Rose rises to her feet, brandishing a box of tampons.
I squint. “So this is about your period?” I feel like there’s a mystery here. One that I am not programmed to solve.
“No,” she says like I’m an idiot. I don’t see how I could be the stupid one. She pops open the flaps and takes out a familiar looking stick.
My rushed thought spills out of my mouth. “Who mixed up a pregnancy test with tampons?”
Rose purses her lips. “I put the test in here,” she says flatly.
Oh.
Ohhhhhh. My eyes widen in alarm, never believing or registering that this could actually happen: Rose pinching a pregnancy test between two fingers. “You’re not…”
“I’m late.”
Oh my God. This is really happening.
I just don’t understand why she’s keeping it so secret. Sure, I’ve had to sneak around pregnancy tests more than I’d like to admit aloud or even to myself. Rash-like welts start springing up if I go back that far to my past. But this is coming from Rose—my sister who used to buy tampons for me because I blushed too hard at the checkout counter.
“Why the incognito pregnancy test?” I ask with the tilt of my head.
She points a manicured nail at the toilet. “Sit.”
What? “Um, Rose,” I say hesitantly. “You’re supposed to sit on the toilet, not the sister of the person who may be pregnant. That’s how pregnancy tests work…”
She glares like she’s trying to shrivel me. Like I’m Loren Hale—her one true nemesis.
“Team Rose.” I point to my chest. In the mirror, I catch my bony arms and flushed skin, looking very much sunburnt by now.
“I need you to take the test first,” she says, pushing the stick into my hands.
Now I go pale, blood rushing out of me. “Why?”
“I need a baseline,” she says. “To know that they work before I try.”
That sounds…ridiculous, but Rose has begun to pace, worrying me a little. Her eyes dart around the room like she’s thinking way too hard about the future. It’s not a secret that Rose dislikes children, babies even more.
“I thought you and Connor talked about children,” I say softly, tiptoeing very carefully on the topic.
“Thirty-five,” she says. “We agreed to have kids at thirty-five. This isn’t part of the plan.”
She’s only twenty-five.
“You know,” I say, “lots of women have babies at your age.” I try my best at being supportive, but she shoots me another withering glare.
“Piss on the stick.” Each word sounds like a threat.
I take a deep breath. She’s done far more for me. I can definitely do this for her. “But you can’t tell Lo that I took a pregnancy test—even one in camaraderie. He’ll freak out.”
“It won’t ever come up,” she promises.
I approach the toilet, roll down my leggings and sit on the cold seat. I concentrate on the task, really careful not to pee on my fingers (that’s the trickiest part). When I finish, I pull up my leggings, set the stick on the counter and wash my hands, waiting for my results.
“You next,” I say with a smile, like see it’s not so scary, Rose.
She inhales sharply. “I’ll wait until we read yours.”
“It’ll be better if you just get it over with.” She’s going to wear down her five-inch heels to three-inches if she doesn’t stop pacing. I delicately hand her the tampon box, showing her that it’s not so bad after all. “It’s probably negative anyway. You’re on birth control, right?”
“I haven’t missed a single day, so you know what this means?”
“That there is no way you could be pregnant.” I exhale for her and smile. She’s being dramatic for nothing.
“That I’m unlucky. Very, very unlucky, Lily. Birth control is 99% effective, so Connor’s superhuman sperm somehow penetrated my body’s defenses. He won. His sperm reached my egg and now I’m going to have this thing growing inside of me for nine whole months while he gets to parade around the fact that he impregnated an impregnable woman.” She exhales after that rant.
My eyes are saucers and I pat her iron-like shoulder for support. I try not to think about Connor’s sperm or his sperm wearing a superhero cape. “If you have a baby, just think of all the cute clothes you can dress her or him up in.” It’s the only pro that I can think of.
“A baby isn’t a doll,” she refutes in a chilly tone. She struts forward, forcing my hand to fall. I doubt it was that comforting anyway. She reluctantly pulls out the pregnancy test from the tampon box.
“Okay,” I say, regrouping. “Then give me a reason why you don’t like children that has nothing to do with tantrums and dirty diapers.”
She pulls her black panties down from her dress and stares at the stick before taking the test. “Besides the fact that they’ll freakishly look like a hybrid of Connor and me,” she says, “children are reflections of their parents. Anything they say or do is going to be seen as a product of my parenting choices.” She shakes her head and this foreign fear darkens her face. “It’s not like f**king up a math test, Lily.”
She rolls her eyes, her guards rising again. And then she pees on the stick. “What does yours say?” she asks.
“Negative,” I declare before I even pick it up. She flushes the toilet, and I grab my stick. “Two lines that’s…” I snatch the directions, my heart catapulting to my throat. No…
After scrubbing her hands with soap and rinsing, Rose steps forward and leers over my shoulder to read the test. “Lily.” Her brows rise in accusation.
“It’s broken!” I point at the stick like it has betrayed me. I toss it into the sink. There’s absolutely no way I’m pregnant. Right. Right?
Rose grips my shoulders, spinning me towards her. “Stay calm,” she says in her unsympathetic voice.
I breathe out a long breath. Like I’m in a maternity class. Oh my God. I’m already doing pregnant things. I touch my cheeks that roast. “Am I burning up? I think I have seven-degree burns.”
“No such thing,” she says.
“What does yours say?” I ask, about to look over at the counter.
She clutches my shoulders harder. “Concentrate. One issue at a time.”
Okay. But I can’t help but notice her change in demeanor. My morose, panicked sister has put on her problem-solving attitude with a little too much excitement. She’s avoiding her issues by focusing on mine.
“Has Lo been using protection?”
“No,” I say. “Has Connor?”
Her glare ices over. “I’m on birth control. We’ve discussed this already.”
Oh yeah. Okay.
“Breathe,” she tells me.
I blow out a breath. I may be pregnant. “Oh my God.”
“How late are you?” she asks, still quizzing me. My brain is trying to cross five different pathways at the same time.
“Um…” I blink repeatedly. “Oh um.” I shake my head to collect my thoughts. “I skip my period with birth control.” I don’t know how late I am. I’m not Rose. I bet she has alerts in her cellphone for her next cycle.
“And you took all of your birth control? Every day? You didn’t miss once?”