Haunted Heroine

by Sarah Kuhn

  “Evie,” he repeated, his voice soft against my hair. “What’s going on? Please talk to me.”

  “I . . . hic . . . pregnant,” I managed through sobs. “Me. Baby. Test . . . hic . . . positive. I’m pregnant.”

  “I . . . I see. And you’re distressed about it?” His tone was neutral, giving nothing away.

  “N-no.” I swallowed hard, trying to get the tears under control. Then I made myself turn my face up to him, meeting his eyes. “I’m happy. I was . . . I just got so overwhelmed. It was like . . . all these feelings exploded. I don’t think I ever thought I could imagine this, even though we talked about it, I . . .” I hiccupped again, and his arms tightened around me. “I’m so happy right now. And I’m usually afraid to let myself feel happy about anything, I’m too busy second guessing it or overthinking it, but . . . yeah. It’s like the feeling is so big, I can’t do any of that. I just have to let it happen. And yeah . . . happy.” A goofy smile stretched across my face and a warm glow blossomed in my chest. “But Nate, how do you feel? You can be honest. I know we’ve talked about this, but it’s never been this real. I don’t think I ever thought it could be real . . .”

  My eyes searched his, trying to figure out what he was thinking. A tiny note of uncertainty pinged through me—what if he didn’t feel the same way? What if my happiness was a silly momentary reaction, not founded in anything and not something he could ever reciprocate?

  What if, what if, what if . . .

  Then the biggest, goofiest grin broke out across his face too.

  “I am having a similar reaction,” he said.

  “Does that mean you’re happy too?”

  “Yes,” he said, pulling me closer. “Yes, I am. I . . . it’s as you said. I’m overwhelmed. I can’t overthink it, I can only . . . feel.” His smile got wider, the warmth in my chest surged, and I snuggled closer to him—reveling in his solidness and the familiar scent of his skin. Fresh and clean, like the air after a rainstorm. I loved feeling surrounded by him. No matter how out of control my life was, he always made me feel safe.

  He stroked his thumb down my cheek, wiping away my remaining tears. Then he kissed me, his lips soft and sweet and searching. Almost tentative, like he was asking me for the answer to an unspoken question, his hands gentle against my face. I responded by deepening our kiss, winding my arms around his neck and pulling him closer, parting his lips with my tongue.

  We eventually—barely—made it back to our bed and there were no more words for a while. Just his big hands, hot against my bare skin. His mouth, exploring every inch of my body. Our eyes meeting when he slid inside of me, something unspoken passing between us. I think in that moment we both felt so free. Like we’d been released from all the hurt we’d endured to get to each other, and we could finally just exist in joy, pleasure, passion. We could just be.

  I wish I could have preserved that moment forever. Because after that, reality set in.

  When we were lying together later, tangled in the sheets, I’d mentioned I needed to make a doctor’s appointment.

  “Yes,” Nate said, his fingertips tracing idle patterns down my back that made me shiver. His voice was relaxed, sleepy. So content. That glow bloomed in my chest again. I was on my side, nestled against him, warm all over. “I assume you’ll want to go to Doctor Goo?”

  “For sure, she’s the best,” I said.

  Doctor Rebekah Goo was the city’s leading OB-GYN to supernaturally enhanced humans—her practice had flourished over the last decade, as those of us who had been blessed with superpowers often needed someone who understood the unique effects on our physiology. Nate served as my and Aveda’s general physician, but Doctor Goo helped us with all gynecological needs.

  I knew she’d successfully birthed many babies of superpowered people. So far, none of those babies had showed any sign of possessing their own powers, but potentially powered offspring was an area she’d taken great pains to study, research, and write papers on, keeping the medical community up to date on the latest and greatest in superhero reproduction.

  But this would be an entirely new thing for her.

  “Hey, are we the first people to have a baby with both superhero and demon DNA?” I murmured, snuggling closer to Nate. “I think we might be. I bet Doctor Goo will be really excited about that.”

