Authors: Anna Cruise
ELEVEN
ABBY
West nudged me toward the bathroom. “It will take two minutes. It says so right on the box.”
We were back in his apartment. I had the box in one hand, the other firmly locked in West's grip. He squeezed my hand and pulled me down the hallway.
“Abby. You've waited long enough.”
He wasn't saying anything I didn't know. I'd been a wreck for five solid days. Well, four. I'd chalked up the first missed day to exactly what he'd originally said. I'd been sick and my period had been a day late before. But then day two came and went. And day three. Going to the bathroom became something like a game of cat and mouse. Every twinge, every cramp, had sent me running to the bathroom. And every time, I was met with nothing but a growing sense of dread.
The bathroom door was only partially open and he pushed it with his free hand and flipped on the light switch. The smell of his aftershave and deodorant scented the small space, like it had somehow been absorbed into the walls.
He positioned himself against the wall, the towel rack pressed into his back.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
West folded his arms across his chest. “Waiting.”
“I'm not taking it with you in here.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Why not?”
“Because I have to pee on a stick!”
He shrugged. “So?”
I felt the heat rise up in my face. We'd seen each other naked and we'd seen each other sick but we'd never—not ever—stayed in the bathroom while the other one was using it. It felt like something married couples would do, something that represented that stage in a relationship that felt old and routine, something I didn't want to get to yet.
“I'm not taking it with you in here.”
A small smile formed but he bit it back. “Alright. But you're going to take it.” It wasn't a question.
“No shit,” I muttered. I set the box down on the vanity and watched him through the mirror, waiting for him to leave.
He lifted himself off the wall and laid his hand on my shoulder as he moved toward the door.
“Don't be pissed.” He squeezed gently. “Not at me. Please.”
“I'm not.”
His other arm wrapped around my waist and he pulled me to him. His breath was warm on my cheek as he whispered in my ear. “I'm sorry if I was a dick. I'm sorry you've been worried about this. But the only way we're gonna know what we're dealing with is if you take that test.”
“I know.”
He brushed a kiss along my jaw. “Two minutes, Abs. That's all it will take.” He squeezed my shoulder one more time and then walked out of the bathroom, closing the door behind him.
I stared at my reflection in the mirror. My hair was still mussed from earlier and my face had been kissed free of make-up. I saw the bluish tinge in the skin underneath my eyes, the lines creasing my forehead, the firm set to my mouth and jaw. I looked like I was awaiting a death sentence. I looked the way I had when my mother had first been diagnosed with cancer, when life had come crashing down on me with a situation that had been absolutely out of my control.
I was back in that same position. Not the same circumstances but there was something that threatened to completely upend my life and I felt powerless to stop it.
“Abby?”
I turned toward the sound of West's voice. “Yeah?”
“Are you okay?”
No, I wanted to say. I wasn't okay. I didn't know how to feel about what I was getting ready to do. I wasn't a teenager anymore and I was in a committed relationship with someone I was pretty sure I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. But it didn't make taking a pregnancy test any easier. Not when we'd been careful. Not when we were both in college, trying our best to figure out what courses our lives were taking, all while trying to stay together through class schedules and work and baseball.
“Yeah.” I reached for the box. “I'm opening it now.”
I peeled back the cardboard flap and pulled out one of the tests. An instruction manual slid out, too and I unfolded it. My fingers shook a little as I read through the instructions. Unwrap the test, pee on the exposed end, set it down and wait. One purple line meant the test was working. Two purple lines meant I was pregnant.
Pregnant.
I felt the saliva dry up in my mouth as the word sank in a little deeper. That word scared the shit out of me. But it wasn't like it was going to go away. I took a deep breath and unwrapped the test. I set it down on the toilet tank and unfastened my shorts. I didn't have to pee. In fact, I felt as dry as the Sahara. But I grabbed the test anyway and positioned it underneath me. I didn't want to test—I wanted to remain blissfully ignorant—but I knew I needed to. If not for me, then for West.
My fingers shook a little and a warm stream of urine trickled out, surprising me, soaking the test and drenching my fingertips. I finished and set the test on the counter, my hand still unsteady. I pulled up my shorts and stole a quick glance at the test. The first line was already there, solid purple in the window.
I looked away. My heart felt like it was going to thump right out of my chest. I tried to take a deep breath but it caught in my throat and I ended up coughing instead.
“You okay?” West's voice sounded from outside the door.
I didn't answer.
Because I didn't know what okay meant anymore.
TWELVE
WEST
I leaned up against the wall in the hallway, my shoulders pressed flat, like my weight was holding up the entire apartment building. I glanced at my watch. It had been five minutes. Not two. She would know by now if she'd taken the test.
All I'd heard was her coughing. Not a full-on spell but a couple of quick coughs, like something had gotten caught in her throat. I'd asked if she was okay and had been greeted with silence. And I hadn't said anything more. I knew it was hard for Abby, knew she was struggling with it. But I was, too. And just because I'd decided to be the grown up and marched her ass down to the store for the test didn't mean that I was handling the potential news any better than she was.
