before he cheats | a.cole

fifty

I park in the parking lot of the pharmacy. I grab my crutches and walk inside. I walk to the medicine aisle, grabbing a bottle of ibuprofen. I walk around to find the pregnancy tests for Marina.

After five minutes of going from aisle to aisle, I give up and go ask the cashier where the pregnancy tests are.

"Hi," I say when I approach the counter. "Can you tell me which aisle the pregnancy tests are? I'm having trouble getting around so I'd like to know which aisle they're in."

The woman behind the counter points to aisle seven and says, "Right down there, miss."

I smile and say, "Thank you."

I walk down aisle seven. I look at the different tests and grab a box of the most accurate tests. I hold the box in one hand and the bottle in the other as I walk back to the cash register. It's hard to hold things in your hands and use crutches at the same time.

The woman scans everything and asks, "For you?"

I grab cash out of my wallet and I say, "A friend. The meds are for me."

She laughs softly and says, "That'll be thirty five dollars and ninety six cents."

I hand her two twenty dollar bills and get four dollars and four cents back. She bags the items for me and says, "Tell your friend congratulations if these come back positive."

I give the cashier a kind smile and I say, "Thank you. I will."

After grabbing the bag, I walk back out to my car. I put the bag on the driver's seat and I call Marina, putting her on speaker. It's close to nine now and I think Troy is in bed now so she should answer.

She answers as I pull out of the parking spot. "Hey," she says. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah," I say, pulling onto the street. "I'm on my way back from the store now. I have everything. I'll be back in about five minutes. I have something to tell you too when I get there."

Marina says, "Oh, good. Roddy is upstairs putting Troy to bed so I'll meet you in your room."

"Great," I say. "See you in a bit."

She says, "Bye," The line goes dead.

I drive the rest of the way in silence. I pull out front of Marina and Roderick's house. I can see one of the lights on upstairs so I'm assuming that's Roderick putting Troy to bed. Adam's not here yet. He won't be here for another twenty minutes or so. It'll take about five minutes for Marina to take a few of the tests.

After grabbing my bag and the crutches, I walk inside. I lock my car. When I'm inside, I close the door and walk down to my room.

Marina sits with her legs crossed on my bed. She's waiting very patiently for someone who may be pregnant.

I close the door and she asks, "How many tests did you get?"

"Four," I say. "Four tests came in the box." I reach into the bed and grab the box. I toss it at her and she looks at the box.

She reads it and says, "Okay, I should take at least two of them so that's what I'm going to do. The results should show up between a minute and three minutes."

I sit on my bed and say, "Go take them. While we wait, I have something to tell you."

She nods and gets off my bed. She walks into my bathroom. She leaves the door open a bit and says loudly, "Tell me what you need to. I can multitask."

I laugh and say, "Britt showed up at dinner with Adam's parents. She sat down and everything."

"Oh damn," comes from the bathroom. "What did you do?"