Page 5 of Trusting Trey
“I feel the same, but both in a good way, Allie. I want you to be the mother of my children and I know you’re struggling with how long it’s taking. If it’s negative, I know you’ll blame yourself, but you must promise me you won’t. Promise me, Allie.”
I nodded, trying to fight back tears at the tone of his pleading. “Either way we’re going to need each other,” I managed to say.
He tucked a piece of hair behind my ear. “That’s not a promise.”
I sighed. “I promise not to blame myself if it’s negative, but that doesn’t mean I won’t wish the result were different. Then again, I’m not sure that if it shows positive that I won’t wish the result was negative either. I’m scared of both, I guess. I didn’t think I would be, but I am.”
“I understand exactly what you mean, and if it makes you feel any better, I feel the same way. I think it’s time to find out though, so we both can stop wondering. Whadda ya say?” he asked in his crazy Groucho Marx voice.
I nodded for an answer and he got my drop foot braces and strapped them on then reached out with his hand. I took it, letting him pull me into a standing position. He led me to the door of the bathroom and reached around, flipping on the light switch. The room suddenly glowed, pushing out the dark, and the box in my hand was glaringly easy to see. He took my chin in his hand and kissed my lips, just a light peck of love and encouragement. “Do you trust me?”
I stared into his sleepy blue eyes and nodded. “I put all my trust in you years ago.”
I saw his eyes cloud over. “Do you remember the first time I asked you that?”
“Like it was yesterday.” Before the words were out of my mouth, I found myself clinging to him. “I love you, Allie. Let’s do this test. We need to know, one way or the other.”
I dropped my arms and held up the box of tests, walking into the bathroom and watching his hands go into his hair as I closed the door. I sat down on the toilet fully dressed and stared down at the box in my hand. My whole life is different since the last time I sat on a toilet wondering if my life was about to change; maybe this time it will be in a good way.
September 20
13 Years Prior
I sat down on the closed toilet lid, and stared at the box of pregnancy tests in my hand as if it would transform into a snake and bite me. “Honestly, Allison, how do you get yourself into these situations?” I asked myself out loud
“You get drunk and wake up with the hottest boy on campus!” My roomie yelled from outside the door, and I groaned.
“Daphne! I told you to wait in the living room.” I stomped my perfectly painted toes and stubbed my big one on the cracked particleboard of the old bathroom sink. “Dammit, dammit, dammit,” I growled, rubbing the spot and looking for any chips in the polish. When Daphne and I finished our sophomore year of college, we finally got the pick of the rooms in our sorority chapter house, having put our time in as the ‘freshies’ for the past two years. Now only the two of us shared the bathroom, instead of six. I much preferred it this way.
I dropped my head into my hand and moaned. I can’t be pregnant. I can’t be. Mybabawould have a little Greek coronary if I call himPappoúsbefore I’m done with college. Myma, she’d be thrilled, but she’d make me marry him and that wasn’t going to happen. Him, what was his name anyway? God, help me. I’m praying for your forgiveness. I don’t remember how the whole thing started and I’m not that kind of girl. You know I’m not that kind of girl, Lord. I’ve only been serious with two guys and this was a total freak out on my part. He used a condom, I know he did, please Lord, cut me some slack. I begged for forgiveness from a few more rather ridiculous things before there was a pounding on the door, again.
“Did you pee on that yet? It should be done by now!” Daphne yelled in her annoying New York, gum-popping accent. I hated and loved everything about her.
“Hold your water, I’m doing it now,” I yelled back, grabbing the offending item off the counter and ripping the box open. I quickly read the instructions and proceeded to follow them in precision order. Then I waited. I washed my hands, wiped up the sink, straightened the medicine cabinet, and waited.
The pounding came again and I jumped, nearly hitting my head on the small half wall that separated the shower from the toilet. “It’s been two minutes, check it now,” Ms. Bossy Pants ordered.
I rubbed the spot on my head and looked at the window of the test with one eye. I held my breath only to let it out in a whoosh and threw the door open. “Negative!” I grinned, jumping around the room enjoying the reprieve from execution.
Daphne came back out with the test wrapped in a tissue and held it up to the light, then down in the shadows, then over her head, behind her back, and under her leg. I finally stopped jumping around and put my hand on my hip, staring at her. She looked at me, her jaw still snapping her gum. She would have made a perfect waitress back in the 60s. All she needed was a bouffant and an apron. “What? I gotta be sure you haven’t read it wrong.”
I snatched the test from her hand and dumped it in the garbage can. “I haven’t read it wrong. I have straight A’s in all my classes. I think I can manage a pregnancy test. Now, let’s go get something to eat, I’m starving!”
I dragged her down the stairs to the kitchen we shared with the rest of our sorority sisters. I banged around getting a pan and filling it with water to heat on the stove. She stood there with her gum snapping and her hand on her hip.
“If you aren’t pregnant, why are you late?” she asked, rather perplexed.
I shrugged, “Who knows? It used to happen a lot in high school. Stress during exam time was always the culprit. As for right now, I guess my body is too busy keeping me alive to worry about my period.”
She hit herself in the forehead and shook it a little bit. “Sometimes I wonder if the cold weather has just completely frozen your Midwestern brain.”
I stuck my tongue out at her and grabbed the butter and milk from the fridge. I was making ‘gut rot’ macaroni and cheese, and I was going to enjoy every spoonful of it. The Lord granted me a second chance and I wasn’t going to squander it.
“New York gets cold too you know, don’t act like it doesn’t,” I teased, dumping the macaroni into the bubbling water.
“Not this kind of cold. Man, it’s only the end of September and I’m already dreading January. That wind coming off the lake just sets my teeth on edge,” she jawed, grabbing two bowls from the community cupboard and setting them next to me.
Having grown up by the lake, I guess I was used to Duluth’s cold winters and the wind that blasts you like a sheath of cold knives every time you step out the door. The truth is, I couldn’t live anywhere else. The winters might be brutal, but the spring, summer, and fall are breathtaking, and reminded you how lucky you were to be living in God’s bounty. Moving anywhere else was out of the question. I suppose some would say winter is fun, too. We have plenty of ski hills, cross country ski trails, ice fishing, and even the occasional polar plunge. I’m not into any of that, though. In the winter, I prefer to read, drink hot chocolate next to the fireplace at my parents’ house, and study. It sounds stereotypical, but sometimes those stereotypes are actually true.
