Page 97 - In Five Years

“There was no awning,” I say. I go to the refrigerator and take out almond
milk and hazelnut Coffee Mate. Bella remembered and picked it up for me.
“Yes there was,” she says. “It was two blocks from the Wawa, and you guys
kept bikes down there and we’d lock them up at the condos with the blue

awnings!”
I hand her the almond milk. She shakes and pours.

“There was a dead seagull on the beach today,” I say.
“Gross. Rotting carcass? Snapped spine into bone-popping shreds? Fly-eaten
eyes pecked down to hollow sockets?”
“Stop.” I slide her my phone, and she looks.

“I’ve seen worse.”
“You know they fall out of the sky when they die?” I say.

“Yeah? What else would you expect them to do?”
The coffee machine downshifts into maintenance, and I pour myself a full
cup, adding a hefty portion of creamer.

I go to sit next to Bella at the counter.
“Doesn’t look like a beach day,” she says. She swivels on her stool and looks
outside.

“It’ll burn off.”
She shrugs, takes a sip, makes a face.
“I don’t know how you drink that almond water,” I say. “Why suffer? Do you

know how good this is?” I hold my cup out to her.
“It’s milk,” she says.
“It’s really not.”

“It’s me,” she says. “I’ve just been feeling funky all week.”
“Are you sick?”
She swallows. I feel something catch in my throat.

“I’m pregnant,” she says. “I mean, I’m pretty sure.”
I look at her. Her whole face is shining. It’s like staring at the sun.
“You think or you know?”

“Think,” she says. “Know?”
“Bella.”
“I know. It’s crazy. I started feeling strange last week, though.”

“Have you taken a test?”