Three weeks.

Last night had been the first night she hadn't dreamt about him. Some nights she fell into his arms easily, no need for forgiveness because in her dream none of it had happened. Then she woke, sick with anger and loss. Some nights he was just a spectator, a shaded silent figure who greeted her with his familiar smile. Some nights.

Nancy stared blearily down at the keyboard. It almost looked normal, almost, just like the news homepages almost looked normal, and then she would concentrate and feel the unbearable frustration of not knowing immediately what everything meant. If she was home, if only she was home. She could get into her Mustang and drive until she felt calm again, somehow, but here there were buses and unfamiliar street signs and the steady pulsing in her ears.

If I hadn't done this, if I hadn't come here, he wouldn't have been alone in his room that night. He would have been with me. This would never have happened.

But it was done. And she would be damned if her coming over here would be for naught, after what it had cost her.

He sent her emails, after the space of a few days, and in a momentary fit of weakness she had almost opened one, but had pulled back at the last instant. Maybe he thought she was reading them. But she knew it all, from his own lips, knew that it would all be padded half-truths, and, and, besides. This wasn't all her fault, she hadn't jumped into bed with the first guy she'd met. She hadn't.

Why did I trust him.

The screen blurred to a wash of color as another wave of tears rose to her eyes, and she pressed her fingers against her brow, willing them back. It was supposed to stop hurting sometime. She had dumped him before, and it...

And he had come back.

"Found anything yet?" Kath asked, at her right elbow.

Nancy forced a smile. "Not yet," she replied.

She was supposed to have started her period, again, the day before. She had checked and double-checked, sure that it had to happen this time, that the one time she'd skipped had been an anomaly. And then she had thrown up.

--

"How are you holding up?"

"Fine," Nancy replied. "Good. How's court?"

"The same," her father replied. "Please tell me you're actually learning something over there."

Learning how much of a jackass your once-future son-in-law is. "Of course," she said brightly. "How to strongarm a source into talking, that's my favorite."

"So, nothing," her father replied.

Nancy laughed, despite herself. "Well, there is this one extremely knowledgeable professor, whose accent is so thick I don't understand what he's saying half the time. But he survived malaria, and was shot at during the war, and all the girls think he's dreamy."

Her voice trailed off at the end of it. A lifetime ago, someone else's voice.

"That's my girl," Carson said. "Just, don't get malaria, or shot at, and we'll be fine."

Nancy hung up the phone and looked toward the bathroom, then turned to her schoolwork. She toiled through a week's worth of preparation readings for one of her classes, complete with highlighter and pencil and painstaking notes, pausing only once, to throw up the crackers and water she'd eaten for dinner. It had been worth a shot, even if it still didn't work.

Then, in a dejected sleepwalk, not meeting her own eyes in the mirror, she read the instructions on the test. Best results, first thing in the morning. Like she could sleep, for the waiting.

--

Nancy didn't take the test the next morning.

She went to class, but didn't hear anything the teacher was saying. She drew a series of boxes in the margin of her otherwise blank notebook sheet and tried to weigh it all, but it was too much.

The test had to come back negative.

Because if it didn't, her father was going to kill her.

That was the litany, which repeated over and over, not allowing a word in edgewise. Nancy dug the point of her pen into the paper and twisted it out to form a spiral. The teacher was demonstrating something. A girl's chin fell out of her cupped palm and her head crashed to the desk, waking her immediately.

Has to be negative.

That was it, the entirety of her thoughts.

And then Ned's face filled her mind's eye and panic rose in her.

--

She took the airplane bottle of rum in one hand and the much-abused box in the other. "Three minutes," she read aloud. "So that's all it takes."

According to the box, many women were far too hasty to take a test of this nature. She felt positively tardy in waiting, not until the first day of her first missed period, but the third day of her second missed period. But then, skipping two periods was no indication. None at all.

"Negative," she hissed fiercely in the direction of the silent test. "Negative."

She already had a glass of coke poured, to chase the rum. Otherwise she'd never be able to actually look down at the well and read off her test results. She clicked the bottle over her fingernails. Maybe she was expecting too much from a single mouthful of rum. A flask would be better.

