Page 111 of Bump and Run

Shit.

“Oh…” I keep a smile and wave my hand. “He was having some trouble and asked if I’d take a look at it for errors.”

He raises his brow. “I didn’t realize you were friends.”

“We’re not,” I shrug. “I mean… we don’t hang out or anything. Someone must have told him I was good with math so he asked me to help him.” I study his cold, stern eyes. “Is that okay?”

He sets the paper down. “Sure. That’s okay.”

I clear my throat and grab my things, eager to get away from the suspicion in his tone. “I’ll be upstairs.”

“All right.”

I rush to the third floor, firmly clutching the paper sack hidden away in my bag, and lament the lack of lock on my bedroom door.

* * *

If knowledge is power,then this moment shouldn’t make me feel so weak.

It’s not exactly how I pictured it. I’m not sure if I ever did, but it’s pretty vivid now. That awkward look down the pharmacy aisle because you can just feel someone watching you, but there’s no one in sight. All the different choices involved. How in the hell can there be so many colors and variations for sticks you pee on?

And then there’s this; the longest ninety seconds of my life, each second lasting at least three times longer than it should.

My heart knocks against my ribs so hard it hurts. My ears ring because of how strongly I’ve focused my hearing to make sure my father doesn’t accidentally walk in.

There’s no way I can explain this to him right now. I can barely even explain it to myself.

We were careful. Weren’t we? I’ve completely lost track of how many times we’ve done it — of how many spent condoms lie at the bottom of a trash can. All it takes is for one of them to be defective; just one tiny pinpoint-sized hole and hundreds of thousands of little sperm get to have their way with me. Did Junior accidentally forget to put one on? No, I definitely would have noticed that and I can’t imagine he would have done it on the sly.

None of that matters anyway. All that matters now is that it happened. I’m standing here, right now, in my bathroom, holding a test that tells me I’m pregnant. Two little, intersecting lines and my life has completely changed.

I can’t have this baby. That’s a fact. I’m too young for this kind of thing. I’m still in college and I would very much like to finish it. And Junior — he doesn’t need this. A baby would hold him back from his dream. I can’t do that to him.

So, I guess there’s only one thing to be done.

I pause, feeling the phantom touch of Junior’s hands on mine and how he makes me feel every time he looks at me.

A smile creeps across my face.

I’m carrying Junior Morgan’s baby.

An image flashes in my head; a fictitious spark of hope. Junior stands in front of me with his eyes gazing down at the swaddled lump in his arms and he just can’t stop grinning.

For a second, it’s the warmest thought I could ever imagine.

In a second, I fall in love with it.

I have to protect it. Even if the odds are as tiny as this baby is inside of me right now, I have to protect the possibility.

I sit down on my bathroom floor, staring at the stick in my hand, imagining the perfect world where this doesn’t come crashing down around me.

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