“Uh…”
I remembered the night of my graduation almost a month ago. We had laughed, gotten drunk, stayed up late, and wound up in bed. I didn’t remember many details of that night, but I was pretty sure there hadn’t been a condom in the wastebasket in the morning.
Reading the panic on my face, Naya cursed before rushing to reassure me: “OK, OK, no need to panic yet. We still don’t know anything for certain. Do you have a pregnancy test?”
“Why would I have a pregnancy test?”
“For emergencies!”
We’d been in there long enough that I was worried people were getting suspicious. And in this case,peoplemeant Jack. Like magic, he knocked at the door. “Is everything all right in there?”
“No!” Naya responded, before I hissed at her and made her correct herself. “I mean, yeah. Great. Everything’s great.”
Jack clearly didn’t buy her performance. He burst in, worried, stared at us from head to toe, and asked me what was going on. He knew me too well to think that I was fine, and I could feel the blood draining from my face and my fingers shaking.
“Are you sick or something?” he said.
“Not exactly,” Naya answered for me. Her presence was unhelpful, to say the least.
Unsure how to proceed, I began, “Jack, you remember my graduation night…?”
“Not much,” he responded, grinning.
“Yeah, exactly. I don’t remember it too well either. And now it turns out that I’m late.”
It took him a few seconds longer than it took me to grasp the significance of that. When he did, he started stuttering: “B-b-but… I wore a condom, I’m sure I did.”
“Are you?” Naya questioned him.
Looking at me almost apologetically, Jack said, “I really thought I did.”
“Well, it’s time for a test. I’m going to go see if I still have one,” Naya announced, like a parent chastising her children. She soon returned, holding the test out sternly. I quivered as I peed on the little strip, shook the stick off, and started waiting. Five minutes it took. Five minutes that felt like five eternities. I had forced Naya and Jack to go out in the hall while I was taking it. Now they were both back, standing in front of me with arms crossed. Jack ran his hand through his hair, I rubbed my arms to try to get warm, Naya held the test and looked at it closely, waiting for a little telltale stripe to appear.
Hoping to distract me, she asked what we had going on over the next few days. We were planning on doing some shopping: we needed furniture for the lake house, materials for the reno, and we were thinking about taking Mike away for a trip to the lake house, because he was having another one of his lonely phases. “Keep talking,” Naya told me, which I did, just babbling to not think about the emergency at hand. Poor Jack, I must have been driving him insane.
When the five minutes were up, Naya interrupted me and said, “OK, showtime.”
Everything moved in slow motion as she brought the test out and scrutinized it closely. She seemed to be taking forever, and in a huff, I said, “Dammit, Naya, are you going to tell us the results or what?”
“Eh… I think it didn’t work.”
“Excuse me?” Jack murmured.
“There’s no lines on it at all. I just remembered that these things expire, and I bought this one just after Jane was born, so…”
“NAYA!” I screamed, and she apologized profusely.
It was getting late and there was nothing open nearby, so we decided to wait for morning, even though I knew there was no way I could sleep. I kept telling myself I couldn’t be pregnant. I didn’tfeelpregnant, and I always took it for granted that I’d know as soon as I was. I was nervous all night. I couldn’t enjoy my dinner, and all through the meal, I could feel the pressure of Jack’s eyes on me. We conversed and pretended to laugh, but I don’t think our act convinced anyone.
When we got in bed, I told him, “Don’t stress about it. We’ll find out tomorrow and we’ll decide what to do then.”
“Sure,” he said distractedly.
Hoping it would cheer him up, I added, “How about we go back to talking about the wedding? We still haven’t picked a day, but I was thinking sometime next June would be nice.”
“June’s too hot.”
“May?”
