She aggressively turned a page of Beef Magazine, making clear to anyone who might be watching through the glass front wall of the rental car agency that she had no intention on putting down this extremely interesting piece on cattle lice. Apparently there was more than one kind, so first you had to determine which species your herd was infested with and then begin the treatment process. She briefly wondered if Kyle and Cam knew about this, and then shoved them out of her head. Though it was kind of hard not to think about them when she was a) reading a magazine about cows and b) Kyle Walker was patiently—or obnoxiously—waiting for her in his truck about a dozen feet away from where she sat in a waiting room, waiting for a nonexistent person who would rescue her from this absurd and enraging situation.

Maybe if she informed him that within an hour of being warned off his son she had slept with him not once, but twice at the side of the highway—"slept" was perhaps not the most accurate word for the filthy rutting in the dirt they had done—and then given him a blowjob for good measure in the cab of his truck on the way home, maybe then the father would finally drive off and leave her alone. Because she had a bad feeling that he was probably way more stubborn than she was when it came down to it, probably even moreso than his son, and she might be stuck here for a very, very long time. Or else have to give in and walk.

Thus far the rental car office's lone employee had not reappeared after taking the rental car keys from her and heading out back, so she hadn't had an audience for what was going on. Her luck ran out at last, however, and he was back behind the counter now and eyeing her quizzically.

"Uh, I think your ride might be here ma'am," he said. He had a distinct New York City accent, which was a relief; it wasn't likely that he part of whatever small town cabal was intent on causing her maximum embarrassment and wouldn't recognize Kyle Walker's truck, nor the high school English teacher who was ignoring him.

"Nope, not me," she said, and glanced around the empty waiting room as though to locate whoever else it might be for.

"Oh, okay," the guy replied, albeit with a note of doubt in his voice. He was pale and chubby, and looked like he spent his time off playing online Dungeons and Dragons or whatever guys like that used to avoid the world at large. Not that she could blame him.

She returned to her story on cattle lice, determined to read it through until the bitter, buggy end regardless of who or what was watching her from the parking lot, or how completely absurd her situation must appear to the rental car guy. She heard the truck's engine shift to a quiet murmer, and then finally, as though settling in for the long haul, its driver turned the engine off.

Next she chose an article that promised to expose the top seven cattle fencing mistakes, and how to avoid them, and was turning the pages to find it when the rental car guy interrupted.

"Uh, do you need a ride?" he asked. "You know, you get a free ride with your rental."

He pointed down to a large sign prominently hung in front of the counter that said exactly that.

Right, she thought.

"Yes, that would be great, I actually just got a text from my friend saying she couldn't make it," she said with as much dignity as possible. She slapped the magazine back down onto the table again and stood up, more than ready to head home.

"Shall we?" she said, and without another word followed him out the front door. As she climbed into the passenger seat of his car she heard the truck start up its engine, pull out of the parking lot, and speed away.

"Guess he changed his mind," the rental car guy said as he slipped on a pair of hideous aviator sunglasses and popped in a Metallica CD. She smiled to herself, and for once felt a little less alone in the flatlands of East Texas.

***

When she woke up the third morning in a row nauseated and exhausted in spite of a full night's sleep she finally relented and drove herself to a drug store two towns over, praying the whole way that she wouldn't run into anyone she knew. She had briefly considered driving the two hours to San Antonio to guarantee total anonymity in the comforting crowds of a major metropolis, but she knew she wouldn't make it there the way her stomach was feeling; and in fact she pulled into the parking lot of a Walgreens a half hour later just in time to open her car door and heave a few saltines and some water onto the blacktop.

She groaned, then pulled her heavy, tired body out of her car, dragged it into the brightly lit chill of the drug store, and managed, she hoped, to purchase a pregnancy test without being spotted by any former students, their families, or their nosy neighbors.

Who knew that small town life in the south was equivalent to living life behind the Iron Curtain, where every step you took, every word you uttered, was either closely monitored by those around you, and even if they weren't you still lived in constant fear that they were.

"Well at least no one is going to deport me to a gulag," she told her reflection in the bathroom mirror less than an hour later, trying not to stare at the plastic white stick that was busily deciding whether or not she had fucked up even worse that she had thought possible. Her face appeared unnaturally pale, though she hoped it had something to do with the flat, ugly glare of the cheap lightbulbs Melvin had furnished the bathroom fixtures with. Her summer in suburban New Jersey had helped to fade away some of the nut brown color from her skin, which she had picked up during her year in Texas almost solely from walking from her car to the inside of a building and back. She hadn't even known her skin had that much melanin in it. The sun down here, like the people, didn't mess around.

The timer on her phone went off.

She picked up the pee stick and held it up to the light.

Yup, she was fucked. Thoroughly and completely fucked.

She dropped down onto the lid of the peach toilet and felt herself slip into a mindless daze. The whole damn bathroom was painted a dismal, dull peach color, with paint that her landlord had bragged about picking up for free at the county dump. He had called it "the color of a Mexican brothel" when he insisted on coming over to give the bathroom a new paint job, and then looked at her expectently for her reaction. She hadn't been sure if she was supposed to appear impressed or shocked by his apparent familiarity with the insides of a whorehouse in Mexico, and had only greeted his crack with a disgusted sigh.

But back to the pee stick and its very clear message to her. No, she thought, and shook her head vigorously, as though in heated argument with the pee stick. No, there was no way this was possible. Not after everything she had been through, with the lost baby, and the lost fiance, and now her lost mother. She had flown across the country—not once but twice now—packing not much more than a suitcase of clothes and her empty womb so that she could escape all of that loss, all of that sadness and regret and her own failure at fulfilling the needs of those who she loved most in the world. Beginning with the baby she had failed to carry to term, and so failed to do her one and only duty as a mother and provider of life.

Except of course it was possible. Because a miscarriage didn't mean she couldn't get pregnant again. Because you couldn't escape life, no matter how hard you tried. And because she had been a complete and utter idiot and failed to use birth control with both men.

"Oh shit!" she cried out, suddenly remembering. "Shit shit shit shit shit."

With all three men.

Just as that was beginning to sink in, her phone vibrated on the bathroom counter next to her with a new text, making her jump. When she picked it up and saw that it was Cam, her first, irrational thought was that he had already found out she was pregnant; her second, after reading his text, was more like a sensory experience, the hot chill of a blush prickling across her face and the familiar sparks of desire leaping deep inside her belly. 

https://youtu.be/tAGnKpE4NCI