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized they were momentous. Not the idle chit-chat I’d thought they were.

  They echoed back in my head, each syllable landing with a thud.

  The first people to have a baby with both superhero and demon DNA.

  The first baby with both superhero and demon DNA.

  The first complete disaster baby delivered to people who aren’t ready to be parents and definitely did not think this through and have enough of their own problems already and—

  This was another thing we’d talked about, of course—how demon DNA and superhero DNA might combine. But it had been in that same abstract way we’d discussed having kids, period. We hadn’t really thought through what it would mean.

  “You’re right,” Nate said. His voice had changed in an instant—now it wasn’t sleepy at all. Now he sounded uncomfortably alert. His hand went still against my back, his palm flattening between my shoulder blades like he was trying to anchor himself. “It is the first.”

  “It’s going to be okay, though,” I said hastily. I shoved the worry percolating in my chest aside and turned my face up to look at him. “I’m sure Doctor Goo will have a lot of useful thoughts.”

  “Of course,” Nate said, his voice sounding far away. “Doctor Goo is very smart.”

  His brows drew together as he sank into deep thought. His hand, I noticed, fell away from my back entirely.

  “Hey.” I sat up a little and took his face in my hands, making him look at me. “Nate. Maybe we should talk about this more—are you sure you . . .” My throat tightened, but I made myself get the words out. “Are you sure you want this?”

  Surprise flashed over his face, and he met my eyes, his gaze focusing. “Yes,” he said with conviction. “Yes, I absolutely do.”

  “Me too,” I said, relaxing a little. He was all in, just like he had been with us. “And seriously. We’re going to be all right. The baby’s going to be all right. Remember how we both felt in the bathroom earlier . . .” I flashed back to that moment, trying to call up that feeling of overwhelming happiness again. “All that joy. Let’s try to hold on to that. I love you, and this is incredible.”

  “I love you too,” he said, smiling slightly at me. It wasn’t quite his goofy, out-of-control grin from earlier, but it was enough for me to feel momentarily soothed.

  And for a bit, we were able to hold on to some of that happy.

  Doctor Goo assured us that everything was fine, I seemed perfectly healthy, the pregnancy was progressing as normal. But I could tell Nate was still worried. It was the way he gripped my hand at our first appointment. The way his brow never seemed to unfurrow. The way his voice got extra serious whenever he asked Doctor Goo a question. I didn’t want him to know I was worried too because that would make him even more worried, so I tried to put up a good front. I pasted on that smile with all my might.

  I think we kept trying to grab back on to that sensation of overwhelming joy we’d felt at first. But then . . . other stuff happened. Bea was going through a crisis both personal and supernatural, and that stoked all my worries. If I’d totally failed to set her up for successful adulthood, why did I think I was fit to be a parent? Why had I let myself be swept away by that initial giddiness? Why had I thought I could do this at all?

  On the other side of it, I was frustrated that I couldn’t simply return to that giddiness. That I couldn’t glow as an expectant mother should. The fact that I was so conflicted made me feel like there was something wrong with me.

  Our joy kept slipping away, replaced by si
lence and both of us retreating into the spiral of our own thoughts.

  Then my blood pressure spiked, and that’s when Nate’s worrywarting really kicked in.

  Ever since then, he’d been looking at me with constant concern, as if he expected me to collapse on the spot. He called Doctor Goo every time I had so much as a headache, he encouraged me to go to bed if I felt even a little lightheaded, and he went into full protective mode whenever I threw up.

  And we hadn’t had sex in weeks—over a month, actually. My overactive pregnancy hormones were protesting hard.

  I kept trying to initiate, thinking it might take us back to that moment again—our eyes meeting when he slid inside of me. Us feeling so connected, so together, so free.

  But he kept shutting it down. And he always said something about my health, how I shouldn’t be engaging in strenuous activity.

  All I could really do . . . was just keep telling him how totally okay I was.

  Maybe if I kept saying it, he’d believe it.