I thought about what might be waiting for me behind that closed bathroom door. I knew I wasn't ready for a baby. Hell, I wasn't even ready to get married. I loved Abby, knew I wanted to be with her, but Christ. We were still in school. She wasn't even old enough to legally drink. I'd had to kick it up several notches this year, be responsible for school and baseball even on days when the only thing I wanted to do was sleep late and go surf. I'd had to sacrifice nights out with Grif and time with Abby so that I could play ball or work with tutors to catch up on all the classes I missed when we had out-of-town games. And that was about all the responsibility I could handle.
The door opened a crack and I launched myself off the wall. Abby didn't step out of the bathroom. I crossed the space between us in three quick steps and pushed the door open. Abby was standing exactly where I'd left her, her hands gripping the edge of the vanity, her knuckles almost as white as the countertop. She didn't look at me.
I dropped my gaze to the slim plastic stick sitting next to her. I hadn't read the instructions but I knew what I was seeing.
“Holy shit.”
She turned to look at me and her eyes were filled with tears. “I'm not ready to be a mom, West.”
I didn't think about the panic that was racing through me or the fact that I sure as shit wasn't ready to be a dad. Instead, I reached for my girlfriend and pulled her close to me, dropped a kiss on her hair as her body shook with tears. I didn't have answers and I didn't know what the fuck we were going to do but I knew one thing: I couldn't just stand there and let her cry. Not then. Not ever.
I led her to my room and sat her down on the bed. She held on to my shirt, her face buried against my chest.
“What the hell am I going to do?” Her voice was muffled.
“We.”
She looked up at me with a tear-stained face. “What?”
I motioned to myself, then back to her. “We. Me and you. Takes two to get into this.”
She sighed and wiped at her eyes. “I guess.”
“Look, it's not the end of the world,” I told her, trying to sound more convincing than I actually felt.
“No?” Abby shook her head. “Pretty much feels like it is.”
“It's not,” I said firmly. I put my hands on her shoulders and straightened her so we were looking squarely at each other. “We have options. A few of them, actually.”
“I'm not ready to talk about options,” she said. She brushed at her hair, tucking loose strands behind her ears. “I'm too numb. Too fucking shell-shocked.”
I nodded. I felt the same way. “We don't have to yet.”
“I just...I just can't believe this is happening.” Her eyes filled with a fresh supply of tears. “I was the responsible one. Me. I'm the one who waited to have sex. Who was super careful. And look what happened. How the hell is that fair?”
“It's not,” I said. “But life isn't fair. You know that.” We'd had a lot of those kinds of conversations after her mom had been diagnosed with cancer, those deep, esoteric talks that had made me fall in love with her a thousand times more than I already had been.
“One day,” she said softly.
“One day what?”
She stared at my chin. “I missed one day.”
“What?”
“When I was sick.” Her gaze moved to someplace behind me. “I missed a pill.”
I frowned. “Missed how?”
“Missed, like I forgot to take.” She brought her eyes to mine and her expression was wary, like she expected me to blow up at her.
“Okay.”
“I slept for two days straight,” she said. “And I know it was a stupid thing to do. I know I should have gotten out of bed and taken the damn pill.”
Hey.” I tipped her chin, keeping her gaze level with mine. “This isn't your fault.”
“Uh, yeah, it kinda is.” She sighed again. “You're not the one responsible for birth control.”
“You're right,” I agreed. “I'm not. But I'm the one responsible for getting you pregnant. So, looks like it's both of our fault.”
Abby's hand was on my thigh and she squeezed me tight. “What are we going to do?” she asked. “I wasn't kidding. I'm not ready for this, West. No way, no how.”
“I know,” I said. I curved my arm around her and brought her close to me. “And I don't know what we're gonna do.”
I felt her stiffen.
“But I do know this,” I said. “Whatever we decide to do, we're doing it together.”
THIRTEEN
ABBY
I'd just stepped out of class and turned my phone off mute when it rang.
“I've tried calling like a thousand times,” Tana said.
I rolled my eyes and adjusted the bag strapped over my shoulder. “A thousand? Your fingers must be really sore.”
“Okay. Ten. Or five. Whatever.” I could hear the smile in her voice. “What's up? You said you had a question. An urgent question, if I remember correctly.”
“I do.” I trudged down the massive set of stairs that led to one of the larger parking lots at Mesa. The steps always brought back memories of my first few months with West.
“Uh. Okay. Well, I'm here now. On the phone. Waiting to dispense my infinite wisdom.”
It had been a week since the night in West's apartment. A week since I'd found out I was pregnant. West and I hadn't talked about it again—mostly because he'd turned around three days later for another out-of-town series. When he'd come home, I'd gone over once and he'd tried to talk to me about it but I'd told him I wasn't ready. Surprisingly, he'd let it go. But I knew better. As much as I was tempted to shove it under the rug and hope the situation would disappear, I knew my boyfriend. And I knew he was anxious to talk, to make a decision. West Montgomery was not the kind of person to sit around and wait.
