Carly Sevens
I’d reached the half way point in my finals with no contact from anyone back home. The time had passed and I’d heard nothing from either of my parents. Jack refused to let anything enter the bubble of our world. He loved our bubble. My life pretty much consisted of sleep, study, exams or sex. I hated that I loved how simple my life had become. But I knew when the final exam was over, our bubble world would burst and I’d have to acknowledge the huge whopping gap my parents had once occupied.
I didn’t see Jack at all during the day. He went to work and I only flitted in and out of the place to sit my exams.
It was during one of my home alone study sessions that a disaster the size of a NATO fallout occurred to me.
I’d not had a period.
Okay, I was lying. It didn’t occur to me at all. I went rooting in the bathroom cabinet for toilet paper and as I dragged a roll out, my tampons came with it. So, two things occurred to me: firstly, where had my period run off to? And, secondly, why hadn’t I been to the nurse’s office to get my depo shot renewed?
My heart raced as I reached for my cell phone, and sure enough, I’d missed the appointment months ago. I was a bloody, stupid idiot and all because I hadn’t set an alarm in my phone, the appointment had come and gone.
I was too scared to think about all the ramifications of my stupidity but I just knew with everything else going on in my life, this was a case of two plus two definitely equals baby.
Jack was due home in about an hour, so I had limited time to get to the nearest drug store and grab a test. With the offending item stuffed in my back pack and a Chinese takeout swinging from my hand, I decided I’d wait until he came home to do the test. If the worst came of the result, I wanted him with me so we could make a decision together.
I was jumpy throughout dinner, but I was managing to play it off as exam stress, and Mom and Dad stress.
“I know I should have told you this a while back, but I resigned from my post when we came back from Hawkstown.”
I dropped my fork as he finished his words. “You did what?”
“I didn’t want to worry you, but I wanted to get in there and take control of my fate without your father intervening.”
“But he didn’t do anything, did he?” I shouted at him.
“If you’ll let me finish… No, he didn’t. But I’m not staying here if you you’re going back home. So, I handed my notice in.”
Fucking hell that was ages ago. “And you didn’t think to mention it. Christ, Jack, you can’t just throw shit like that out without discussing it. What if I was planning to stay here with you?”
“You’re not, though, are you. And you’re a good person. You would have told me.” Jack smiled at me with the cheeky grin that usually got him out of everything.
I got up from the little dining table in the corner of his apartment and began grabbing plates. “I would have. Yes, I would have fucking told you.”
Jack winced at my outburst. I was rarely this angry with anyone but I also knew I couldn’t stop it. I was on a roll. “I can’t help but think you’re overreacting slightly.”
“Overreacting? Because now neither of us has a decent job and you made a big decision all by yourself. One that affects both our futures.”
“Hey,” he replied, clearly pissed over my attitude. “Calm down. I didn’t think it would be that big of a deal.”
“You’re right you didn’t think. At all. And don’t tell me to calm down. Shit! Now you’re treating me like a child.” I stood up, grabbed our plates and stormed into the kitchen. I dumped them in the sink with a satisfying clatter, only to turn around and find he was behind me. Jack was leant against the doorjamb looking less than impressed. “What the fuck, Carls? I thought I was saving you from having one more thing to worry about.”
“Yeah. Well you fucked that up, too.” I tried to move past him.
“No, you need to talk to me. Has something happened? Has your dad been in touch?”
“No. I just… I just need some space. Some fucking space to breathe and think.”
As I marched over to our pile of shoes in the hallway, Jack was two steps behind me, watching as I stabbed my feet into my Vans in anger and then shoved my arms into a coat from the hook behind the door.
“Where are you going? And why do you need space?” Even though I could hear the panic in his voice, he worked hard to keep his eyes calm and rational. The more he remained clear headed, the more I wanted to scratch his eyes out and scream at him. So, I did the next best thing and ignored him. “I asked you a question.” The tone he used was the same one he’d used when we first started having sex and it drove me wild. It was that quiet, demanding voice that always got him what he wanted, until now. I needed to get my head on straight before I took that flipping test and really blew our world to smithereens.
“Out. I can’t fucking breathe. I feel like you’re suffocating me.”
In reality, it was a half-truth at best. I couldn’t breathe, but it was my own fault. Without turning around to look at him, I left the apartment, slamming the door behind me. I knew that if I’d looked at him I would have either slapped him for being so calm or cried and thrown myself at his feet.
Because I’d left in such a hurry, I had no cell phone and no money. Come to think of it, I didn’t even have a key. I found myself sitting in a park, watching the world go by, inwardly screaming. No one here knew how monumentally fucked up my life was, and the thought that I’d put more fuel on the fire was terrifying.
I wondered if I gave it all up now—Jack and college—and just went home, would that make my dad happy? Did he just want his little girl back?
It didn’t take long for me to realize I wasn’t going to find the answers here. I’d stormed off without a real plan. I just needed to get out so I wouldn’t blurt out what my real fear was. Deep down, I was terrified that he’d given up his job and I’d given up my family and we might not work out. With a baby in the mix, I would be forever reminded of what could be the biggest mistake of my life. All this hurt would be for nothing and the collateral damage could be huge.