  Maybe I would too.

  I heaved a mighty sigh, shoved down the queasiness that was still hanging out, and looked around for things to distract myself. I grabbed my phone off the nightstand and scrolled around, idly clicking on things. I was trying to avoid anything having to do with Maisy’s big “scoop,” but it was already everywhere. My and Aveda’s fans (the EVEDA hive) were gushing about possible Insta-worthy superbaby showers and birthing plans and speculating on what would happen once the baby arrived. Would it affect my superheroing career?

  Y’all, trust in Evie, she knows what she’s doing, one starry-eyed post read. She is proof positive that you can have it all!

  “Yeesh,” I muttered, recoiling and trying to breathe through the panic. An email notification popped up and I clicked over, fully expecting it to be Maisy asking me for an exclusive interview. Which I would relish saying no to.

  But it was something else. Something containing the name of an institution I hadn’t thought about in a long time.

  Greetings, esteemed alum, from Morgan College! We are ever so pleased to invite you to your class reunion, taking place this coming weekend. Activities include . . .

  Wait, what?

  I hadn’t even graduated from Morgan. Why was I getting a class reunion invite? Just seeing the school’s name provoked such an immediate, visceral response, I nearly dropped the phone.

  But hadn’t I come a long way since then? Hadn’t I experienced, as Aveda said, a “glow-up”? Why did simply seeing the school’s name still bother me so much?

  It was so weird to think about that time now—and that girl, struggling her way through a challenging program and trying to balance all the other parts of her increasingly chaotic life. I’d had hopes and dreams that hadn’t come true—but they’d given way to hopes and dreams I’d never even imagined.

  I pictured myself back then, sleep-deprived and stumbling across the beautiful, tree-lined campus: dark brown hair a messy tangle of curls (not that it was much different these days), impressive bags ever-present under my cloudy hazel eyes, wearing the same clothes as the day before. Even the smattering of freckles across my nose had looked tired.

  I remembered sitting in the tiny office I’d shared with two other grad students/teaching assistants—we hadn’t been super close, but for some reason, we had a running joke about all the odd and illicit things people must have done in that office after hours. Maybe because the office was located in such an odd little nook, tucked away in one of the corners of Morgan Hall, a majestic, multi-story building replete with high ceilings and swirling architectural flourishes. At night, after the undergrads had gone back to their dorms, it wasn’t hard to imagine all kinds of strange things happening there—and indeed, there were always stories about weird noises or ghostly figures or stuff moving around with no explanation. The college, with its heady mix of beautiful nature, crumbling old buildings, and shadowy nooks and crannies, had a reputation for being extremely haunted.

  Of course, my fellow TAs and I also wondered about people using the office after-hours for sex. For the most part, we were all too tired and overworked to even think about such things. But near the end of my grad school career, I’d entered into an ill-advised relationship with the professor I TA-ed for, Richard. I was twenty-two and he was twenty-six, so he was only a few years older than me (he’d gone to college young, something he reminded me about on a near daily basis), and sometimes we felt like colleagues . . . even though we technically weren’t.

  We’d had a moment after class one day, discussing gender roles in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and . . . I don’t know. Looking back now, it felt very unlike the Evie of the time—the Evie who was so quiet and studious and practical, always exhausted and fading into the background and trying to suppress her fire power with all her might. Scared Mouse Evie. But I guess I’d needed an escape, and an illicit romance had seemed thrilling at first. Decadent, like a shiny treat I was allowing myself amidst the gray of my daily life.

  We’d never actually done it in anyone’s office, but I’d developed a fantasy around the idea, something I only indulged when I was so tired that my exhaustion somehow worked the opposite way, making me wired and antsy and unable to fall asleep. I always imagined a tall, dark stranger sauntering in—maybe he was a new TA in the department or a professor I’d never met or just some hot guy who happened to be visiting the campus of a women’s college late at night for some reason . . . um, ew. Okay, never mind that part—but in my fantasy, this tall stranger and I didn’t talk. Because the idea of talking just contributed to my overall exhaustion.

