I looked over my shoulder at him, snoring and then back at the bag.
Fuck it.
I got up, walked over to the dresser, snatched the bag up, and headed straight for the en-suite bathroom. Once I got inside, I dug into the bag and pulled the boxed pregnancy test out.
Yes.Pregnancy test.
I was thirty-five years old, getting ready to take a damn pregnancy test. I was nervous. Had been nervous since I asked one of the servers to go out and get it for me. I should have taken one last week when my period didn’t show up. But I was scared. Probably shouldn’t have been fucking like crazy, knowing a baby was a risk.
I didn’t want a baby. Not because I wouldn’t love it. But because I was in a place in my life where a baby really didn’t fit. Not only that, I was afraid of the way Crescent would take it. When we met, he didn’t seem interested at all in having another child. What if I was pregnant and he asked me to get an abortion? Hell, what if I was pregnant and Iwantedto an abortion? I already had four. My youngest was five. What would I do with a baby? With Couture picking up? I just didn’t see that in my future.
So, as I tore into the box, I said a silent prayer, asking God not to give me a positive test result. Biting down on my bottom lip, I positioned the test between my legs and sat on the toilet.
If it came back positive, I would have a child that wasn’t Duke’s. Whew. That was crazy. Mind blowing crazy. My life would look so different. Hell, without the baby my life looked completely different. He was no longer a part of it. Duke. We didn’t talk at all. He rarely even came in the house when he picked the kids up. All communication was done with the kids in the middle. That was insane to me, considering I spent more than half my life with him as a constant.
After I finished, I shook the test off and sat it on the floor between my feet. With my arms crossed, resting on my knees, I stared down at it. I couldn’t look away. I wouldn’t look away. I kept my eyes centered on the little windows that would house results that would determine the rest of my life. My heart raced. So hard that I could hear it in my ears.
It didn’t take long for the results to load up. As I stared down at it, it felt like all of the air in my body was sucked out of me.
Positive.
I was pregnant.
Because I needed a false positive, I jumped up from the toilet and headed to the kitchen for a glass of water to refill my bladder. I drank the water, repeated the process and got the same result.
Shit.
Shit.
Shit.
My mind raced. I paced back and forth, hands on my head thinking about what this meant. I’d only been divorced for a year. You know how many people were going to talk shit once word got out if I decided to keep it? You know whatEvewas going to say?
My mother was going to call me all kinds of heathens. She was going to talk shit amongst her church friends and…Then it didn’t matter.I snapped out of it. Placing my hands flat on the his and hers sink, I stared up at the mirror. What the fuck was I doing? I wasn’tthatperson anymore. I didn’t care about what people thought. I huffed, hung my head a bit and shook it from side to side. That was a lie. I still cared. I’d be lying if I said I walked around carefree, not giving a damn about what people thought about me. It took a minute, but I realized that was okay. I was human. That was a human thing. And if it wasn’t a human thing, it was a Mahogany thing. The difference between now and before was I didn’t let what people thought dictate my actions anymore. I marched to the beat of my own drum, regardless of whattheyhad to say. I didn’t put on a facade to get approval. I didn’t make decisions based on what anyone thought besides myself.
What my momma or anyone else would say didn’t matter.
I had gone no contact with my momma. I’d be lying if I said it was hard to do. It was quite easy. I made the decision after the day at Sienna’s when I told her what was going on between Duke and me. She tried to call me a couple of times after that, but every call went to voicemail. After she sent me a long text message about honoring my vows, and abiding by God’s will, I blocked her. My father called and tried to be a mediator, but I shut that shit down immediately. After pouring my heart out to him about the pain and damage my momma caused, he stopped facilitating for her and let it go. He saw where I was coming from. Especially with the Duke situation and how she handled it. My dad was and always would be Team Pickles.
I understood how short life was and how she could die any day, but you know what? I made peace with that. I accepted that Eve could die at any moment and I wouldn’t be able to get time back. It might’ve been harsh to say, but I didn’t care. I was in a better place without her in my life, sadly.
My sisters wouldn’t care if I was pregnant.
They would be surprised, of course. But they would support me because they supported everything I did. Plus, they liked Crescent. Aside from the little introduction at the bar, they didn’t know him. But they knew a lot about him. I talked to them about him all of the time. Like a teenage girl with a big crush on a boy. Every time I talked about him to them, they smiled. Sometimes they mentioned how much happier I seemed, too. They were happy I’d moved on from Duke.
Then I thought about the kids.
Oh God.
This would just be another thing for them to have to adjust to.
My hands grew clammy and I bit my bottom lip. I felt sick to my stomach, thinking about telling them. If anything pushed me to get an abortion it would be that.
I looked over at the positive pregnancy tests and shook my head. Pregnant. Fucking pregnant.
“What are you going to do, Mahogany?” I asked, staring into the mirror.
For now, I was doing nothing. I needed to tell him, but I decided I’d wait. He’d just asked me to be his girlfriend. I didn’t want to ruin the mood with this.
