“Ya think?” she shot back.

“Sorry, um, just, you know…a little surprised.” She sighed and averted her eyes a bit, gazing up the stairs.

So many possible things to say popped into my head. Are you sure it’s mine? Too insulting. But I’m sterile! Too…well, a lie. Well at least you might go up a bra size. Too horribly wrong.

“It’s been…what, three months?” tumbled out of my mouth.

Her look was not a happy one, “Do you really think I’d come to you before I was absolutely sure?”

Perhaps to justify myself, I wound up saying, “You told me not to call you, not to talk to youin the office, not to…”

“Look,” she interrupted, “it’s complicated. Besides, it’s not like I knew this was going to happen. I’m…there’s…” But the explanation died in her throat.

There we stood for I don’t know how long. Time stretched out and pinged off the cement walls of the stairwell. Our eyes strayed everywhere but upon one another. To describe the scene as awkward would be an understatement.