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Formula for a Perfect Life

By Christy Hayes

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Formula for a Perfect Life
Chapter One
Kayla Cummings stared at the two lines so long her vision blurred. Her breath came fast and faster until her lungs felt too full, too thick, too heavy to function. Her mind whirled, her neurons firing through a maze of wrong turns and dead ends. She dropped the stick with the prison-bar stripes onto the counter and fell back against the bathroom door, freefalling in the void of denial.
No. No. Just … NO.
Kayla swiped the evidence into the trash with the back of her hand and stared where it landed, nestled between used tissues and a discarded tube of lipstick. She kicked the trashcan to move the stick, forcing it deeper into the bin. When that didn’t obscure the proof of her life-altering mistake, she pulled a length of toilet paper from the roll and balled it in her fist, lobbing it onto the pile. She exhaled when she could no longer see the stick, but she couldn’t force her shoulders to lower from their perch around her ears.
If only she could discard the news the way she discarded the messenger. Those prison-bar stripes were branded to her forehead, tattooed on her arms, a neon sign blazing in the dark. She washed her hands, scrubbing them raw. Her pulse echoed between her ears. What have you done? What are you going to do? How could you be so stupid?
She looked into the mirror and blinked at her reflection, disgusted. How could she look the same—same cornflower-blue eyes, same ragamuffin blonde hair, same pixie face that earned her the nickname of Tinkerbell—when everything had changed. She’d always loved her nickname and the idea of staying forever young. Like it or not, her youth had crashed and burned with the appearance of those two lines.
Kayla stumbled into her bedroom, crumbled onto her bed, and clutched her stuffed bear to her chest. She nuzzled the musty and matted fur and tried to accept what her brain rejected. A baby. How could she have a baby? Some girls hooked up all the time and never got pregnant. She did it once—one stupid, careless time—and made a baby? She couldn’t make sense of the senseless.
She should have listened to her gut—churning with more than lust, more than excitement—while he dug through the console and glove compartment in search of a condom. How many times had her mom told her that sinking, buzzing feeling was her internal meter signaling danger? More than enough times for Kayla to heed the warning and stop. She distinctly remembered his satisfied, relieved look as he held up the foil package—to the victor go the spoils.
He was the victor and she’d gotten spoiled.
She pinched her eyes closed and choked back the memory, slapping a PG rating on her X-rated night.
Beckoned by the intoxicating lure of sleep, Kayla lifted the pink and white blanket from the foot of the bed and yanked it over herself, tucking it under her chin and around Mr. Snuggles. She might not be able to face the truth, but she could hide from it in her dreams. Maybe this was the dream, a nightmare she could laugh about with her roommates. Exhausted and nauseated from the scent of her candy-apple candle, Kayla plunged into sleep.
***
Two numbing days later, as Kayla’s religion professor lectured on the historical influence of Jesus Christ in the modern-day calendar, she stared into space and realized she too would classify everything in her life as before or after. Before she knew, after she knew.
She longed to go back to before.
Someone tapped her arm, drawing her attention to the present. She turned her head and blinked at the cute boy next to her.
“Hey,” he said. “I dropped my pen and it rolled under your seat. Would you mind handing it to me, please?”
Kayla flinched. It was the first and only time he’d spoken directly to her and the cadence of his voice, the earthy depth of it, spurred her into motion. She looked down, spotted the pen on the dingy marble, and leaned over to pick it up. She winced when she squashed her tender breast. His fingers brushed hers in the transfer, and his smile sent his dimple quivering like a coy heroine in the romance novels she devoured.
“Thanks.”
Before, Kayla would have felt hyperaware of him beside her. That Kayla would have obsessed about her hair, her outfit, her makeup or lack thereof. She would try not to fidget in her seat, sneak him glances, or spin fantasies in her mind. Old habits were hard to break. For a moment, Kayla mourned the loss. His broad shoulders would never absorb her tears, his fingers with the neatly clipped nails would never hold her, his mouth—that wide masculine mouth—would never utter the words she longed to hear.
But this was after.
She couldn’t muster the energy to smile back or say, “You’re welcome” or even care. The cute boy next to her and his deep voice and dimply smile mattered little now. After.
Sighing, she tried to zone back into the lecture. Her grades were one of the only things she could still control. She couldn’t afford to get behind in school. Not now, not when it took every ounce of energy to pull herself out of bed, dress, and get to class. Her education—her graduation—depended upon paying attention and finishing strong. Her future, on the other side of those pink prison-bar stripes, seemed as uncertain as a few days ago when she’d discovered the truth.
When the other students shoved laptops into backpacks and stood to leave, Kayla followed like a catatonic robot. She had to snap out of her funk, face reality, and make plans. She couldn’t continue to wade through the quicksand of uncertainty. Doing nothing, pretending she didn’t have a ticking time bomb within her, was as irresponsible as the act that put her in this predicament.
At first, she hadn’t seen the harm in taking time for introspection, weighing her options, tossing around possibilities. Now, the harm was her total lack of concentration on anything but her situation. With finals fast approaching and the lengthy Christmas break that followed looming, she couldn’t waste valuable time on what-ifs. She had to face what was.
She pushed out of the building, squinting her eyes at the blast of sunlight through December’s barren trees, and gulped cool air into her lungs. She had to start talking. Rip off the Band-Aid and deal with the fallout. She cut across the quad, leaves crunching under her feet, and tried to set an agenda.
Who would she tell first? Who would share her burden, give her guidance, and hold her hand? Which of her roommates could she trust not to judge? Her emotions were so raw, she could bleed to death from a sarcastic quip.
Just a few months ago, Kayla would have gone straight to Reagan. Sharp and determined, Reagan would’ve been able to drill down to the heart of the problem and help Kayla figure out her next move. But with Reagan and boyfriend Dash building a life together based on their mutual faith, she seemed a risky choice.
Emily had endured her fair share of drama—breaking up with one brother to date the other. Since none of her roommates liked Zach, none of them cared when Emily tossed him aside for Dylan. Emily and Dylan had floated through life in a bubble of happiness ever since, and spending their lives together seemed a foregone conclusion.
Kayla knew what perma-single Shelby would say. But Kayla wasn’t ready to make a decision before weighing all her options, and she worried about Shelby’s lack of patience for Kayla’s wishy-washy ways.
Her conscience nudged her toward the other person she had to tell—the only person who needed to know her condition, the only one who mattered, the only one who deserved a say. No. She’d tell her roommates first. If she didn’t, she feared the truth would burst forth in class or in casual conversation with one of her sorority sisters or friends. Like a tire filled to bursting, she had to relieve the pressure in order to think.
Reagan, Emily, or Shelby? She’d leave it to chance and tell the first person she encountered at home. Like it or not, she couldn’t spend another moment keeping her secret to herself.

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