Allison

 

I call Marjorie when I get out of the church, walking to my car through a light end-summer drizzle, the rain welcome and cool on my flushed skin. When I tell Marjorie I need to go home early, she snaps, “And why’s that?” I make sure not to respond straightaway, because the way I’m feeling I’m afraid I might snap back. I take a breath, and only then do I respond.

 

“I threw up while visiting a client here at the rehab. I think I might’ve caught a twenty-four-hour bug or something, and I don’t want to infect everyone at the library.”

 

“Take the afternoon,” Marjorie says, “and if you’re not at work tomorrow, you better have a note.” She laughs gruffly, and then mutters something I can’t hear before hanging up.

 

I put my cell away, thinking about my job at the library, how odd and specific it is. It’s not as though there was a social work team there before I joined that can operate without me. It’s more like I am a freelancer without being a freelancer, on their payroll because it looks good to have a social worker at this new multimedia library-esque extravaganza. If I, for some reason, cannot come to work for any elongated period of time, what will happen to that position? I try and ignore this thought as I climb into my car, belly still churning, and drive toward the convenience store nearby my apartment building.

 

The churning in my stomach is comprised more of nerves than real sickness now, I sense. I don’t feel like I’m going to vomit again, but my belly keeps sloshing anyway, my thoughts propelling my nervousness. I think about my romance novels, about how one of my heroines might react. Would she drive to the store stoically, telling herself over and over that whatever happened, she would be strong? Or would she go crazy, become angry? I don’t know. All I know is that I am somewhere in between, numb but nervous, sick but somehow holding it together.

 

Most of all, I am angry with myself. An entire month passes—just over a month—and I don’t have my period. I don’t go to the store to restock my tampons. No PMS; no moodiness, no cramps. None of that happens, and yet I go about my life as though everything is normal, as though from the age of twelve this hasn’t been a regular occurrence in my life. The only excuse I have is that I’ve been busy at work, but what kind of excuse is that for missing something this glaring? Perhaps I subconsciously thought I was just late. I don’t know…even as I walk into the convenience store, under the fluorescent hospital-like lights, and pick up a box of pregnancy tests (why do these stupid things come in two packs. Aren’t they super accurate or something?) I tell myself I might not be pregnant. I might just be late. Because pregnancy would be impossible for me, completely impossible. My life is on track, and is carefully planned. Pregnancy is not part of the plan, at least not for years.

 

I pay for the tests, ignoring the knowing look of the clerk, and return to my car, heart thumping in my chest, thumping so hard I feel as though it is going to thump up my throat and choke me. I swallow, and I get the strange sensation that I am swallowing my heartbeat. “You’re just being dramatic,” I mutter to myself as I put the car in gear and drive toward my apartment. “You’re just being a drama queen.”

 

I park my car and almost run up to my apartment, stopping only to lean down and clutch my belly. My body is acting weirdly today. First there was that business mistaking stomach sickness for an emotional pang in my chest, and now nervousness is making me feel physically incapable of running. I shake my head, my vision hazy. Everything is happening too fast, without any warning. Everything feels like it’s spinning out of control. I tell myself to calm down, I haven’t even taken the test yet. But my heart keeps thumping and my belly keeps tightening.

 

Finally, I pace into my apartment, dropping my handbag on the floor and kicking the door closed behind me. I take the bag of pregnancy tests into the bathroom and almost trip over myself trying to pull my skirt and my tights down, shifting from side to side, propping one hand on the wall and kicking off one shoe by accident so that it lands in the shower. Then I sit down on the toilet too quickly, my ass cheeks aching. I curse, ripping the test from its packaging as though I am a child and it is Christmas morning. Yes, I reflect grimly, this is my present. What a present! I kick off my other shoe. It hits the wall with a loud bang.