Shaking her head, she twisted off the cap and placed the bottle on her desk. She looked into her bathroom, at the white plastic, and wanted to throw it into the trash can, unread. She didn't want to know. She didn't.

One dot for no, two for yes. The paler in color, the less certain.

She picked up the uncapped bottle and walked into the bathroom, trembling slightly. Just one brush with the side of her hand and the results would be in the trash and she wouldn't know, and she could curse herself for being silly and in a month she'd have her period and everything would be back to normal, except of course for the fact that Ned would still not be her fiancé and she would still wake up gasping his name and trying to forget.

Her eye caught it so fast. Two dots. Heavy, dark dots.

She brought the bottle to her pursed lips, then forced herself to stare at it. Maybe it had been a reflection, a trick of her eyes...

No, no trick.

She swallowed it all fast and coughed, then went back into her bedroom and gulped down her chaser. Then she went back and looked at the test for a third time. It hadn't changed.

"It could be wrong," she said. The words were comforting. "It is wrong," she said, in a stronger voice. "It's wrong, they're not completely accurate. I'm hysterical over nothing."

--

"You're pregnant," the nurse said.

Nancy looked down at her bare knees. She was in a thin gown. Her back was cold. Her feet were bare and swinging over the edge of the table. "You're sure?" she asked, but the words took so much effort to force out.

The nurse nodded. "When was the date of your last period?"

Nancy knew it by heart and repeated it back to her. Yes, she had been using prevention. Yes, she knew who the father was.

"What are my options?" Nancy asked finally, looking up at the nurse's face. "What can I do?"

"We have prenatal checkups here at the clinic," the nurse replied. "You won't be due until May. If you mean options as in adoption programs..."

"I won't be here in May," Nancy said. Her voice was flat. "I'm going back to the States in December. I mean..." Nancy shrugged.

The nurse looked at her with sharp eyes. "You have a month or so, if you mean deciding about terminating your pregnancy."

Nancy nodded. "Do you do that here?"

The nurse shook her head. "We don't. There's a good clinic downtown. Safe and discreet."

Nancy had never thought she would be saying those words, but she'd never thought she'd be discussing an extramarital pregnancy with a Spanish nurse, either. She reached up and wiped away the one tear that had escaped her eyes. "I have a month," she said.

The nurse nodded. "I'm going to write you down for some counseling sessions," she said.

Nancy shook her head. "I don't need counseling," she said. "No."

"Maybe you want to discuss this with your partner?"

Hysterical laughter bubbled up inside Nancy. Imagine. Calling Ned, asking how it was going with the new girlfriend, then casually mention that she was carrying his child. A sudden wave of nausea hit her, and Nancy leaned on her right hand, trying to catch her breath.

"No," she managed. "This is my decision."

I'll never see him again and he will never know about this.

--

Every email started out the same, because he knew she wasn't reading them. Not a single notification otherwise. Screaming into a vacuum.

Nancy, I'm so sorry.

The first week or so had been variations on that theme, until his indignation and fear had driven him to lash out at her for being so cold. But that had faded, and again he was writing to her that he was sorry every night. Doing his penance, which counted for nothing because she never heard it.

Maybe you don't get the game where you are. If you do, you can just skip this part.

We won. It was amazing.

He had won. With her ring tucked under his jersey he had carried the ball into the end-zone, eluding everyone. The entire stadium had cheered. A thousand times better than any other high he'd ever felt. The news cameras had been waiting in the locker room.

"You're somebody now," Cole had said, a wide grin on his face. "Welcome to the big time."

He didn't write any of that.

Every time I play I wish you were here to see it. I wish you'd never left. Every day is the same to me.

Every day was the same only because he had taken to bribing the concierge at the hotels to give him a separate room key, far away from the rest of the crowd. The girls could slip the bellboy all the money they wanted, but waited in a cold room for him, while he was far away, staring at the ceiling, wishing he could sleep.

I barely see her anymore, Nan. The only reason I do see her is because she's dating guys on the team. Almost all of them. I don't talk to her. I don't even want to look at her. If you were here. Man, I wish you were.

The lawyer, the one he had retained after Nancy's father had learned of the broken engagement, had sent a stack of endorsement proposals. They lay beside his elbow. He'd flipped through the first one, betting to himself the figure before he actually saw it.

