Positive

Halves, fourths, eights, sixteenths...

Clarice's trembling fingers folded the paper repeatedly, until it was a neat square that she tucked discreetly inside her sock. Was this really happening?

Her feet padded delicately across the wood floor, out of her mother's dark study and into the hall.

Clarice poked her head through the doorway and held her breath, listening. She heard the ticking grandfather clock, the rumble of the furnace, and the pattering of rain on the roof. As far as she could tell, her mother was still asleep upstairs.

Clarice shuffled through the hall, careful to avoid the spots where the floor creaked. She slipped into her room and shut the door behind her.

She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and wishing her chest would stop bouncing and her lungs would stop burning. Her hand slipped into her pajama pocket and grasped her inhaler.

Do I even need this thing? Clarice examined the red plastic inhaler and tossed it onto her bed. It's all a lie, isn't it?

Clarice threw herself onto her bed, sinking into the hypoallergenic mattress, with the hypoallergenic covers and hypoallergenic pillows. She pulled the weighted blanket over her chest and wondered if she needed any of it?

The paper was there, in her sock. The paper that told her everything. The paper that changed everything.

She reached under the blanket and pulled the paper from her sock, gingerly unfolding it. Her eyes ate through the words, illuminated by the soft glow of her bedside lamp. There was one word on the page that stuck out to her, one word that wasn't supposed to be there: "Negative."

The floorboards outside of Clarice's room creaked. Without thinking, she stuffed the paper under her covers and flicked off her lamp, slipping on her cloth mask. The door opened. It was her mother.

Clarice's mother entered the room, N95 mask obscuring her pale face, latex-free gloves stretched across her bony fingers. Her hair stuck to her face in sticky clumps of sweat. She reeked of stale essential oils. She looks awful.

"How do you feel?" Clarice's mother asked, her voice muffled by the mask.

"Fine," Clarice said. "Did you get my test back yet?"

Her mother crossed the length of the room and sat down on the bed. Clarice stiffened, she could hear the paper crumble under her mother's leg. Did she feel it? Would she know?

"It was positive," her mother said.

Clarice's scalp began to itch and her skin crawled. She could feel sweat begin to weep out from her pores. She swallowed hard. "It was positive again?"

Her mother nodded. "I'm sorry, honey. The Virus is so hard to get rid of. You'll have to stay home a few more weeks."

Clarice nodded weakly. "Okay, mom. I think I'll lie down for a bit then."

Clarice watched her mother go, listened to her creak up the stairs. Clarice took the paper from under the covers and read it repeatedly.

Test result: Negative.

She's lying.