, ignoring his phone for some inexplicable reason. He wasn’t, and one