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Every pause, every stoplight feels like a punishment. It’s all just another way for me to be forced to relive it all, forced into whichever alternate reality my brain comes up with. Maybe things would turn out okay. Maybe my baby would be born with six eyes. Maybe they would grow up to be a concert pianist, or maybe they would go to prison.
There’s nobody on the roads tonight, and the street that’s usually filled with people is eerily quiet in the rain. I’ve never seen it so empty before, and it only adds to my loneliness.
I’m driving alone.
I live alone.
I have to face these demons alone.
As much as I hate him right now, the only person I want near me is Abram. I’ve grown so attached to him, to his presence, that I haven’t been able to have so much as a single thought without him there to comfort me through it. Now that I resent him so much, I feel crippled by my connection to him.
The corner store is just about to close before I get there, but I rush in ten minutes before. The cashier scoffs at me as I run in, and I feel their angry eyes on me as I walk down each aisle, hysterically looking for a pregnancy test.
It could be the way I’m dressed. Perhaps it’s the way I’m nearly sprinting through the store with blind panic in my eyes as reality catches up to me. Either way, people are staring, and I’ve been overcome by the belief that they all know my dirty secret.
I’m a pregnant mistress for a mafia boss.
The aisles of the store are so sporadically stocked and strangely placed that it takes me ten minutes just to find the row where the tampons and condoms live.
When I find the proper area, I’m overwhelmed about what to buy. Do I buy the pack of three tests that’s cheap, or do I get three separate digital tests? Will each hold the same amount of accuracy? I’m torn, and I can damn near hear the minutes passing as I try to decide.
Eventually, I just reach down and grab the first test I touch, then two more of them. It’s a digital test with a screen on it that will either show a negative result as “negative” or a positive result as a little pixelated baby.
Cute, but I can’t help but feel like that little baby is taunting me.
I try not to sprint over to the register with my tests, keeping a neutral expression as I panic internally.
The cashier’s annoyance with me is palpable. She’s clearly worked here for at least ten years. At least that’s what the bags under her soulless grey eyes have to say. “We close in two minutes,” she mutters, scanning each test and reaching out her hand for my card.
She’s somehow able to chirp out a “have a nice night” before I dart out the door, unable to tolerate any more waiting or condescension from her.
I’m tempted to find a gas station and take the test there, but the possibility of discovering a pregnancy in such a filthy place makes my skin crawl. It sounds just as pleasant as a urinary tract infection in a college lecture hall.
The rain has let up a bit, so I speed all the way back to my apartment, forgetting to shut off my car when I pull into the parking lot. I have to stop and regroup for a moment, making sure I actually grabbed pregnancy tests instead of those goddamn fertility tests that look the exact same.
Nope, they’re pregnancy tests.
This is really happening.
Walking calmly into the apartment building with pregnancy tests is more difficult than I thought it would be. All of the girls have been talking about Abram and me, some of them even claiming that they’re able to hear us having sex every night, which is an obvious lie. Either way, we’ve given them something new to talk about, and a possible pregnancy would send their gossipy, curious minds through the roof.
I wrap them up in a sweatshirt and head inside.
As I’m walking to the elevator, I see Mandi heading out for a cigarette when she sees the bundle in my arms.
“Ooh, you found a kitten? Is there a kitten in there? I don’t think Abram wants cats in here,” she warns, trying to see the alleged kitten as she squints.
“Oh, yeah, it’s fine,” I spit out.
What a stupid, nothing response!
I head down the rest of the hallway and press the elevator button three times before it comes. The possibility of someone else seeing me is high since girls are coming and going out of here at all hours of the day and night. They’re all partiers, so none of them have a set schedule or a bedtime.
It makes me wonder how many of these girls have been in a similar position, maybe with Abram, and it makes me sick to my stomach. How many girls here has he had sex with?
Fortunately, I make it up to my apartment without anyone else seeing me. I close the door behind me, feeling my panic rising in my chest as I stop to breathe. I don’t think I’ve stopped moving since I took that picture of Josiah and Jaden.
I check my phone for a response from Abram.