My answers weren’t here, though—they were back at the apartment in the form of a man who claimed he loved me enough to give his job up, and a small chemical piss stick that could change the course of our lives forever.
I knocked and waited outside the door. I had no key and was hoping like mad that he was still in. When the door opened, he stood there, shirtless in just a pair of sleep pants, holding a bottle of beer. He was looking at me wondering what the hell had happened to us, trying to figure out what had got me so bent out of shape that I’d stormed off.
“You right now?” he asked as he stood in front of me, blocking my entrance. Jack wasn’t going to let me pass until I’d confirmed whether I was over my snit.
“I’m late.” I just blurted it out.
“I may look ready for bed, but I wasn’t going to leave you out there forever. I would have come looking for you if it had got much later.”
Oh, bless him.
“Not that kind of late. Late, late. Menstrual late. Period late. Aunt Flo has gone on vacation. I am not on the rag and the decorators are not visiting. That kind of late.”
Jack’s body didn’t budge an inch. His beautiful blue eyes flitted from side to side like they were helping his brain ratify the words I’d just unleashed on it. He hadn’t let me pass the threshold back into the apartment, and I began to wonder whether he was actually going to. I was about to break the silence when he leaned forward, grabbed me and pulled me into his arms.
“This was why you needed space?”
“Yeah,” I muttered, ashamed, closing my arms around him and trying to clench his naked back with my fingertips. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about work,” he replied, lightly kissing the top of my head. “Could it be exam stress screwing with your system?”
“It could be. It could also be you screwing with my system.” I snorted. My attempt at humor fell short of the mark. He didn’t laugh and I didn’t like that I couldn’t understand what was going through his head.
“I’ll go to the drugstore. No point worrying about something we don’t know for sure.”
“I’ve already got one. I was waiting for you. I was too chicken shit to do it alone, and then you dropped the job bombshell and I panicked. I just needed to be as far away as possible from it all. Test included.”
Jack stepped back, took my hand and lead me straight to the bathroom. He pushed me in to sit on the toilet. “Where’s the test?”
“Backpack. Front pocket.”
Jack was in complete control of the situation now, including both of our emotions. He wasn’t gone long before he wandered back in and started to remove the wrapping. I couldn’t help the nervous tremors that were shaking my whole body. “Stop that. I’m not holding this for you and you need a steady hand to aim your pee at it. Unless you want me help.”
“Give it me.” I snatched it off him. “Any excuse for a golden shower.” I was back to relying on nervous humor.
“I’ll take anything you’ll give me, Miss Sevens.”
There was meaning to his words and it gave me the final bit of confidence to suck it up and get on with it.
“Are you going to be a freak and watch?”
“I am. We’re in this together. No matter what.”
Awkwardly and slightly embarrassed, I peed on the stick. This guy had placed parts of his body into every available part of mine. Jack had seen me at my most sensual and enhanced my base sexual experience beyond belief, yet, this simple human function somehow felt the most personal. Almost too personal. I knew he understood this when he turned at the last moment and started to wash his hands for no reason at all. With the deed done, I placed the pee stick on the side and joined him in the hand washing diversion.
We regarded each other through the mirrored cabinet in front of us, both wondering whether the next few minutes would redefine everything we’d done together so far.
“No matter what, we deal.”
Those were the words that signaled the end of our wait. I hadn’t noticed the time had passed. We’d both been lost in our thoughts, thinking of what might be.
Jack reached for the test from where it was still sitting face down, and brought it closer to us. The result was hidden and he was going to keep it like that until he knew I was ready to see the other side. Until I could deal with the grand reveal.
“Do it.”
On my go ahead, his long, thick fingers flipped it over and there, clear as day, in the little oval window was the word, ‘PREGNANT.’
My tummy flipped as my eyes spun between the test in his hand and the reflection of his eyes in the mirror. His face gave nothing away. Not a single muscle moved until a small smile began to take shape and it became the biggest shit eating grin I’d ever seen.
He couldn’t possibly be smiling about this. There was no way he was happy about this, no fucking way. We had no home, half a family support system, and neither of us had a real job to speak of. I couldn’t count Rebecca’s dance studio work as a solid career yet. We were moving shortly and I was probably going to fail my final exams. This recent development was probably going to shove every useful bit of business information from my brain.
I was lost in my musings of fear and dread, but Jack was in a completely different place. His smile was getting impossibly bigger, and when he dropped to his knees and started to push my clothes aside in a desperate effort to get to my stomach, I knew I’d misjudged how he really saw us and our relationship.
There’d been no reason to run out earlier. He was over the moon. When I ruffled the top of his hair to get his attention back, he peered up at me like I was a magical being.
“I’m going to love you and our baby so much,” he fumbled, with a thick throat.
A few thoughts poked into my reality, but right then, when I should have been talking with Jack about our future, all I could think about was my dad. Any chance I had of him accepting us being together just went up in flames, in the span of a ninety second piss test and life changing revelation.