The rest of breakfast with the girls was a blur. My food had been mostly untouched and I couldn’t follow the conversation. Roxy knew me well enough to be concerned. When we left, she walked to my car, asking if I was okay. I barely managed a mumbled reply before driving off.
It couldn’t be.
There had to be another reason why I was having symptoms so similar to Avery’s, and my period being late had to be a coincidence. It had been at least six months between the last time I had sex and the night I spent with Nick. Plus, he had used a condom. And double plus, I was on the pill.
But . . . oh my God . . . I knew there were a couple of times when I hadn’t taken pills because my head was all over the place. Since I wasn’t having sex—didn’t have any plans to have sex until I met Nick—I hadn’t been stressed out about missing them.
Like one really could just plan sex.
Oh God.
My heart raced sickeningly fast. What if— I cut that thought off. I couldn’t even let it finish. The idea horrified me. Not because I didn’t want kids. I did want kids, you know, like years from now, when I was settled in my career and married. Yeah, the married part would be nice.
Fuck. Having a boyfriend would be nice.
This was not how I planned my life. Not that I had a detailed plan, but I figured after graduating from college, I would spend a couple of years in my current job, putting my time in, and be one of those über sophisticated chicks who actually traveled when they had a vacation. West Coast. Europe. Asia. I wanted to see the whole world. Eventually I would meet a guy. We would date, get engaged, and have a massive wedding, and maybe by the time I reached my thirties, I’d think about having a baby.
Not now.
Not before I was settled in my career, traveled the world, got married, and my massively, ridiculous wedding.
Oh my God, this couldn’t be happening. There was a good chance I was going to puke all over myself.
Now I sat in the parking lot of a drugstore, my knuckles aching from how tightly I was clutching the steering wheel. I stared at the entrance, unable to force myself to get out of the car. I needed to. I needed to go in and buy a pregnancy test, because a pregnancy test would prove that I wasn’t pregnant and I was just overreacting. Stress could make your period late. A ton of things could make your period late, not just a fertilized egg.
Oh my God—a fertilized egg.
I did not have a fertilized egg in me.
Woman-ing up, I snatched my purse off the passenger seat and stalked into the drugstore with a single-minded focus. Bypassing the makeup aisles, I headed straight for the section most women didn’t like to linger in—past the tampons and the pads and a ton of other things I never understood why we needed so many different brands for and stopped in front of a slew of boxes.
My eyes widened.
Holy no babies, why were there so many pregnancy tests? I was frozen as I scanned them. E.p.t. Clear Blue. Ovulation Test—what the heck? E.p.t. Early. Why were there so many? My hands shook as I picked one up and flipped it over. My vision blurred as I read the back. I couldn’t believe I was buying a pregnancy test.
I’d never had to buy one before.
This could not be happening.
Placing the box back, I blindly picked up another and turned it over. The hairs on the back of my neck rose and my stomach dropped to my toes. I glanced around but didn’t see anyone staring at me. I was totally freaking out.
I grabbed another box, started to leave and then whipped around, picking up another box. Just in case . . . I experienced user error.
My face was burning like I’d been under a heat lamp as I carried my purchases to the front and a slim woman with deep grooves in her face, around her eyes and mouth, waited.
Her brows rose when I dumped my armload on the counter and she glanced up at me, a wry grin on lips covered with faded, purple lipstick. Picking up one box, she offered a throaty chuckle. “You can never be too sure about some things, huh?”
I wanted to hide under the bin of candy behind me.
“Nothin’ to be embarrassed about, honey.” She scanned one pregnancy test and then plopped it in a bag. “Most people buy several boxes the first time.”
Was it that obvious this was my first time? Wait a second. Was I seriously having my first time? As the boxes went in the bag and I was given my total, I realized somewhat numbly that whether I was prepared for it or not, this was really happening.
I could be pregnant.
As soon as I got back to my apartment, I placed the potentially life-changing bag on the counter and walked into my kitchen. I kept all medicines, along with my birth control pills, in a cabinet. Anyplace else, I would end up forgetting about them.
Taking a deep breath, I opened the purple plastic container, smoothing my fingers over the rows of small pills. I counted back and then counted back again. Squeezing my eyes shut, I cursed. The dates I missed . . .
They were important dates.
Snapping the container closer, I placed it back and then dropped my elbows onto the counter. I scrubbed my hands down my face. My thoughts whirled in a continuous circle until one main one wiggled free. If I . . . If I was what I feared, did taking birth control pills after . . . after conception effect the baby?
I didn’t know.
Frankly, I knew very little about the whole ins and outs of pregnancy. I was an only child. No one I knew at my age, with the exception of Avery, had been pregnant. It wasn’t like women were born with this knowledge, and I seriously doubted many moms decided to hand down that kind of information until it was necessary.
