Page 14 of Kicking Up Dust

No.

That’s not fair.

It hasn’t ruined my life.

Children are blessings, not curses.

“Whatever the tests say, you have options,” Stephanie reminds me, but I’m pretty positive they both know exactly what the results are, considering I haven’t said a word since learning my fate.

“Fuck this, I’m going in,” I hear Chelsey mutter seconds before she makes good on that threat. Despite them both being incredibly pushy over the past week for me to take these tests, Chelsey seems surprised to see the results. “Oh, shit.”

Stephanie, however… “Blair, you’ve gotta breathe, babe.”

“I’m pregnant.”

“Yep. You are. But regardless of our next steps here, they all require you to be breathing, so⁠—”

“Oh my god, I’m pregnant.” Are there levels to being shocked? I swear there must be. Three solid minutes of staring at the first pregnancy test and waiting for the second one to confirm it, and I’d done that in complete silence, but now?

Oh my god.

“Well, she’s breathing again,” Chelsey quips.

Stephanie sighs, tugging on my arm as she leads me out to the couch of our shared apartment.

“If we could find a happy medium between not breathing and hyperventilating, that would be incredible. Head between your knees,” she instructs, her hand on the back of my neck to make sure I comply.

“I feel like you’re not fully comprehending that you don’t have to be pregnant if you don’t want to be,” Chelsey offers and Stephanie must shoot her a look because a second later, she’s saying, “What? I’m just saying she’s panicking so I feel like⁠—”

“I’m keeping it,” I manage to pant out.

Both of the girls go silent, and I use Stephanie’s shock in particular to my benefit, pulling my head up from between my knees to fall back against the sofa instead.

“You’re… keeping it?”

I don’t realize it until I say it, but yeah… I’m keeping it. Here in California, I have a lot of options, thankfully. I’d fully support Chelsey or Stephanie or anyone else going to a clinic to take care of an unwanted pregnancy, but me?

It was probably leftover trauma from childhood.

Okay, it definitely was.

Something about being a foster kid that no one ever wanted, who bounced around from home to home with tons of shitty parents only out for a paycheck did something to you. I’d never want any child to feel unwanted, and even though the fetus inside of me isn’t a child yet and doesn’t have the capacity to know whether or not it was wanted… I still couldn’t do it.

I’d always wanted to be a mother someday. Did I think that would happen at twenty-one, in my senior year of college, with no job or home lined up? Not exactly. But I’d figure it out. I’d make it work. Adoption wasn’t an option either. Not for me, at least.

“Blair, I don’t mean to be⁠—”

“Well aware it’s not the smartest choice, but it’s my choice.”

That shuts Stephanie up, and Chelsey follows suit pretty quickly. “Okay. Alright. Yeah. Keeping it. We’re gonna be aunties!”

“Are you going to tell the cowboy?” Stephanie asks, the voice of reason once again.

“Oh god,” I whine.

For whatever reason, the fact I have to tell the father of this child that despite the condom and my birth control, he’d knocked me up hadn’t occurred to me until now.

He wasn’t going to believe me. Why would he?