Caught (On Hold)

Positive

Purposely accidental...

These words slithered through my mind multiple times each day. What if this had been a planned "accident"? I considered it but...it just doesn't seem like something they'd do. If they did do it though, why? To catch my attention? To make me want to stay with them? Would Shiloh or Demetri really go that far to keep me with them? So many questions...and absolutely no answers.

A week after that one day when the first symptom appeared, I watched my actions more carefully. Was I having any cravings, how much was I eating, how often did I have mood swings? And of course, all the of the other clues to pregnancy. 

I was dreading it. Sure, it could be a real blessing but I wasn't, ready. And like I've said, no child should be brought into this world. If it's a boy, I would have to be secretly ashamed of him when he Catches another girl and if it's girl...well...then she'll be Caught. 

I'd been trying not to think about it to much but after what I'd recorded...I needed a pregnancy test. I'd often craved meat and chocolate, and mixtures of the weirdest things, like bacon dipped in jam or potato crackers and barbecue sauce, and lately I'd been very, very, hungry and restless through the night. The morning I experienced nausea and began to throw up, I had my mother run down to the Health Market to buy a test.

As she left, I was filled to the brim with mixed feelings. My feet lead me to one side of my room, to the other, I just paced, rubbing my hands together nervously. I was disgusted with myself, repulsed, but I was also sort of happy, another child seemed almost...nice. Another feeling was discomfort, I didn't want this child to grow up here, or with...Salazar. He'd been in my mind a lot too lately, why hadn't I eliminated him? I knew he'd be trying harder now but--as usual--I just didn't know. Anyways, all those emotions were running through me, creating a surge of energy I'd only felt once before: when I found out I was pregnant with Lillian.

Somewhere deep, deep down, I must have known all along, all these weeks, that I was pregnant, and I was 100% sure of that, and then, suddenly, that feeling rose up out of no where and surfaced. I didn't even need that test, I was sure of it. I was pregnant. There was no other explanation, obviously. I had already put on four and a half pounds, I wasn't tricking myself and it wasn't fake. I knew it was there. My baby....

I needed to get downstairs, my throat was dry, just itching for some sort of drink and I needed to sit down and take this all in somewhere other than my bedroom. My shaky, weak, legs somehow manage to get me out of my room, down the stairs, and into the kitchen and my numb eyes are amazing able to search the kitchen for the cupboard filled with glasses. I walk to the cupboard slowly, like a zombie, and grab a crystal glass, leaving the door open, and then set it down on the granite counter top. Opening up the refrigerator door, I search for a pitcher and then grab one filled with a light pink liquid -- pink lemonade. My arms struggle to keep the pitcher in my hands instead of sending it crashing to the ground, but after my cup's full, the pitcher's fine and still in my hands. Once that's back in the fridge, I sit down at the kitchen table and sip my lemonade, my eyes looking out into nothingness. I feel like a small part of me has died. 

So I sit there, shivering and listening for my mother to enter. I'd take the test, oh, sure, to let everybody else see, to let Shiloh and Demetri hopefully feel some sort of guilt (but most likely, pride), and to let my father see what he'd gotten me into. Hopefully he'd understand what I had meant all these years, maybe he'd finally understand how I felt about Catching.

When I finally hear the door open, and the loud, echoing, clicks of my mother's stiletto heels on the stone floor, I stand up and call out, "mother, I'm here, in the kitchen."

A minute later she's standing in the doorway to the kitchen with a test in her hands, she looks so care-free, like all of this is a dream, or she just doesn't give damn, which is probably the most likely of the two. "C'mon," she says quietly, "let's go back up to your room then."