 

I hold the stick in the bowl, my belly still tight, which in an unexpected way is quite helpful: it squeezes my bladder. I pee on the stick, and then set it on the tank behind me. I still need to pee, so why not; I do the second test, too. Why not just have a little more safety. They’ll both be negative, and then I’ll know, and I can stop worrying, and get back to my life. Then I clean myself and stand up and walk to the bathroom door, my back to the sticks. I know that turning around will make this real. As long as I stand here, looking at my living room, a few romance novels and notes piled up on the coffee table, my clothes from yesterday strewn across the floor from where I haven’t yet put them in the washing basket, the sunlight resting against my television, as long as I just stand here, I can pretend that none of this is real. The moment I turn around, I will not have that choice.

 

But I can’t avoid reality forever. I return to the toilet, but I don’t stare down, not yet. I look at myself in the mirror which hangs just above and to the side of the toilet. Twenty-five years old, but I look younger. At least, I think I do. Twenty-five years old. Is that too young, or too old? And how old is Rust? Thirty, perhaps a couple years older or younger? People have kids and families at that age, don’t they, but I don’t think me and Rust are people in the abstract.

 

I’m delaying the inevitable, I know, so I force myself to look down.

 

For a moment, time seems to pause as my mind tries to turn what I’m seeing into some tangible reality. During the next few minutes, I just stand here, staring, trying to turn the three sticks into something real. I’m rooted to the spot. I can’t move. I can only stare. Just stare at these sticks which, if I am to believe them, are going to change my life forever. Slowly, the sticks become real, and I face what they tell me: I am pregnant, they agree. I am pregnant with Rust’s child.

 

Gasping, I go into the living room and throw myself on the couch, burying my head in the cushions, my life spinning around and around in my head: my future life, in which my hard-won job at the library is going to be in danger, in which I am going to have to explain to everyone that the father is an enforcer I no longer know; a life as a single mother, and all the struggles that entails. Of course, there is the other option. The other option …something about that makes me queasy, but surely it would be for the best? Surely it would make more sense for a woman like me?

 

Dammit, why didn’t we use a condom? Why did I think “not having a boyfriend” was a good enough reason to let my prescription for the pill lapse?

 

I can’t stay on the couch for long. I feel too restless. I go into the kitchen and start chopping bananas and apples, listening to the thud-thud of the knife against the chopping board and focusing on the piling up of the fruit chunks; and then I focus on the noise of the blender, of the banana and apple and yogurt and milk all mixing together. But after the smoothie’s done and the dishes are washed and set to dry on the draining board, I’m still pregnant. Nothing has changed.

 

I return to the living room and drop onto the couch, stretching my legs out before me and staring at my feet. The other choice …I am not opposed to it, in principle, but there is just something that makes me unsure about the idea in the physical. And Rust …I throw my head back and let out a groan. I have to tell Rust before I do anything, don’t I? I’ve read about women who’ve gone ahead and had abortions and later the men have found out and—I don’t think I could do that to Rust, even if Rust is just supposed to be my taste of an alpha, even if I have spent the last month avoiding him.

 

I try and picture the scene in my mind, how he will react, but the truth is, though I think there is something more there than just the sex—a little something, a whisper of something—I don’t know him well enough to imagine precisely what he’ll say or do. He’ll be surprised, of course, but will that surprise turn to anger? Will he simply ignore me? Will he tell me to go away and do whatever I want about it?

 

I swallow, somewhat shocked by the way that thought makes me feel, as though already I am forming a connection with this fledgling life inside of me, as though already I am starting to become attached.

 

“I have to tell him.” I murmur, going through into the bedroom and lying on the bed: the bed in which I have woken countless times imagining that he is beside me, naked, horny, ready to fuck like animals again just as we did in my office.

 

I think about where to find him; I don’t know where the club is and, anyway, the idea of rocking up to a motorcycle club on my own without knowing if he’ll be there makes me nervous. Perhaps that bar? What was it called…yes, the Englishman. Maybe I’ll ask the barman for Rust’s number.

 

I think back to how he offered me his number and how I brusquely refused him, wondering if he’s going to forgive me. Wondering if he’s already moved on.