QUOTE : Maybe I . . . shouldn’t tell him what I thought I’d heard. Not until I knew more. How exactly would I put the revelation anyway? Jack’s alive, but apparently he kept that little detail secret. Ah, but Matthew spilled the beans! Buying myself time, I waved Aric on.<br /><br />I was scarcely listening as he began talking about Paul, of all people. How the EMT had grown worried when I’d been shut in with my grandmother for so long. How I had lost weight and become listless. The man had pleaded with me to get a checkup, even offering to source contraception after Aric and I had started sleeping together.<br /><br />Wait. I glanced up. “After?”<br /><br />Aric nodded. “He said you told him you had no need of contraception.”<br /><br />The hell? “I went to him and got a shot prior to us getting together. I told you about it.”<br /><br />“As I told him in turn, but he swears that never happened.”<br /><br />Real? Unreal? Had I . . . imagined my meeting with Paul? I’d already feared gaps in my memory; Gran had told me things that I’d had no recollection of. Was I now inventing memories?<br /><br />Had I invented Jack’s return?<br /><br />In a soothing voice, Aric said, “I’m not angry, love. Just talk to me.” He wasn’t the first person to look at me as if I’d gone insane, like I was trouble with the possibility of rubble.<br /><br />Won’t be the last.<br /><br />No. I refused this. I had heard Jack, and I had gotten that shot. “It did happen, which means Paul’s a liar.” But why would he lie? “I’m going to confront him.” In time. Right now, all I wanted was to hear from Matthew again.<br /><br />Yet I frowned as a thought occurred. “Why would you be talking to Paul about contraception?”<br /><br />Aric tucked my hair behind my ear. “Sievā,” he said gently, “do you not know you’re pregnant?”<br /><br />Tick-tock.