The Space Between Us(57)

“Thank you for rambling. I know it’s dumb, but watching you lose your mind a little made me feel better about the fact that I’m about to lose mine.” I looked down at the tests again. “What if they’re positive, Reeve? What am I going to do?”

“I don’t know, Charlie. You’ll have to make that decision with Asher, I suppose.”

“Oh my god, Asher. I totally hadn’t thought about him. Shit.” I dropped my head into my hands. “This is all kinds of f*cked up.”

“You don’t know anything yet. Go pee on some sticks. We won’t know anything until you’ve done it.”

I looked at the tests in my hands and then at the bathroom door. Was I ready to do this? Even though I was sure there was no way for me to be pregnant, I was so careful, it kind of seemed like none of it mattered at that moment. I had no control over the outcome of the tests and was totally and completely left in the hands of fate. I felt powerless and it was an unnerving feeling. I took a deep breath and convinced myself they would be negative. They had to be.

I took the tests into the bathroom and peed on all three sticks, which isn’t as easy as all the commercials make it seem. I left all three tests sitting on the counter, walked back into the bedroom and sat down at my desk. I stared at the clock, waiting for the obligatory three minutes to pass. Both Reeve and I were stuck in some sort of purgatory for those three minutes. I stared at a clock and she stared at me. Frozen. I possibly had three more minutes of life the way I was used to it. Three more minutes of being a carefree, nineteen-year-old college student. Three more minutes to do everything in life I wanted to accomplish before I had kids. If you think three minutes goes by quickly, try waiting three minutes to see if your life was going to change completely. It’s agonizingly slow.

When the time had passed, I looked at Reeve from my chair. “I can’t look.” She nodded at me and walked into the bathroom. She was in there forever, it felt. When she finally came out I couldn’t read anything on her face. She could have just learned the secret of life and I wouldn’t have ever known. She walked right up to me and placed the tests on the surface of the desk and placed a hand on my shoulder.

Two pink lines. A blue plus symbol. The word pregnant.

I was f*cked. In all senses of the word: literally, figuratively, emotionally – f*cked.

My hand came to my mouth and covered the silent sob that leaked out. In my head, I heard myself scream so loud that windows shattered. People came running. The cops came to investigate. In reality, I was silently dying inside. Mouth open, eyes watering, crying but not. I turned and found Reeve right there, wrapping her arms around me, softly running her hand along my hair, comforting me as everything I knew about my life was changed. We stayed like that, her arms wrapped around me as I cried, until I felt like I could breathe normally again. I pulled away a looked up at her.

“What am I going to do?”

“I think you should call Asher. He needs to be here for you right now.”

Suddenly, telling Asher that I was pregnant seemed like the hardest thing I could ever possibly have to do. How would I explain this to him? How did this even happen? I wasn’t ready to talk to him about it. I turned back to my desk and started searching the internet for a clinic I could get another test done at. I had seen them around before and I needed someone else to confirm this for me.

“Charlie, what are you doing?”

“I need another test. A blood test. These could be wrong,” I said as I swept the three tests into the top drawer of my desk, landing right next to a calculator and a few pens. I slammed the drawer shut.

“You think all three of those pregnancy tests are wrong?” I turned to look at her.

“I need something else, Reeve. A doctor or a nurse to tell me the results. Please, just let me do this.” She sighed loudly but didn’t argue with me any more about it.

I found a pregnancy resource center not too far from campus that opened an hour ago. “Will you come with me?” I asked Reeve hopefully.

“Of course.” I breathed a little easier knowing I wouldn’t be going alone.

When we got to the clinic, nothing was going as planned.

“What do you mean you don’t do blood tests?!”

“Just exactly that. We only do urine tests. They are just as accurate as blood tests.” The woman sitting behind the desk at the clinic looked aggravated by my outburst, but also looked like she’d dealt with crazy college students freaking out over a pregnancy before. She was calm, but obviously wasn’t going to take any crap from anyone.

“I already took three pee tests and they came back positive,” I said, quieter now. Her face softened and she leaned a little closer.

“What’s your name, dear?”

“Charlie,” I nearly whispered.

“Charlie, it is very uncommon to get a false positive result on a pregnancy test. It happens, but it is rare. It is more likely to get a false negative. The tests you took at home, they are very reliable. But I would be happy to have our staff administer another urine test for you, just in case you need that to feel more secure about the result.”

“I really wanted a blood test.”

“Sweetie, even if you were at a hospital, or an OBGYN’s office, they would still only give you a urine test. It’s how we do it. I’m sorry you’re upset. Would you like us to give you a urine test?”