The newspapers had all said he was golden. All he had to do was sign one of the contracts and he would be settled for life.

I finally feel like I actually have a name, he wrote. Like I'm someone. Not just some college kid waiting for his life to start. And I want you to be here to see that.

He sighed.

I love you. I still want to marry you. Even if it takes you years to be ready to marry me. I'm willing to wait. I'll be here.

--

"Nan, you want to go out tonight?"

Carlos was there, Javier, Mariah. Everyone. They went out to the club and Nancy danced until she was exhausted, sick and hot and tired. Then she sat at their table and nursed a drink, trying not to think about what the nurse had told her. The group climbed into a cab and went to someone's apartment and Nancy was sitting in a sweltering kitchen with a bottle of vodka and a wet shot glass on the table in front of her.

It's not real. Not yet.

She poured herself a shot and stared at it. When she lifted it to her lips her stomach rose violently and she shoved her chair back hard, groping her way through a crowd of chattering partygoers, finding the bathroom just in time. She sank to her knees, sobbing quietly.

Someone knocked at the door.

"Go away," she called in Spanish, holding her hair away from her wet flushed face, crying.

"Nancy?"

Nancy clung to the sink and climbed to her feet, rinsed her face and scowled at her smeared mascara. "Just a minute," she called back, breathing deeply. When she opened the door Mariah was standing there.

"You okay?"

"I think I'm just tired," Nancy replied, attempting a smile.

"You want to go back? We can call a cab," she offered.

"Yeah, I think that would be a good idea," Nancy admitted. "I'm sorry."

When the cab pulled up at her apartment building, the blinding halo of a police car was lighting the parking lot. "What happened?" Nancy asked the driver.

"Who knows," the driver said.

Nancy found her roommates standing in the living room, sipping coffee. "What's going on outside?"

"You missed it," Mina said. "There's a thief."

"Here?" Nancy gasped. "Something was stolen here?"

"Not yet," Allie said. "But judging by how many people have had things stolen..."

Nancy unlocked her room and found the engagement ring still on her nightstand. With trembling fingers she took off her necklace and threaded the thin chain through the ring, then put it back around her neck.

Even if Ned was a cheating slimeball, she didn't want his family ring stolen.

--

Ned had just walked into the locker room after practice, sweeping his helmet off. Cole muttered something under his breath but Ned didn't catch it.

Then he saw Sheri, standing in front of his locker.

Ned paused for a moment, considering, then walked straight toward her. He stared at his locker, his face wooden, until Sheri moved over slightly to allow him access.

"We need to talk."

Ned made a soft disbelieving noise in his throat and grabbed his duffel bag.

"I mean it."

He pushed the locker closed and headed toward the showers, and she was at his heels. "If I have to I'll go in there with you."

"No, you won't," Ned said, without looking at her. "I don't care what you have to say to me."

She recoiled. "Why are you being like this?" she snapped. "After what happened."

Before Ned knew what he was doing, he'd swept a bare arm toward her, and she backed into a wall quickly to avoid it. Ned took a long breath. "Stay away from me."

Sheri wrapped her arms around her waist. "I'll wait until you get dressed," she said.

The water dripped off the ring as he showered quickly, silent. Once he was dressed he found a side door and took that out of the locker room, but Sheri was leaning against the hood of his car, waiting for him.

Ned sighed. "Go home," he told her.

"We need to talk."

"You said that," Ned replied. "And I still don't care."

Sheri stared at him for a minute, then dropped her gaze to her purse. "Fine," she said. "I'm pregnant."

Ned's mouth dropped open slightly, but he didn't say anything. His stomach had dropped to his feet.

Sheri narrowed her eyes at him. "You bastard."

"We didn't have sex," he hissed in her direction. The side door opened and a few players walked out. Ned unlocked his car and Sheri slid into the passenger seat.

"You know damn well we didn't have sex," Ned repeated, once they were alone inside the car.

"I know you were out of it, but not that out of it," Sheri said.

Ned ran a hand through his hair. "Bitch," he said. "You have no proof."

