sleep than usual. I just felt…off.
Then, it hit me.
“Oh my god,” I said to myself aloud in the mirror.
I turned and raced out of the bathroom and threw on clothes. I ran downstairs and grabbed my keys and wallet as I looked around for Scott and DeShawn. I couldn’t see them anywhere, and Scott’s truck wasn’t in the driveway, which made me think that the two of them had gone somewhere together. Good—I needed them to not be home right now. I got into my car and sped toward the pharmacy in town. I was already feeling guilty that I was going to have to spend the little bit of money that we had on a pregnancy test.
How could this have happened? I mean, I knew how it could have happened, but we only had sex twice. I was sure that I was just being paranoid. The chances of my being pregnant after just two times of having sex with DeShawn were slim. It was much more likely that I was just overworked and overstressed like I had told DeShawn earlier. There was a lot going on lately. Between the farm and DeShawn’s being here, I was sure that it had just all caught up with me at once. As far as the throwing up part, I probably shouldn’t have guzzled down a giant mugful of coffee and then gotten into an argument with DeShawn.
“See?” I told myself in the rearview mirror. “All of this had a perfectly reasonable explanation that was not my being pregnant.
If I were really that convinced, though, then my heart wouldn’t have been pounding so fast when I ran into the pharmacy to buy the test. The cashier gave me a sweet smile when she handed me my bag, and it made me want to be sick all over again.
When I got back home, I was relieved to see that DeShawn and my brother were still out somewhere. I raced up to my room unseen, took the test out of the bag, and set it on the top of my bed. For several long minutes, I walked around my bedroom and stared at it sitting there. If I didn’t take it, then I would probably just end up feeling better and getting my period, and then I could return the test for a refund as long as the box wasn’t open and I still had my receipt. I almost decided that was what I would do. But when I went to grab the test and stick it back into the bag, I somehow ended up carrying it to the bathroom instead.
“Okay, this is no big deal,” I told myself as I opened the box.
My hands were shaking uncontrollably, and I felt ridiculous. The test would be negative, and then I would realize that I’d gotten myself all worked up for nothing. I was just shaken up from letting a bad dream and an upset stomach get to me. I took a deep breath and peed on the damn stick. Then I set the test on top of a washcloth on the sink and turned around to wait for the time to be up.
I paced the little bathroom like an animal stalking around inside a cage at the zoo. There were several times that I wanted to take a peek at it early, but I didn’t want to chance getting some sort of inconclusive result that would just make me panic unnecessarily. So I made myself wait, and instead, I watched the time count down on my phone. When the time was up, I sucked in another big breath and turned around to reach for the test. I picked up the little stick and held it up to my face to see what it said.
16
Deshawn
“Why are you so protective of your sister,” I asked Scott as he reached for a box of cereal.
He and I had decided to make a run to the grocery store while Clara was resting since she wasn’t feeling good, and there were a few things that they needed from the store.
“Because she’s my sister,” Scott said gruffly. “We are you so concerned about it?”
I noticed that he’d always had a prickly ridge when it came to the topic of Clara. I wondered if that was just with me, or if he was that way with all of the guys who had been around his sister. Come to think of it, though, I didn’t really remember any guys being around Clara before.