Three Weeks, Nine Months, A Lifetime

Part 1: Three Weeks; Chapter 1

 Part 1: Three Weeks

Chapter 1

Silence.

            That’s all I could hear as I stared at the two lines that would change my life forever.

            They sat side by side on the plastic tube in my hand. I knew what it meant. I had spent the past hour reading and re-reading the directions on the box the tube came in. I had memorized what each result meant.

            The appearance of two red lines sickened me. I should have seen it coming. But I never thought…

            I tried to think about the meaning of all of it. Things always happened for a reason, that’s what I knew, that’s what I believed. And yet, I couldn’t fathom what good my having a baby would do.

            Why did I do it?

            Love. That’s what we said. A part of me was happy, thinking about what it would be like to raise a baby. But at my age?

            The more I thought about it, the more real it became. My eyes started to water, and I found myself leaning against the bathroom wall as a great flurry of emotions ran through me.

            I flicked the little white piece of plastic in my hand, thinking maybe it had broken. To think that something so small could have the power to turn one’s life upside down. It couldn’t be true. It had to be wrong.

            I flicked it again, shook it violently for as long as I could, but the same two lines stared back at me.

            More tentative, I rubbed the lines with a finger, breathing heavily.

            No.

            Yes.

            I wanted to sink to the floor and let the world eat me up, but something in front of me held my attention.

            Would it be cliché to say that it took my eyes a few seconds to realize I was staring at… me?

            Because there I was, face flushed, eyes red, cheeks hollow. I strode forward and squinted at my reflection, memorizing ever corner of my face. My long hair fell in strands all over my face like I had just taken a shower in sweat.

            Brown eyes drifted over to my pierced ears and my chapped lips, and then I swung those eyes over to the small zit on the side of my forehead, reminding me of my youth.

            I heard a whimper sound in the bathroom and placed a hand near my neck, feeling my chest rise and fall dramatically.

            Following the whimper were my tears, making their way down my cheeks. I thought, at the rate they were flowing, that I would flood the bathroom floor.

            But it didn’t last forever. The bathroom felt… dirty, sullied by my emotions. And all I was left with was a lump of phlegm in the middle of my throat. It hurt as I tried to swallow.

            I wanted this feeling gone. I wanted to go back to a few minutes ago. My body wasn’t ready for this. I certainly wasn’t ready for this. I felt like I did when my parents took me to the mall and I couldn’t find them one time.

            Hopeless.

            They took their eyes off me for one second and I went and got myself in trouble.

            I heaved a great sigh and dropped my test next to the sink. Immediately, my hands were turning a knob, and the sink poured out clean water. Then my hands moved under the water, remaining in that position for a few minutes.

            My body wasn’t working. I was frozen for a few minutes in a single second of time. All I could see was my eyes. All I could feel was the water, crashing over my hands like waves.

            When the water stopped flowing suddenly, something inside me snapped. My now dry eyes fell down to my belly where, supposedly, something was stirring.

            Someone.

            I pushed the sink knob back down, hoping I hadn’t used up all the water.

            One more time, I glanced at the two lines next to my sink, and then I put my hands on my belly, rubbing.

            In the mirror, my reflection smiled.