Page 40 of Forever With You

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 legitsprintedout 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.

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