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“Remember when you used to do this for me in college?” Quinn asks, idly. Her voice drowns out the awkward splash of liquid into the toilet.
“You did like to party,” I say, trying to force myself to laugh.
“Live loose and plastered, or whatever Spock said.”
That’s definitely not what he said, but I don’t correct her. I finish my business and set the test on the counter as I situate myself and wash my hands.
“You need water?”
I nod. “Yeah. Please.”
Quinn salutes me and heads downstairs. In the time that she’s gone, I can’t take my eyes off the test in front of me—except to pick up the box. I scan it for indication of how long this damn thing takes (five to ten minutes) and then what the results mean.
Plus for pregnant, minus for not. There’s also a third option: a fat, black O for “inconclusive.”
You’re either pregnant or you’re not, right? What the hell does “inconclusive” mean?
Quinn comes back up as I contemplate Schrodinger’s Pregnancy Test, bearing a tall glass of water that I take from her and chug down immediately. Not just for the function of filling my bladder again, but because my mouth is basically the Sahara right now.
Quinn tries to keep me distracted. Little comments here. A joke there. I feel bad about the fact that I can’t pay attention. Her attempts only seem to string time along, slower and slower until I think that I’m going to burst.
Beep! Beep! Beep!
I gasp. Before anything else can happen, I snatch up the test.
Oh, goddammit. I should’ve known this was coming.
18
OLIVIA
No plus.
No minus.
Just a fat, black O.
“Oh, no…”
“What does it say?” Quinn cranes her head over my shoulder. She lets out a confused sound. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Inconclusive,” I mutter.
“Well, how the fuck do you get an inconclusive pregnancy result? Is there a little sea monkey in there or not?”
Instead of answering Quinn, I frantically pull out yet another test. When I’m done with it, I grab another and then another, until each one of the tests that Quinn brought me sits on the counter. They all have similar times, which means the answer should come as a roaring collective.
The time that passes this go-around seems to fly. All the tests ring in, one after the other. Quinn and I clamor to the sink. She takes the leftmost tests and I take the right.
“One positive. One inconclusive. What do yours say?” I ask, my voice rising high as I stare at the pink plus sign glaring up at me from the one that seems certain.
“One negative, one positive.”
I add them up quickly. Two positive, two inconclusive, and one negative. What the hell am I supposed to make of that?
“I don’t understand,” I say, panicked. “Which one is the right one?”
“My guess would be it’s a toss-up between yeah, you’re totally preggo and maybe you might be preggo,” Quinn suggests, picking up one of the inconclusive O tests to squint at it under the light. “Maybe your hormones are just weird?”
