Page 108 of Buy Back My Love

Behind me, Anika stopped messing with the trash bag.

“Wait. Your period late?”

I dropped the sponge into the sink. “Why y’all interrogating me?”

“Because you ain’t ate all day,” Mama said, coming closer, “and every time somebody opens the oven, you look like you finna throw up.”

Anika’s eyes widened. “Hold on. But you took that Plan B.”

“I know what I took.”

“And that don’t mean it worked,” Mama said.

I ain’t want to hear that. I had managed to go the whole week without buying a test because as long as I didn’t take one, I could keep telling myself my period was just late.

Anika suddenly snapped her fingers.

“Wait.”

She disappeared down the hall before either one of us could ask anything and came back holding a little cardboard box.

I stared at it. “Why the hell you got a pregnancy test?”

“Me and Trevon had a scare a couple months ago. We bought a two-pack, and I only used one.”

“Of course you got a pregnancy test just laying around.”

Anika held the box out to me. “Would you rather I didn’t?”

I looked at Mama.

She pointed toward the hallway. “Go.”

I started toward the bathroom, and both of them fell in behind me.

I looked back over my shoulder. “Why both of y’all gotta come?”

“Because,” Anika said, already walking, “you look like you might run out the back door.”

“Both of y’all get on my nerves.”

Anika laughed. “You’ll live.”

All three of us ended up squeezed into Anika’s guest bathroom like this was some kind of family event. I tore open the wrapper, did what I had to do, and set the test on the counter. After that, there wasn’t nothing left to do but wait, which turned out to be harder than taking the damn thing.

I made it maybe thirty seconds before looking at Anika. “How long?”

She checked the box. “Three minutes.”

“It’s been three minutes.”

“It’s been forty seconds, Lee. Sit down before you pass out.”

“I’m not finna pass out.”

Anika watched me pace from the sink to the door and back again. “You walking a hole in the floor in a bathroom the size of a closet.”

“I can pace if I want to.”