Baby Steps

Clara Rose Carmichael

Two Weeks Later

I sat up quickly and ran to the bathroom connected to Lucas's bedroom, my stomach rolling.  I dropped to my knees and threw up into the toilet.

Once I finally was able to sit back, my mind raced through all of the possible reasons for this could be, but I knew it could only be one thing.

I was pregnant.

To make sure that I didn't give Lucas false hope, I snuck out of his penthouse and drove to the nearest convenience store to buy a pregnancy test.

As I walked into the small store, the clerk was watching me from the cash register.  Nervously, I walked down the aisles until I found the pregnancy tests.  I grabbed one and went to the register, placing it on the counter and awkwardly digging through my purse for my wallet.

"Will that be all for you?" the woman working there asked in a judgemental tone.  I looked up at her.

What was she judging me for?  She didn't know whether I was in a stable relationship or not, so she shouldn't be judging me for buying a pregnancy test.

I wanted to say: Do you really have room to judge?  You're forty to fifty years old and working at a fucking gas station.

"Yeah, that's it," I replied instead.  She scanned the box and read off the price.  I handed her the money, and I waited as she handed back the change.

"Would you like a bag?" she asked in a tone that pissed me off.

"No, I'm fine just carrying it," I replied in a tone that showed her I was pissed.  I grabbed the test off of the counter.

"Alright, have a nice day," the lady said in a snobby tone.  I just walked out, rolling my eyes when she couldn't see me.

I got into the car and drove back to Lucas's place.

Usually, Lucas didn't get up until around nine o'clock, so I had plenty of time before he would wake up to take the test.

Sure enough, when I peeked inside his room, Lucas was still sleeping in his bed.  I went into the bathroom and took the test.

I waited about ten minutes just to make sure it worked.

Those ten minutes were filled with me hoping and praying that the test showed up positive.  I was supposed to be seven months pregnant by now, and, obviously, I wasn't.

Finally, I flipped the test over, and I almost screamed in happiness at the plus sign on the stick.

Instead, I excitedly ran out of the bathroom and into Lucas's room, only to realize that he was still asleep.  I decided to wait it out because he wasn't very happy when people woke him up early.

So I climbed back into bed and attempted to fall back asleep.

My thoughts started running wild, though.

I'm pregnant.

Does that mean this thing between Lucas and I is over now?

I mean, I know he said he was falling for me, but he hasn't asked me out on a real date once, and the relationship has pretty much only consisted of sex.  And he could've just wanted a sex relationship to speed up the surrogacy process.

I really hope that isn't the case because I seriously am falling for him, and I don't think I could just give the baby up now.

Maybe he'd still want to give the relationship a shot, but what if he didn't want me to be in the baby's life besides the bare minimum until we were serious-serious.  It'd make sense because it would be a disaster if Lucas and I ended up breaking up.