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Chapter Seventeen
Naomi
The feeling of lava churning in my stomach woke me up. I lurched out of bed and skidded to the bathroom and lifted the toilet lid just in time to puke. I groaned into the toilet bowl as my stomach continued to do backflips. I didn’t move for what felt like a long time until my stomach was still again. I took a shower and brushed my teeth, my mind was unusually blank. I was trying not to think about Josh. But of course, me thinking about not thinking about him, made me think about him.
It occurred to me, way too late, that he said we could keep dating after the class ended. As I got dressed, feeling achy, I replayed our conversation ten times. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d moved too fast in breaking things off. It was a worry that kept poking at the back of my mind. I fed Jerry, who jumped onto the counter, which he never did because he always got in trouble for it, and rubbed his head under my chin. He always knew when I was upset. I picked him up and he let me hold him like a baby in one arm and purred like a small engine.
For some reason, tears sprang to my eyes and a sob welled in my chest. “Seriously?” I said, my voice shaky. It made no sense to cry over Josh, none. But I was, I couldn’t help it because I did have feelings for him, as much as I tried to fight it. Inexplicably, I’d gotten attached.
A knock on the door startled me and Jerry grumbled then dropped out of my hands. I wiped my eyes and walked to the door. Through the peephole, I saw Jess standing in the hall. Confused, I opened the door.
“You guys don’t know how to call me anymore?” I asked. Jess wore light grey tights and a t-shirt for her dance studio. “Don’t you have work?” Jess stepped inside and shut the door behind her.
“What’s going on with you? Were you crying?” she asked. Jess put her hands on my shoulders and looked in my eyes before she hugged me.
“No…” I murmured, lying.
“I heard about the fight,” she said.
“Fight?” I finally wrapped my arms around her and she held onto me longer.
“When you went to Mom’s house. She told me about it, she’s worried you’re still upset,” Jess said. She finally pulled back and then put her purse on the bar. As soon as she turned to me again, my stomach lurched and I hurried to the bathroom.
“Naomi…” I heard her follow me and ran ahead to close the bathroom door behind me. My stomach felt sour, I wondered what I’d eaten. After throwing up again, I felt more settled and my mind was oddly blank again.
“Nao,” Jess tapped on the door. I quickly rinsed my mouth with mouthwash and splashed some water on my face. Grogginess clung to me and I wanted nothing more than to lay in bed.
“I’m okay,” I said and opened the door. Jess looked me over, concerned.
“Did you get food poisoning or something?” she asked. “Did you go to a restaurant?” I walked with her to the living room and sat down, the room spun a little bit around me. Jess waved her hand in front of my face and I snapped out of the slight daze that I was in.
“I haven’t eaten since…lunch yesterday and I was fine last night. Usually I can feel it when I ate something off,” I said and put my head in my hand. Jess’s brow furrowed and she studied me all over again.
“Are you seeing someone?” she said slowly.
“I’m—um…no, not anymore,” I said. Jess blinked at me, waiting quietly for the explanation. “I was…since the beginning of the semester but we broke things off last night.”
“So, it’s what now…halfway through the semester? It’s been six weeks?” she asked. My eyes fluttered as I tried to count the weeks in my head, as I backtracked, I realized that I hadn’t had my period at all since that day in Josh’s office.
“Oh my god,” I whispered.
“Naomi…let’s go to the drug store,” Jess said. She stood up and took my hand.
“Wait, I—I,” Jess grabbed her purse, barely waited for me to get shoes on and we walked downstairs to her car. Once inside, she turned on the car and idled.
“When is the last time you had your period?” she asked.
“I don’t even remember,” I murmured. “I’m on birth control though—”
“It doesn’t matter, nothing is fool proof,” she said. I glanced through the window at the ground. Jess didn’t say anything more. She pulled out of the parking lot and we drove around the corner to CVS. Everything looked like a dream as we got out and walked down the baby isle to get to the pregnancy tests. I studied the chubby smiling faces of the baby models on the front of diaper packs. There was also a lot of formula to choose from. I noticed a selection of cold medicine for babies and stopped to pick up a baby aspirin box. The baby on the front seemed to stare into my soul.
“Come on, Nao,” Jess looped her arm through mine and we walked to the selection of pregnancy tests.
“This is crazy, this is nuts,” I said. My heart started to beat a little faster in my chest and a wave of dizziness hit me. “Jess, I can’t be pregnant,” I said, panic creeping into my tone.
“Relax, Nao. We’re going to take the test to find out—first thing’s first.” She grabbed two top shelf electronic tests and we walked to the cash register to buy them. I’d never had so much as a pregnancy scare before. V had one but it turned out that she was just late. Jess had been pregnant before, a few years ago, when she was dating her, then serious, boyfriend. But she miscarried eight weeks in. Then her relationship dissolved a few weeks later, she’d said that he hadn’t been supportive when she was trying to get past the sadness. He couldn’t understand how hard it had been to lose the baby.
No one close to me, apart from my mother, had been through a full pregnancy and birth. I had no idea what to expect if that test turned out to be positive. “Just try not to think about it. I don’t need you hyperventilating, Nao,” Jess said. We drove back to my place and Jess unboxed both pregnancy tests.