“Hang on,” I said.
I hurried down a row of parked cars and stopped in front of mine. I opened the door, tossed my bag on to the passenger seat and started the car. The radio blasted and I turned it down low, then adjusted the AC so the air blew cool.
“I've got seven minutes until my next class starts,” she warned.
“Since when are you ever on time?”
“Uh, since I got a D on my last exam.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Big ouch.”
I sat there for a minute, contemplating what I wanted to say. Over the last week, I'd started to text or call my best friend more than a dozen times, the news on the tip of my fingers, on the tip of my tongue. But there was always something that made me change my mind. It wasn't that I couldn't tell Tana. I knew I could—I could tell her anything. I just wasn't sure if I could handle what she was going to say in response.
“Five minutes...”
I sighed. “Okay. Look, something's happening.”
“Something?” Her voice was immediately filled with concern. “Like what? Is everything okay with your mom?”
“Yeah, yeah. She's fine.”
“Okay. So it must be West.”
“Sort of.”
It was her turn to sigh. “Oh my God. Spill now or it's gonna have to wait. I have to get to statistics on time.
It wasn't the kind of news I could just say. But I didn't have a choice.
“I'm pregnant.”
There was silence. Then, “What?”
“I'm pregnant, Tana.”
“Oh my God.”
“Pretty much.”
“Tell me everything,” she demanded.
“Well, West and I had sex—”
“I know that part,” she interrupted. “I mean, how the hell did this happen?”
I glanced at the clock on my dash. It was 3:59 and I knew she needed to get to class. “It's kind of a long story.”
“I have time.”
“You just said you had to get to class.”
“Yeah, well, you just told me you're pregnant. Statistics can wait.”
I smiled. This was the person I needed to talk to. My best friend, the one who would set absolutely everything aside for me. I knew West would, too, but having a girlfriend to talk things over with, to share my fears and concerns, was something I needed more than anything at that moment.
I adjusted the air conditioning again and then told her about what had happened. About missing a pill when I'd been sick. Being five days late. Taking the test a week ago in West's apartment, the test that had confirmed my fears.
“Wow.” She was quiet for a minute. “So how far along are you? Do you know?”
“Almost six weeks, I think?”
“And you're feeling okay?”
“Eh. I guess.” Physically, I was alright. My stomach had been queasy a couple of times and I was constantly tired but I'd refused to blame either on the pregnancy, choosing to believe that the constant worrying was making me feel that way.
“Do you know what you're going to do?”
“No,” I admitted.
“What does West say?”
“We haven't really talked about it.”
“What?” Tana's tone was indignant. “He doesn't know??”
“No, no,” I said quickly. “He knows. We just...we just haven't really talked about everything.”
“Why not?”
“Because...” My voice trailed off. It was the moment I'd been dreading.
“Abigail.” I could picture my best friend's face, her eyebrows drawn together, her lips in a disapproving line. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Nothing.” And that was exactly the problem.
“Clearly.” She sighed and I knew she was shaking her head in exasperation. “You can't go into avoidance mode. This isn't your psycho sister you're trying to steer clear of. This is reality. Like, there is a baby growing inside of you. Right this minute.”
“Stop.”
“Okay. A fetus. Let's call it that. Or an embryo or whatever the hell it is at six weeks. Regardless of what we call it, this is something you have to take care of. One way or the other. It isn't going away.”
“I know, Tana. I know.” My voice cracked a little and I felt the stupid tears begin to blossom.
“Hey,” she said, her voice softening. “I'm not mad at you and I'm not gonna yell. But I know you. I know you just want to look the other way and hope this all disappears. And it ain't happening, Abby. You have to deal with this. You have to decide what you want to do.”
“I know.” I felt like I was on auto-repeat.
“I can come home this weekend.”
“No.”
“I'm serious. If you need me, I'll come. Hell, I'll leave now. It's Thursday—I only have one class tomorrow.”
“No, no. Stay in school.”
“You sound like a campaign slogan.”
I somehow managed to laugh through the tears. “Whatever. I mean it. I just...I just wanted to tell you. So you would know.”
“Well, that's not really letting me share my wisdom, now is it?”
“No, I guess it isn't.”
“Hmm. I don't know that my superior intelligence can help here, anyway,” she said.
“No? Why not?”
“Because,” she said. “This isn't something wisdom or intelligence can answer.”
“It isn't?”
“Nope.”
“Why is that?”
“Because no one thinks about babies or becoming a parent with any type of intelligence. If they did, the human race would have died off a hell of a long time ago.”
“You really are going to be Mother of the Year when the time comes, aren't you?” I said.
It was her turn to laugh. “Ha. No. Look, my point is this. Your decision here is an awful lot like choosing who you fall in love with. Other people are gonna have opinions and are going to try to tell you what to do. But, guess what? They're not you.”
She had a point.
“The only person who can make this decision is you. And whatever you decide? It's gonna be the right decision, Abby. Just remember that.”