  This stranger would come into my office late at night, we’d exchange smoldering gazes, and then he’d reach over and brush his fingertips lightly against my collarbone . . .

  Oddly enough, the stranger in my fantasy never looked like Richard—perhaps that should have been a sign we weren’t meant to be. I’d told him about the fantasy once, thinking maybe he’d want to help me make it real. Instead he spent forty-five minutes lecturing me on how I should try to develop “more empowered” sexual fantasies, where I was “a woman warrior who consummates only after the male has proved himself worthy and confessed his undying love.”

  “You’re a strong woman of color,” he’d said, giving me one of the self-satisfied smiles that meant he was particularly proud of all that enlightened thinking he was getting to show off. “Don’t you want to have representationally strong fantasies?”

  I wanted to tell him that being a strong woman of color was wearing me out on a daily basis, and sometimes I just wanted a hot, mysterious stranger to fuck me against my desk.

  Hmm. Thinking about that hot stranger now was enough to send my pregnancy-fueled hormones into overdrive.

  Especially since my husband hadn’t touched me in a month.

  Okay, maybe this was the way to distract myself.

  I slid under the covers, grabbed my vibrator from the nightstand, and closed my eyes. Then I tried to settle myself into the fantasy—remembering the soft darkness of the office, the scent from the eucalyptus trees wafting in through the window next to my desk. It was easy to imagine Nate as the stranger—his big, broad frame taking up most of the doorway as he strode in, brushed his fingertips over my collarbone, then allowed them to trail downward . . .

  “Evie?”

  I let out an embarrassingly loud scream, my eyes flying open. Luckily I hadn’t actually turned the vibrator on yet, so I shoved it more fully under the covers. Nate—the real Nate—was striding into our bedroom, but he didn’t look like he was in the mood for what I’d just been imagining. His face was lit with concern. As it always was these days.

  “Sorry I startled you,” he said, sitting down next to me on the bed. “How are you feeling?”

  “Fine,” I said automatically, pasting that big smile across my face. “I took my anti-nausea medication. And my blood pressure medication.
And now I’m just . . .” I trailed off, studying him. He still looked worried, his eyes scanning me for something amiss. Even though I’d shucked off the bridesmaid dress, I was still in my underwear—a matching set in bright coral lace. But that didn’t seem to be doing anything for him. He was still looking at me like I was a particularly fragile lab specimen, something that would shatter if he so much as touched me.

  I, on the other hand, was probably looking at him like I was a drooling cartoon dog and he was a big, tasty steak. He’d taken off the jacket and tie he’d worn for the wedding, but he was still wearing his crisp white dress shirt, unbuttoned just a bit at the top. It was a little tight around the arms—just enough to hug the well-defined muscle of his biceps and to stoke the fire of my already revved-up hormones.

  “You know,” I said, leaning forward in a way that I hoped really showed off my slightly bigger pregnancy boobs, “I was just thinking about earlier. In the closet. When you . . .”

  Rejected me. Again.

  “When we were starting to have a good time,” I amended. I reached over and grazed my fingertips over the exposed skin of his neck. “Doctor Goo said some strenuous physical activity is a good thing, you know. For both me and the baby. And since I’ve taken the blood pressure med now . . .”

  I trailed off suggestively. Well, as suggestively as one can when using blood pressure medication as foreplay.

  He’d gone very still, but I could feel goosebumps pebbling his skin. Could see how his posture stiffened and his eyes went to my cleavage, so enticingly displayed in bright coral lace.

  I let my fingertips drift lower.

  “Evie,” he said, his voice husky.

  “Yes?” I said, leaning in more.

  “I . . . need to get back to work.” He shook his head like he was trying to get clear of whatever sexytimes fog had temporarily descended over us, gently removing my hand from his neck and scooting away from me on the bed. “I have some important analyses I’m in the middle of. And after everything today, you should be resting.”