Page 11 of You Weren't Meant to Be Human
What? What is there? Besides static, a TV turned to a dead channel?
The smart thing to do in that situation would be to go to Tammy. Put the test on the table between them in a wordless cry for help. She would be able to fix it. She can do anything. But, god, the idea of showing up on her porch in a self-destructive panic, the way she’d look at him and know she’d called it—
Crane rips open the box and pries out the thin white stick like it’s already a biohazard.
He chugs water from the sink even though his bladder doesn’t need the assistance, squats over the toilet with the test, and leaves it on the edge of the counter to process for the required five minutes.
Five minutes ticking down on his phone’s timer is an eternity. To distract himself, he sits on the edge of the tub to reread the instruction packet. He wonders if, when the company reneged on their inclusive packaging, and the abortion crackdowns really went wild, the wording on this booklet got changed, or if it’d always been this unnerving. Or he’s overreacting. They’re just instructions.
If POSITIVE, schedule an ultrasound with your healthcare provider. Prenatal and maternity care improves birth outcomes for both mother and child.
Fuck off.
Not for the first time, Crane wants Levi. Or, no, that’s not right.Wantis incorrect, too imprecise, and autism harbors a deep disdain for imprecise things. Crane wants Levi a lot, but in the way he wants the ache of a bruise around his neck. What he wants is Levi here. Sitting on the bathroom floor across from him, sucking on a cigarettewhile they both wait for the timer to run out. Crane would reach for that cigarette and take a drag to have something to do with his mouth.
Levi would not be comforting. He would not be nice about this. He’d get pithy, say it’s Crane’s fault this is happening.“Did you skip a shot,”he’d demand.“Did you not inject enough, what did you do?”
But that motherfucker would be here having to deal with it. He’d have to think about the split in the future and chew on it like Crane is doing alone. If it’s negative, he’d growlthank fuckand storm out of the room. And if it’s positive, he’d have a friend up north where it’s all legal, can call in a favor, can get misoprostol and mifepristone across state lines. That’s the whole point of this. Hives take care of their people.
If it’s positive, maybe Levi would remember the note Crane typed and feel the same pit in his stomach.
The timer goes off.
Crane picks up the test and turns it toward the burning lightbulb, like he’s not seeing it correctly, or he’s looking at it from the wrong angle.
It doesn’t change. The world doesn’t work like that; the curve of the universe does not shift because he wants it to.
Crane wonders if he should feel something. He doesn’t. He’s just cold.
Six
Aspen and Birdie live in an HOA-approved townhouse three hours down the mountain, thirty minutes outside Washington, DC, all butterfly gardens and pride flags surrounded by soccer moms and SUVs. They bought the place when Birdie learned her brother was wanted for terrorism and turned over his info, dropping the reward on a down payment and bathroom repair. (The bathtub was leaking into the ceiling; sold as is.)
“I hate the feds as much as the next bitch,” she’d said during one of the times Crane had found the time to visit. He was keeping her company while she potted flowers in a pink sundress, necklineplunging down to the scar her brother had left the first time he’d tried to kill her. Crane had taken to playing in the dirt. “But he’s in prison and I have a house, so! Fuck it.”
Crane has a key to the front door. It’s on his key ring right now. He still knocks and waits for an answer.
Considering the situation, Crane thought he’d be having a worse reaction. Shouldn’t he be having a meltdown? Completely losing his shit? Trying to DIY a hysterectomy, or whatever it is vets do when they spay cats and scoop out whatever half-formed kittens they find to toss into the biohazard bin?
He decides he’s in shock.
Granted, when Aspen opens the door in boxers and an oversized T-shirt, rubbing sleep from their eyes, he does get pretty close to crying.
“Oh shit,” Aspen says instead of hello, then hollers up the stairs: “Birdie!”
“What?” Birdie calls back.
“Crane.”
It must be something about being a father that allows Aspen to load a name with so much weight and concern that it needs no further explanation. Birdie rushes down the stairs with their three-year-old daughter Luna on her hip as Aspen guides Crane inside.
“Crane!” Luna says, though at her age it comes across more as a situationally inappropriateCwane.
Birdie puts a hand on Luna’s head to shush her. “Hey,” she starts, eyeing him carefully because she’s the person in the room most familiar with suicidal breakdowns. “Is it bad?”
Crane nods—and there it goes. He’s sniffling in the foyer, then sobbing, and Aspen leads him into the living room with a pitying hum. “Okay, come on, let’s go,” they say, setting him onto the couch andfetching the weighted blanket to drape around his shoulders. Crane wraps it tighter. He needs the pressure. “There we go. Let me get—the iPad, where is it—here.”
Aspen sits on the coffee table and holds out the tablet. Across the room, Birdie prompts Luna to pay attention to the TV, but Luna isn’t having it, instead trying to figure out why Crane gets the device and not her. “Over here,” Birdie whispers to her. “Let’s give Crane a moment.”
