Science isn’t about one-offs. It’s predictable and repetitive. I throw the pee stick in the trash and pull the third test from the box.
One day, my childless self is going to look back at this moment and laugh.
Ocean waves. Rainfall. The warm spot in the pool.
Thankfully, I drank a gallon of water, so it doesn’t take me long to muster up enough urine to get the job done.
Less than a minute later, the word PREGNANT appears in the window.
Oh, fuck…
I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my life, but unprotected sex wasn’t one of them.
Until two months ago, at that stupid bachelorette party.
Maybe I snagged a defective batch of tests and my womb remains blissfully empty.
Nope! You will not be delusional. You’re going to face reality head-on, as you do everything else in life.
Tomorrow.
I’ll face it tomorrow.
I head to the pantry, grab a snack, and eat in the nook. Some might think that me living in my father’s house at twenty-six is a sign of failure, but I have an entire suite of rooms that include a kitchen and laundry area, and I pay zero rent.
So if that’s what a failure is, I’ll gladly wear the label with pride. Plus, it keeps me ever present in my stepmother’s life in case she tries to screw me out of my inheritance, which she totally would.
Eating cheap Cosmic Brownies is a sin I commit against my body on the regular, and the euphoric bliss the sugar rush gives me takes the edge off my anxiety.
Unable to tame my curiosity, I pull up the ‘Hunks The Show’ website and go to the ‘Meet The Hunks’ section.
Scanning through the list of entertainers, my eyes fall on the one I’d coupled with that ill-fated night.
He looks exactly how I remembered him, from his coal-black hair to the Egyptian-looking tattoo on his chest.
What the hell kind of name is Toxic? I look at the information provided, seeing that his list of dislikes consists of: ‘Disrespectful People’.
Well, it was mighty disrespectful of him to knock me up.
You know what? I’m not going to do this right now.
I set my phone down and grab a gossip rag from the rack next to me, as I do more days than I care to admit, but the time isn’t wasted, because I need to keep up with celebrity news. It’s literally my job.
Growing up, my father expected I would one day work for the family firm as a lawyer, but I took a hard left after law school and became a publicist, which didn’t upset my father at all.
Just the opposite.
My work directly correlated with his, and he saw it as expanding our empire, which had the unfortunate side effect of putting an insurmountable amount of stress on my shoulders, because merely doing my job isn’t enough. I have to create a viable division of Weston Advocates, the law firm my great-great-granddad started nearly a century ago.
I scan the pages of the magazine, but can’t make sense of the words, because, try as I might, I can’t pry my mind away from the very real dilemma I’ve found myself in.
A peek at his social media accounts can’t hurt.
I enter a phony Chatter account I made a while back with the name of Trista Kinney. It uses a stock image of a young, attractive woman, so he won’t recognize me.
Is this perhaps a little crazy? Sure. But I’m beyond caring.
I peruse his feed, which is full of workout tips, food pictures, poker, and Star Wars rage, which I can relate to.
