Free OUTCAST: A Stepbrother Romance by Ora Wilde Page B

sentence that would change my life...

    It is our great pleasure to offer you admission to UCLA for the First Semester of SY 2015-2016.

    F or nine months , I have wished for nothing more than to receive that letter. It would have meant the world to me. It would’ve been a guarantee... that Finn and I would attend the same school together. It would’ve been the perfect scenario... that I’d be with him and home would just be a couple of hours away.

    B ut with everything that has happened...

    A nd with everything that I feared would happen...

    I didn’t know if I still wanted to go the UCLA.

    F inn broke my heart . I had sex with my stepbrother. And it has been eight days since I missed my period.

    T he things that happened today ... they should have made me very, very happy. To a certain extent, I was still joyful for them... but not as ecstatic nor as excited as I should be. The front wall of our house has finally been cleaned, but the smell of fresh paint made me nauseous. My new car was a wonderful surprise, something that my dad worked very hard for... which would only make his eventual disappointment even worse. I’d rather go to a school other than UCLA, even if that university offered the best opportunities for what I wanted in life.

    A nd I haven’t seen Nash in three weeks...

    I felt so alone with everything that I was confronting.

    I held my tummy and started to feel it. Was it getting bigger? It looked very, very flat to me. I inserted my fingers inside my underwear and touched my slit. I drew out my hand to see if there was blood. There was none. I still haven’t had my period, though there was no spotting that usually preceded gestation.

    T here was only one way to find out with all certainty.

    I needed to get a pregnancy kit and determine if the cause of my disquietude was actually real.

    I dressed up and prepared to go out, whispering one single word over and over again...

    N egative , negative, negative...

9
    Five Is High
    T ake it out for a joyride , my father said, and so I did. Little did he know that it was part of my plan.

    H e wanted me to go around the street a few times just to test drive the car. Be back in ten minutes , he instructed, don’t go far . I had something else in mind. I drove out to Lincoln Highway, went east for some five minutes or so, before turning left at Mosquito Road. That was far enough. There was a a convenience store there, right beside a gas station. Surely, no one from our neighborhood would visit that place just to buy some supplies. No one would recognize me.

    I parked right outside , then alighted from the vehicle and went in.

    I was nervous as hell . My knees were trembling as I awkwardly sifted the products from the shelves... products I didn’t even intend to buy. The old lady at the cashier looked at me more than twice. Did she think that I was an amateurish shoplifter, what with my hands trembling as I checked out the boxes on display? Or did she want to assist me as I seemed to be confused about what I wanted to purchase.

    B ut I knew what I wanted to buy. I knew what I needed to buy. I was just taking my time, trying to survey the area, trying to ensure that no one I knew was nearby.

    E mpty-handed , I approached the counter and the lady greeted me with a smile.

    “ D o you have , uhm...” I struggled to continue.

    “ W hat is it , dear?” she asked, very much willing to help me out.

    “ O ne of those things that people use to...” I answered, still having a hard time to speak out the name of the thing I needed.

    T he kind lady smiled once more, then opened the drawer right below the desk. He grabbed a small, pink box and showed it to me. The label read FIRST RESPONSE Early Result Pregnancy Test .

    “ T his one ?” she continued, still with her friendly grin.

    I just nodded my head .

    S he scanned the barcode and read the cash machine.

    “ T hat would be $15.99 ,” she said.

    I t was quite pricey for something I only had