Chapter 10

WILLOW

PREGNANT.

The word is clear as day across the little indicator thing.

I’m standing in the bathroom of my dorm holding a pregnancy test.

This little plastic stick that I peed on.

How does this thing actually know? Huh? Tell me.

I know who could tell me.

Mila.

I think about it for a second.

I try to formulate some story on how to ask Mila about pregnancy tests without raising any suspicions.

So… someone I know…

She’d never buy it.

I walk the pregnancy test from the bathroom to my bedroom, holding it out as though it were on fire.

I hide it under my pillow.

Surprisingly my heart isn’t racing as much as I thought it would be.

That’s probably just the shock rippling through me though.

Want to know what I’m thinking right now?

The cliché thing that I’ve seen in like a hundred movies.

What if the test is bad? It has to happen sometimes, right?

Not every test can be absolutely perfect!

I picture myself buying fifty more pregnancy tests.

Me hovering over the toilet, chugging water, acting like a broken faucet between my legs as I pee on test after test.

Or…

Or… just think about this for a second…

My mind is playing tricks on me!

For some reason that makes sense to me.

I grab my pillow and move it.

I reach for the pregnancy test but pause.

There’s no need to reach and pick the thing up.

It’s right there. On my bed. Result side facing up.

Nothing has changed.

The word is the exact same…

PREGNANT.