"My friend was in your room," Sheri said. "My friend saw us alone in there when she left. Or did you forget that too."

Ned was quiet for a minute. Then he started laughing, bitterly. "So you waited until a contract came my way before you decided to come and spring this on me."

"I didn't find out until a few days ago," she told him.

"Get out."

Sheri paused, then reached out to touch Ned's arm. Ned shrank back and pushed himself out of the car, stalking around to her door. He opened it and stood silently, his mouth a line. Sheri stared up at him, from beneath smoke-dark lids, then slipped one shapely leg out of the car. "This isn't over," she said.

"Yes it is," he said. "Get out of my car."

She left, but not before at least five of his teammates had watched her leave. Ned sat in his car, numb, the keys dangling in the cold ignition.

The smooth light slide of her hair brushing his chest.

Ned rested his forehead against the steering wheel, hating the persistence of his breath.

--

Nancy shoved the slip of paper into her pocket and looked at the stone building. The sign read that they were closed on Sundays.

No one else.

A single tear slipped down her cheek, and she continued her walk up the street. She hadn't spoken to her father since she'd found out. Not since she was sure. She could take care of it and everything would be all right and then she could talk to her father again. He wouldn't know.

Her cell phone rang and her heart was in her throat. With trembling fingers she dug it out of her purse and checked the display.

"Bess?"

"Hey," Bess said. "You okay?"

Nancy spotted a vacant bench and headed for it, fighting to keep her breath steady. "I'm okay," Nancy said. "How are you doing?"

"Oh, pretty good. Midterms, you know. And of course wishing you were here to help me with the studying. Or at least the concentrating."

"Bess," Nancy said, then fell quiet.

"You sound like you're outside," Bess said. "Or you're upset about something."

Nancy covered her face with her hand and took a deep breath. She felt like she would never stop shaking. "I'm pregnant."

Bess was quiet. "Is... are you..." Then she laughed under her breath. "Are you happy?"

"No," Nancy moaned. "God, no."

"Did you tell Ned?" Bess sounded hesitant.

Nancy laughed. "No."

"But you're going to."

Nancy sighed. "I don't know if I am or not," she said slowly.

"You have to."

"How do I have to?" Nancy demanded. A sudden surge of anger rose in her. "I owe him anything, after what he did to me?"

"I'm sorry," Bess said in a small voice. "I'm sorry."

"I am too," Nancy said. "God."

"So you're coming back early?"

"I don't think so," Nancy said. "Not until December."

"But-- Nan, I mean, this is huge."

"It doesn't have to be," Nancy said. "Don't tell anyone else. Especially not my dad."

"Not even George?"

"I guess George," Nancy said. "But that's it. I mean it."

"Okay, okay," Bess said defensively. "When did you find out?"

"A few days ago. I wouldn't believe the pregnancy test, but I went to the doctor and, yeah, I'm sure."

"I can't believe you're going to have a baby," Bess sighed.

Nancy glanced back over her shoulder, at the clinic. "Me either," Nancy replied.

--

Nancy could pinpoint the exact moment when Bess told George, because George called, with the same hesitant congratulations. Nancy put off her friend's questions with the same ill ease, resolving that on Monday she would go by the clinic and have the problem resolved. Bess and George would have no reason to disbelieve that she'd had a miscarriage.

On Monday Nancy walked out of class and caught the bus. Someone else who lived in her complex called for that stop, and Nancy stared out the window, steeling herself.

It didn't work. When the bus stopped Nancy took it, looking up at her familiar apartment window, feeling infinitely tired. Tomorrow, she told herself.

"I will see you in town tomorrow?"

Carlos was standing at the bus stop, in a black shirt and jeans, smiling at her. Nancy's mouth went dry at the sight.

"I think you will."

Carlos glanced at the bus, then waved it on. "I had better," he said. "You are the entire reason I go."

Nancy blushed, smiling despite herself, blinking back the tears that had been rising. "So your grade isn't important?"

"Not that important," he said softly. "So I will see you?"

"Yes, yes," Nancy gave in. "I'll see you."

"Good."

Nancy left him standing at the stop and climbed up to her apartment, then stood with her back against her door, her hand on the lock.

"Yeah," she repeated, still smiling faintly.