We stood there in front of the selection of various pregnancy tests in a section vividly labeled Family Planning. The entire thing was surreal. I heard words escape from Sarah’s lips, but I wasn’t listening. Everything sounded muted, and slow. She was throwing box after box in our small basket and soon was grabbing my hand to pull us to the register.
The judgmental look from the checkout lady was something I will never forget. If I hadn’t been stunned and frozen with the constant stab of shock, I might have said something to her. I was getting better at sticking up for myself. But with this, being in this situation, I just let her judge. Who was I?
We walked back to Sarah’s apartment with $60 in pregnancy tests. Sarah pulled them all out on the counter and went to work reading the directions immediately, first handing me a plastic wand and telling me to try to only pee a little so we could knock out a few tests. I just stood there holding the stick, staring at the small circle on the end that would give me my fate.
“Nolan, come on. You have to pee on it. Go!” She was chastising me. She left the bathroom for a few minutes to give me some privacy. I stood staring at the dry filter strip, considering briefly running it through the faucet and pretending I had taken the test. But fooling Sarah wouldn’t do me any good in the long run.
I turned her sink faucet on to help me have to go and sat waiting—finally taking a deep breath and going a little on the tip of the test strip. Sarah was reading directions from the other side of the door, telling me that I needed to let the test sit on the counter for two minutes. But that wasn’t necessary.
The colors were changing almost instantly, and when I saw the small plus sign start to appear, I wasn’t surprised. But I was terrified.
“Are you done? I’ve got another one, tell me when you’re ready,” Sarah was leaning on the other side of the door.
“I don’t need it,” I said, faintly.
“What? Why?” she cracked open the door as I was pulling my shorts back into place, the stick dangling from my hand. “Nolan, you have to set it down and wait for two minutes. Didn’t you listen to anything I said?”
I held it up in front of me, showing her the positive result. Sarah just looked at it with tightly closed lips, considering the best reaction.
“You don’t know for sure, Nolan. Those things aren’t always accurate. Come on, try one more,” she was already pulling a new stick from the box and handing it to me.
“It’s going to be the same,” I said, shaking my head slowly. “I just know.”
“No, you don’t!” she said forcefully, putting the new test in my hand and pushing me back while she closed the door.
I humored Sarah and went through five of the tests—all positive—before she finally relented and slid down against the bathroom door to sit on the floor across from me. We didn’t talk for about 20 minutes, just looking up at the row of tests every now and then and sighing, considering.
What was I going to do? How could this have happened? Well, that’s a stupid question; I know exactly how it happened. But we were always so very careful. This was going to ruin everything. I wouldn’t be able to finish my degree, Reed might not be able to enter the draft, or worse, he might not want anything to do with me—or a baby.
Almost as if she was hearing my inner dialogue, Sarah interrupted my stream of thoughts. “You have to tell Reed,” she said, abruptly.
“No,” I shot back quickly. “I mean, not yet. I have to think this through. I should make sure, you know, with a doctor first.”
I took another deep breath and pulled my knees up to my stomach, hugging them for comfort. My brain was searching for answers. I didn’t know how I was going to deal with this. Suddenly, Sarah got to her feet and walked into her bedroom to grab her cell phone. She started dialing and I grabbed her hand.
“No, please. Don’t call him,” I tried to stop her.
She just stared at me and then kept dialing, finally speaking. “I’m not calling Reed, Nolan. That’s your conversation to have. I’m calling the student health center to get you an appointment.”
I watched as Sarah pretended to be me on the phone, answering the personal questions and looking to me for help with some, such as when was the last time I had intercourse. Things that I considered to be so private were instantly too public, and I wanted to bury myself and hide.
“Okay, Tuesday, in two weeks. Got it, thank you,” Sarah said, hanging up and writing down a note on a scrap of paper for me. “Okay, you have an 8 a.m. appointment in two weeks. They said you need to be farther along before they can know anything for sure.”