A Time for Hope (Lexi, #3)(74)

“Roll the dice? The way you two are? It’s more like shooting fish in a barrel, don’t you think?” Hannah smiled weakly.

Who gets pregnant right off the pill? Didn’t it take a while for that shit to kick in? I’d been on the pill religiously since I was sixteen, surely all my reproductive parts were well and truly dormant.

“I never got that phrase, shooting fish in a barrel. I mean wouldn’t that be hard?” Taylah interjected as we stared at her in disbelief. “No seriously, fish have a small surface area and they are moving, not to mention the water refracts the light so it would be difficult to get the angle. And why shoot the fish anyway? They’re in a barrel, just scoop one up!”

I blinked in stunned silence. “Who the f*ck cares about fish or the barrel, I’m pregnant.” I could feel myself starting to hyperventilate.

“Taylah, focus! That’s not helping.” Hannah chided before turning to me. “Lexi, just breathe. We just need to get a test and we’ll know.”

“I don’t need a test. I’ve been having sex Hannah, without birth control. We were trying.” I should be euphoric, sharing this news with Alex, instead he’s half way across the country and I’m on a bathroom floor. FUCK!

“Ok, so we can assume that if that is the case it would definitely show up on a test. We just need to get one and we’ll be able to find out for sure.” Hannah soothed.

“I’ll run down to Walgreen’s and grab a test,” Taylah volunteered, grabbing her keys. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Thanks Taylah,” Hannah smiled. I was too bewildered to even respond.

“Lexi, it’s ok,” Hannah rubbed my back. I stared at the bathroom tiles, not sure what I felt. I wanted a baby. I wanted to have a family with Alex. Why the hell was I freaking out? Hannah left the bathroom briefly before reappearing with a glass of ice water. “Want to talk about it?”

“I don’t really know what to say Han. This isn’t how I pictured this all going down. Alex has just started the tour, we’re going to be gone for months...” Probably should have thought about that before I came off the pill! “But…” I continued, “we both want this baby. Hannah, I don’t know what I’ll do if this test is negative.” Well wasn’t that the truth! Either way held happiness and disappointment. If it was negative then life would go on as normal but I would be heartbroken over what I now realized I desperately wanted and if it was positive then my life, our lives, would be forever changed and I would be carrying Alex’s baby. Shit! Where was Taylah? I needed to know!

Hannah tried to comfort me while we waited for Taylah. Noah stirred from his nap and we walked over to see his beautiful little smiling face, wide awake. He held out his hands and Hannah scooped him up.

Taylah bounded through the door, plastic bag in hand. “Ok. So I wasn’t sure which one to get, so I got a few,” she smiled. “Incidentally, have you noticed how they put these things right near the condoms? It’s like some sick joke - if you’d use a rubber maybe you wouldn’t need these. It’s just not right!”

“Taylah!” Hannah admonished.

“It’s ok Han… Just hand me the stick to pee on.” While I usually appreciated Taylah’s words of wisdom, now was not the time for her quirky observations.

Taylah handed me the plastic bag with the collection of boxes and I skulked to the bathroom.

“Are you ok, Hon?” Hannah asked, preventing me from closing the door.

“Yeah I think I’ll be able to pee all by myself,” I gave her a half-hearted smile.

“No, I mean are you OK?” Hannah lingered in the doorway.

“I guess we’ll see in a few minutes.” I closed the door and took a big breath. I carefully unpackaged the different tests and worked out which area required my bodily fluid. Once I was done, I set them out on the bathroom sink like some kind of crazy chemistry experiment. Here goes nothing.

Taking a deep breath I opened the bathroom door where Hannah and Taylah still stood, neither seemed to have moved.

“Lucky I don’t have performance anxiety,” I mused before sitting on the closed toilet seat to wait.

“Lex, of all the things you could be accused of, that it NOT one of them” smiled Taylah who walked in first to investigate the sticks with an almost morbid curiosity.

“It’s too soon Taylah,” Hannah reassured. “It will take a few minutes for the test to work. There are two windows usually. One to say the test is working and one to give a result.” This wasn’t the first time Hannah had been around a pregnancy test.

“So the plus sign means the test is working right?” Taylah asked as she tentatively picked up one of the plastic handles between two fingers.

“Ummm, there’s a plus sign?” Hannah eyes widened as she snatched the test from Taylah’s hands.

“Oh FUCK.” I didn’t need to read the instructions to know what the plus sign meant.

“Lexi…. It’s positive” Hannah eyed me curiously.

“Oh f*ck,” I repeated. I was growing a human inside of me. I was going to be someone’s mother.

“Well in fairness, f*cking is how it all happened. This one’s positive too.” Taylah winced as she inspected yet another test.

The room started spinning, I felt my breathing escalate as I rested my head in my hands. I was pregnant. This wasn’t just any baby; this was one that was created with love. This was Alex’s baby.