PLEASE, LET IT BE PINK. Please, please please, I pray as I anxiously rock on the heels of my foot against the marble sink. Alas, it has come to this. Peeing on a stick – which turns out is literally one of the hardest things I have ever had to do besides trying to drop an egg from a second floor without breaking it – looks so much easier in the movies. Then again, everything is a zillion times easier in the movies.
I bite my lip feeling a lot like crap, eyeing the timer. I can feel it staring back lifelessly at me, taunting me. 30 seconds. I don't know if I want to know what the stupid pregnancy home kit has to say. I really don't. When the timer rings, my hand hovers reluctantly over the stick. I don't want to know. I am almost tempted to chuck the whole thing into the bin, but I don't.
It's pink. I glance at the stick, now brave enough to clip it between my thumb and index finger. I'm... not pregnant. I let out a tiny gasp of relief. But does this make all the other 2 pregnancy tests I've taken in the last hour wrong?
Holy shit. What does this mean?
"Crap." Staring blankly at the pink dot, I can feel the bile coming up my throat as I frantically sift through empty boxes for another kit.
That was the last one.
"Crap. Crap. Crap." I mutter as the panic begins to set in. Am I freaking pregnant or not?
"Watch the lamp!" I hear giggling through the door, then the reckless shuffling of footsteps and a thud.
"Adam, is that you?" My voice cracks. More giggling. Quickly, I shove the pregnancy kit into the black plastic bag, wrapping it hastily as I nudge open the bathroom door.
"Honey?" I guess I should've seen it coming. I gasp in horror at the sight of his naked torso pressed against her bare chest.
"I can explain!" he exclaims, his hands still hooked around her black panties. By reflex, I grip the plastic bag harder. Then, I realize just how much in burns inside, the crappy sting of betrayal, like the searing of bare flesh by an iron hot rod.
"Really?" My voice breaks into a bitter choke, as she whines in a soft purr when he finally shoves her off of him.
I can almost laugh because the cheating happens exactly like it does in the movies. He'll scramble to find his shirt and (read: not-so-discreetly) telepathically signal her to scram because – let's face it – this isn't her problem; even though it kind of is. Then he'll try to hug me with newfound sincerity and oh-so-genuine concern.
"What the hell, Adam?"
"Calm down, everything's alright." He fingers gently trace my shoulder blade.
"Are you insane?" I almost yell. "You said you loved me. Hell, you were the one who suggested we run away in the first place."
"Suggested. I suggested it. You went through with it," he replies. I can feel the boiling blood about to burst out of my wildly palpitating heart. "But that's alright," he continues before I can say anything else. "You are right, I love you. I do."
"Then what the hell is this?" His Adam's apple bobs.
"It's nothing. It doesn't mean anything alright?" His voice softens. "She doesn't mean anything to me," he pauses taking a second timidly search my eyes for any trace of emotion. "What's important is that you know that I love you."
YOU ARE READING
HEARTBREAK PARADE
Short StoryAlyssa Riley has bad taste in boys. They were supposed to be Adam and Alyssa; the forbidden affair between a high school senior and a college freshman that ends with 'happily ever after.' But three months after eloping with her boyfriend, Alyssa f...
