5SOS Preferences

False Alarm

5SOS Preferences: False Alarm

LUKE

He hadn’t felt these sort of nerves coursing through his veins since the first time the band opened for One Direction, their very first stadium show, but Luke had a feeling that those butterflies hadn’t been half as bad as the ones fluttering around in his stomach right now with their wings made of razorblades. Drumming his hands on his lap, he tried to think of anything else than what was going on behind the hotel bathroom door, but it was hard to concentrate. He turned on the television, but it was just static in the background, his eyes couldn’t keep focused on any of the scenes playing out in front of him. His eyes shifted from the open closet door where yours and his shoes were discarded, but then he wound up staring at the bathroom door again. Luke glanced at the digital clock and then the mini fridge, but his eyes always returned to the bathroom.

His mind told him that he was an idiot. This was his fault. You were on the pill, but you had asked him an abundance of times to wear a condom and he always groaned about it until you just rolled your eyes and agreed to let him pull out. Some times were really hit and miss, but he was confident that nothing would happen. Other guys knocked up their girlfriends, not him. Besides, he had heard on some reality show in Australia that getting pregnant was actually really difficult for most people.

The bathroom door knob jiggled and he watched it move all the way to the left, his eyes electrocuted with anxiety. Luke didn’t even let you walk out of the washroom, as soon as he saw you standing in the door way, the plastic test in one hand while you were turning off the bathroom light in the other, he pounced, “So?”

Looking down at the test in your hands while you unconsciously sucked in your cheeks, you looked pensive. Luke couldn’t gage where your head was at. He figured that if it was positive, you would be freaking out and sobbing and, if it was negative, you’d be jumping for joy the way you did on the wings of the stage when he performed. You didn’t look happy, you didn’t look scared, you had on the same face you wore when studying for finals.

“So? What’s the deal?” Luke finally rose up from the bed. He put his hands into the pockets of his beige trousers to keep from fidgeting.

“It’s negative. False alarm.” You shrugged, finally looking away from the test.

Luke was right in front of you, so you gave him a tiny smile and walked away from him to toss the test in the waste bin next to the hotel desk. If you were pregnant, it would have said, you were far enough long on your cycle. So, you chalked it up to a hormonal change or the fact that your life was slightly more hectic being on the road with Luke all of the time.

As if you had just told him that his family were the only survivors in a tragic plane hijacking, Luke let out the loudest and most refreshing sigh of relief. A chorus of Evangelical church singers should have clapped and hollered the way into the room because Luke was mentally thanking the Good Lord, his smile the size of the city you two were currently in.

“How come you’re not happy? That’s the result we wanted.” Luke asked while he hopped back onto the bed’s foot. He was flabbergasted that you weren’t ringing around the rosy or just busting a move in general. “You said in the store that you didn’t know what you would do if it was positive…” He reminded you, but the words hadn’t yet left your mind.

From the moment you realize you were late, a whole week ago, you had a lot of time to do nothing, but think about being pregnant and raising a child. Your mind at floated back and forth between terror and hope. While in the store scrambling to buy a pregnancy test and then get the Hell out of dodge, you had been nervous and the idea of having a responsibility so large made you feel like you would pass out, but in the two minutes you had to yourself, in the bathroom, you thought that it might not be so bad. You couldn’t imagine how it would feel to give a baby away for adoption after carrying for it and nurturing it inside of you for nine months and you weren’t sure your own opinion on abortion. Somehow, you had settled into thinking that everything happened for a reason and, if the results were positive, if there was two pink strips, everything would work out.