Yep, I'd resorted to talking to myself.
It was one of my rare days off, thank goodness, so I would have the time to get a test, which would probably take a couple of hours.
Why would it take hours? There were a couple of reasons.
The first being that if I went to the local drug or grocery store, word would get back to my mom, or Cam, or, God help me, J.J., within a matter of hours. There would be talk, most of it idle gossip, but some of it would be malicious.
Which brought me to my second issue. If my reputation in town suffered, my house cleaning business would suffer as well. Several of my clients were elderly and some of them were very strait-laced to the point of being uptight. I could very well see a couple of them canceling my service because I was an unwed mother. Or at least believed to be unmarried and pregnant.
Yeah, I knew we were living in the twenty-first century, but narrow minds were often rigid.
And if I was pregnant, I would need every penny I could save between now and the birth.
My throat closed up and the nausea returned with full force when I realized what this meant for my ambitions to finish grad school. I knew several of my classmates had kids and worked, which was great. Some of them were even single parents. I knew I could handle that part of it.
But I would have to take on debt to finish. There was no way I could complete the program while pregnant and later, with a baby, without taking out loans because all my money would be going into medical care. And if there were any problems, my medical debt could quickly become large enough to bankrupt me.
I swallowed past the lump in my throat and forced myself to unclench my fists.
I didn't know for sure if I was pregnant. Step one would be to verify that. Then, I could focus on step two.
The part of me that needed to have a plan for everything howled in denial at ignoring step two. And three. And four and five and six.
But it was the only thing I could do if I wanted to remain calm until I knew the truth.
Once I knew, then I could freak out. After the freak-out, I would figure out my next step.
Two hours later, I was sitting in a stall in the CVS bathroom in Greenville. It was about an hour from Farley. I'd arrived thirty minutes ago, purchased the pregnancy test and a bottle of water, which I drank down as quickly as possible, and now I was about to take the test.
While I waited for the urge to pee to hit, I read the instructions over and over to make sure I knew exactly what to do.
It was the moment of truth. I took a deep breath, stood up, and pulled my pants down. Somehow, I managed to pee enough to activate the test. Once I finished up, I put the wrapper on the back of the toilet, laid the test on top, and glanced at my smart watch, a Christmas gift from my family last year. My father insisted on buying it for me because he thought I "needed it" and I refused to spend that amount of money on a watch when it would buy me at least two textbooks when I went back to school.
Now, I was glad for it because I wasn't going to leave the stall to wash my hands until the two minutes were up.
I forced myself to close my eyes and take deep, steady breaths. If I hyperventilated and passed out in here, they would probably call an ambulance and I'd have to wait until the hospital did blood work to find out if I was pregnant or not.
It was the longest two minutes of my life. It was even worse than my first Pap smear, which hadn't been fun at all.
At last, the clock showed that the two minutes were up. I had turned my back on the toilet so I wouldn't stare at it while I waited. As soon as I turned around, I saw two blue lines.
My legs went weak and I sagged against the wall.
The edges of my vision turned dark and I braced my hand against the opposite wall. I couldn't faint. If I passed out, I'd end up going to the hospital and then everyone would know what happened.
Deep breaths. I had to take deep breaths.
After a few inhale-exhales, my vision cleared. I reached out and nearly tossed the positive test in the trash, but something made me stop. Instead, I tucked it back in the box and put the box back in the bag. I left the stall, washed my hands, and went back out into the store, straight to the aisle that carried other pregnancy tests.
Even though the frugal spirit inside of me cringed, I grabbed three more tests, each a different brand, and carried them back up front.
The clerk looked bored as he rang me up and never looked up from the register. Which was good because if he had, he would have recognized me from ten minutes ago.
As soon as I got the other bag with three tests and the mile-long receipt, I went outside to my car. Once I was in the driver's seat, I knew exactly where I had to go and what I had to do.
Fifty-five minutes later,I turned into my parents' driveway and parked behind my mom's SUV. Dad was probably at the office since my oldest brother ran the physical portion of the landscaping business. After his heart attack, they told him he could do office work only during the hottest part of the summer because they would not be the ones to tell my mother that he'd overheated and keeled over.
He complained and moaned about it and probably drove the office manager, Joyce, insane during July and August, but he did it.
