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Forcing myself to stand up, I flushed the toilet and splashed cold water on my face, then rinsed my mouth out with water and mouthwash. Okay. I could do this. I needed answers.
“Mom, I’m going to run some errands!” I yelled. It was only morning, there was plenty of time for me to get back before Morgan showed up in the afternoon and we all sat down to eat. And Mom never wanted my help in the kitchen anyway, she was always a bit anal about holiday meals.
We did always make Christmas cookies together, though. I couldn’t wait to get started on that.
My stomach heaved a little and okay, maybe I would skip the Christmas cookies this year, Jesus Christ.
“You sure?” Mom yelled.
“Yeah, sorry, I totally forgot! Do you need anything?” Going shopping on Thanksgiving was probably the worst day to do it besides Black Friday, because everyone was out grabbing the last-minute shit they’d forgotten to grab along the way and nobody was rational because, well, holidays.
“No, I think we’re good,” Mom replied. “Drive safely!”
“I will!”
I drove safely, all right. I drove safely all the way to fucking Amarillo. I knew it was totally out of the way but nobody here would have even a chance of recognizing me and reporting it back to my fucking brother. What was he in the mafia now? Was he running a spy ring? I felt like every time I so much as sneezed someone would tell him about it. Maybe our town had always been this gossipy and I’d just never noticed before because I’d never had a secret worth gossiping about before, but it sure felt like it had all cranked up to ten lately.
Too impatient to wait until I got home—and not wanting my parents to see my crying—I went to the drug store bathroom and used that the second that I bought the pregnancy test. I bought two, just in case, because I doubted that the first one would be wrong but I needed to be sure, I needed to have zero chance of a mistake.
Two little pink strips looked back at me from both sticks.
I sank back down onto the toilet and burst into tears. I couldn’t even say why I was crying. I would’ve cried if they only showed one strip, too. Positive or negative, I would’ve been crying. It was just like this wave of emotion overtook me and drowned me and I didn’t know what to do with it, I couldn’t keep it all in.
Once my crying died down, I wiped at my eyes and took a few deep breaths. Okay. Okay, how did I feel about this?
Well, on the one hand, I was excited. I’d always wanted kids, and I wanted this one. I wanted Pike’s child. The idea of having a baby who had his eyes and his nose, the idea of watching Pike rock the baby to sleep, the idea of holding my child in my arms… all of it filled me with warmth. I wanted that, and it made me happy.
But on the other hand… fuck, I was young! Was I really ready to be a mother? Could I do a good job of it? What if I fucked it up? And even more than that, Pike and I had never talked about the future. I had always pictured being with him forever, ever since I was a stupid teenager with a stupid crush, but I had never spoken to him about it. He’d never brought anything up. I knew that he cared about me and that he was serious about us, but that didn’t equal him actually thinking solidly about the future, about starting a family. And Pike’s parents had been shit. It was the reason he was such a troublemaker and why he was always at our house growing up. What if he didn’t want to be a parent after all that?
I would have to talk to him, before I spoke to anyone else. What if… what if he didn’t want it? Would I still want it?
That was a hell of a thing to think about. I sat on the toilet, contemplating. If I was going to go through with the pregnancy then I might as well go ahead with raising the kid. My parents would be supportive. I wasn’t so sure about Dad, but Mom would be. And Dad would come around, I was sure of it. I could live with them and find a steady job… I hated bartending but it would allow me to make enough money to look after a baby, I could work while the baby was asleep at night, and stay with my baby during the day…
All right. So. I would keep this baby, whether or not Pike wanted to be involved. And I’d let him know about that and tell him that there was no pressure. He hadn’t asked for such a commitment, and there would be no hard feelings if he decided that he didn’t want to be a part of this.