Maybe I miscounted the pills.
Lifting my head, I picked up the purple container and counted again. Breathing felt a little iffy as I finally made myself stop. No matter how many times I counted, the end result wasn’t going to change.
But even if my missed pills occurred during epically bad timing, Nick had used a condom. He had. . . .
Actually, I had felt extraordinarily . . . wet after we had sex. So much so that I thought it had to do with not getting any in a while. Could the condom have broken and that was what I felt? That had never happened to me before, so there was a chance I wouldn’t have recognized it for what it was.
“Oh God,” I whispered, my voice sounding incredibly loud in the silent apartment. Reaching up, I tugged on my hair, letting it fall down over my shoulders. “Oh. God.”
Unable to stand still or sit, I walked to where I left my purse and dug out my phone. My fingers hovered over the screen. Who was I going to call? I didn’t feel comfortable ringing my friends from back home, and there was no way in hell I was calling my mom about this, not when I had no idea what was going on.
Clutching the phone to my chest, I went to the couch and sat. I almost called Roxy, but I knew she would be hanging out with everyone most of the day. I thought about calling Yasmine or Denise, but I’d missed my Skype calls with them both the past week, and how could I just spring that on them? And what could I say to them? That I bought a million pregnancy tests after freaking out over what Avery had said? Granted, I had reasons to be freaking out, but still, I knew how that appeared.
I set the phone down on the cushion beside me and closed my eyes. This was not how I expected my lazy Sunday to go. I knew I needed to get this over and done with.
I didn’t move from the couch.
The rest of Sunday afternoon dragged by as I worked up the nerve to even open the first box. It appeared to be a normal run-of-the-mill pregnancy test with a plus meaning pregnant and a minus meaning hallelujah. Definitely no user error there. I started reading the instructions and a choked laugh escaped me.
Do not insert the test stick in your vagina.
Was that seriously an instruction that needed to be given to someone?
Carefully opening the package, I pulled out the stick and walked into my bathroom. I removed the purple cap as my stomach roiled.
My heart pounded like I was running uphill as I did my thing. The only thought in my head was how I awkward this was. Really. When I was done, I snapped the cap back on and gently placed it on the counter of my sink.
Then I ran from my bathroom, like legit sprinted out of the bathroom.
Pacing the length of my living room, I knew I only needed to wait for two minutes, but two minutes turned into five and five minutes turned into ten. I wasn’t ready. Running my hands through my hair, I shook my head. I wasn’t ready to see this.
But what if there was a little, happy negative sign?
But what if there was a really scary plus sign?
I eyed the remaining unused boxes on the counter and kept wearing a path in the hardwood floors. I’d always been so damn careful in the past. I’d never feared the chance of becoming pregnant, and now that there was a possibility I could be, I didn’t know what to do.
Never in my life did I feel so . . . so helpless.
Actually, that wasn’t true. When I was fifteen and there were two men in pristine, dignified uniforms knocking on our front doors. When I stood on the stairs and the blood had drained from my mother’s face when she saw them, I had felt helpless then.
I loathed that feeling, hated the memories it dredged to the surface. Seconds when our whole entire life changed, never to be the same. Air leaked out of me. Coming to a stop in front of the TV, I realized I could be in the very same position, standing on that very razor-sharp edge of monumental change
Or I could just be freaking out.
A good forty minutes had passed since I placed the test on my sink. I needed to go look at it. Get this over with, like I knew I had to. I wasn’t a coward. I could face this, no matter what. Biting down on my lower lip, I charged down the hall and into the bathroom. My reflection in the mirror told me I looked as out of control as I felt. My hair was now all over the place and my eyes were wide, pupils dilated.
I looked like some psycho in a hockey mask was after me.
Shoulders stiffening, I slowly dragged my gaze away from my reflection to the white and purple tipped pregnancy test.
I saw the result.
I couldn’t un-see the result.
Plain as day, there was a very visible symbol that could only mean one thing. Only. One. Thing.
Maybe I let it sit too long. Or maybe I shouldn’t have put a cap on it. I needed to take another one. I had two more.
Hurrying into the kitchen, I picked up the other box. It was more high-tech. Not only did it give you a yes or no, but if it was a yes, it gave an estimated length of pregnancy. I didn’t have to go to the bathroom, though. Rushing to the cabinet, I grabbed a glass and filled it up, and when I finished with that one, I drank another, and then another, and then I waited.
I wasn’t thinking, hadn’t done anything other than force water down my throat. Less than an hour later I took the second test into the bathroom, did my thing, and then placed it next to the first one.
I didn’t leave the bathroom this time.
With my heart in my throat, I eyeballed the test as my hands clenched and unclenched at my sides until the pregnancy showed me the results once more.
The first thing I noticed was two numbers with a dash between them: 2-3.
And above that one word.
Pregnant.