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“Calm down.” Jane’s voice was eerily calm herself as she took my hand. Briefly, I wondered if she’d ever found herself in a similar situation. “My cousin is an OBGYN, Skylar. She assured me that it’s nearly impossible to get pregnant the day before your period since almost no one actually ovulates on that day. Unless you’re irregular or the bleeding was unusually light, there’s no way you’re pregnant.”
The look on my face must have told her that both of those conditions were true. My heart felt like it stopped. Jane took a deep breath, as if breathing for us both.
“Shh,” she soothed, albeit ineffectually as she rubbed my hand with hers. “It’s going to be all right, Sky. It’s probably stress. I’ve seen you the last few months—you’ve been miserable and freaked out about graduation and jobs and that shit with your dad. Plus, you’ve been swimming like crazy too. You probably just skipped one, you know?”
I leaned down and pressed my face into her comforter. “Oh, God,” I mumbled into the cotton fabric. “Fuck! How could I have been so stupid!”
“Skylar, stop!” Jane twisted around, grabbed something from her nightstand drawer, and threw it into my lap.
“Take the test,” she ordered. “Then you can freak out if you really need to.”
I picked up the box and read the label. “Why do you have a pregnancy test, Janey?”
“Hey, we’ve all had false alarms,” she said with a shrug. “I’m sure that’s what this is, so go take it to be sure and save yourself from getting an ulcer. Go!”
Jane shooed me out of the room. I shut the door to the bathroom and read the instructions at least three times before actually sitting on the toilet and peeing on the stick. Then I slipped the plastic cap over the paper strip and laid it carefully on the edge of the sink while I washed my hands. I splashed my face with cold water and let it drizzle down my cheeks before reaching for the paper napkins we were using after packing away our things. I couldn’t be pregnant. I just couldn’t.
Without looking at the stick, which wouldn’t be ready for another two minutes anyway, I walked back into Jane’s room and flopped onto her mattress to stare at the ceiling.
“It’s like a bad sitcom,” I said dryly. “I’m going to be somebody’s baby mama.”
“Well, you’ll probably be able to get a hell of a deal on child support,” Jane joked, cutting off her chuckle when I sent her a sharp glance.
“Gross,” I said. I propped up on my elbows and looked down my torso. “Do I look pregnant? My boobs aren’t sore or anything. Some women start to show early.” I pulled up my t-shirt and glared at my belly. It was flat as ever.
“Yeah, and others don’t show until they’re practically in their third trimester,” Jane said as she swiped at me with her pillow. “But it doesn’t matter because you’re not pregnant, right?”
“Right,” I said, ignoring the sinking feeling that told me otherwise.
The timer on my cell phone went off, signifying that the test was ready.
I pulled Jane’s pillow over my head. “You go look,” I grumbled. “I can’t. Please, Jane?”
She didn’t say anything, but I heard her shuffle to the bathroom. The door opened, and I listened while she paused for a moment, then trudged back. When her footsteps stopped, I pulled the pillow from my eyes, and turned to where she stood in the doorway, holding the pregnancy test gingerly between her index finger and thumb.
“Well?” I sat up, trying desperately to read her face.
She took a deep breath and tapped the test with her fingernail.
“I think…I think you need to make a doctor’s appointment, Mama,” she said sadly as she held out the test for me to see.
“Oh,” I said weakly.
I took the test from her fingers. There they were, two incriminating pink lines indicating the tiny cells now multiplying in my body.
“Oh,” I said again as I leaned back on the mattress. Thank God I’m on a bed, I thought vacantly before the world lost all its color, and I blacked out.
* * *
