18
A PREGNANCY TEST is just this flat piece of plastic with little windows in it. So small, it fit in my hand with room left over, and my hands aren't that big. Such a small thing to have so many people so upset. But then, if I was pregnant, the baby would be smaller than the pregnancy test. Tiny bits of plastic, and even tinier bits of cells, and my whole life rested on them. Okay, I wouldn't die if it was a yes, but it sort of felt like I would.
First, there's no dignity to it. You have to pee on the little stick. Or pee in a cup, then put the stick in it. Then you put the cap on, and wait for lines to appear. One line: not pregnant. Two lines: pregnant. It seemed simple enough.
I prayed not to be pregnant. I prayed, and I bargained. I'd be more careful. I'd use condoms and not trust just to the pill. I'd, well, you get the idea. I'm sure I wasn't the first single woman to sit in a bathroom wishing, hoping, praying, bargaining with God, that if this mess passes me by, I'll be better. Shit.
I didn't want to sit in the bathroom for the entire three minutes. But I didn't want to go outside and face the men either. I compromised; I paced inside the bathroom. It was ten steps from the door to the edge of the tub's raised marble. Ten steps, back and forth. Marble is cold on bare feet, but I usually didn't spend this much time walking on it. I was either coming in and out, or sitting in hot water in the tub. I concentrated on anything, everything, but that little piece of plastic where it sat on the side of the sink. I tried not to look at it. If you peek early, it may not be conclusive. I was carrying a man's watch in my hands. Micah's watch. He'd taken it off his wrist and handed it to me, because mine was still sitting on the nightstand beside our bed.
I tried putting the watch in the pocket of the robe, but that made me nervous, as though if I couldn't see the watch I'd screw the time up. I tried sitting on the edge of the tub staring at the second hand, but that made the time go even slower. Now that I was only minutes away from knowing, I wanted to know. No more guesswork. I needed to know, one way or the other. I needed to know.
What I didn't know was that Micah had set an alarm on the watch. It beeped at me, and scared me. I gave that little eep scream that only girls seem to do.
Claudia knocked on the door. «Anita, you all right?»
«Sorry, alarm startled me. Sorry.» I was already in the middle of the room, opposite the sink. All I had to do was turn around. I had a death grip on the watch. My heart was beating so hard I was sure that everyone outside the door could hear it. I didn't want to look. I wanted to know, and I didn't want to know. I wanted to have someone else look. Micah would do it, or Nathaniel. God, I was being so cowardly, and stupid, as if simply not looking would make it not true. But I had to look, I had to.
I took those last few steps to the sink, and looked down. Two lines, two fucking lines. The world swam, and I had to grab on to the sink edge to keep from sliding to one side. All I could hear was my own blood roaring in my ears. I was not going to faint, damn it. I was not going to faint.
I lowered myself to my knees, still clinging to the cabinet edges. I put my face against my arm, and waited for the dizziness to pass. Fuck.
When I thought I could do it without feeling worse, I raised my head up. The room didn't swim. Good. But I wasn't at all sure I trusted myself to walk to the door. I hated it, but apparently my body had decided that it just wasn't working yet. I could either sit on the floor until I felt less weak-legged, or I could yell for help.
I knew the men were almost as tense about it as I was, so waiting seemed cruel, or maybe it wasn't cruel. They had a few minutes more of believing the worst hadn't happened. I hated to treat the miracle of life like a disaster but that's how it felt.
I finally called, in a voice that almost sounded like mine, «Claudia.»
She tapped the door, and said, «Do you want me in there?»
«Yes,» I said.
She came through, and one look at me on the floor made her close the door behind her. She walked to me, looked down at the test, and said with real feeling, «Well, shit.»
«Yeah,» I said.
«Who do you want to tell first?»
I shook my head and leaned back against the cabinets. «No one.»
She gave me a look.
«I can't call them in one at a time; Richard will get pissed, or someone else will. I have to go out to them.»
She gazed around the room. «They'd all fit in here, barely.»
I tucked my knees up tight and held on. «Jesus, Claudia. Jesus.»
She knelt beside me. Her face was so sympathetic that I had to look away. My eyes were starting to burn, my throat to tighten. «Help me do this before I start to cry.»
«What can I do to help?» she asked.
«Help me stand.»
She took my offered hand and raised me effortlessly to my feet. She kept a hand on my elbow to steady me, as if she knew I needed it. I didn't argue. We made it to the door that way, then I took my arm back, and opened the door.
I thought I had my face under control, but I must have been wrong, because they all reacted to it. Only Jean-Claude and Asher showed nothing, but their lack of reaction was reaction enough.
Micah and Richard reached me first, at almost the same time. They looked at each other, and Micah bowed out, let the other man touch me first. It was good of him, but I'd have preferred to hug him, since I was almost certain Richard would say something to make me feel worse.
He half-hugged me, so he could hold me, and still see my face. «It's a yes?»
I nodded, because I didn't trust my voice. My throat was so tight it hurt, as if I were choking.
He hugged me, and picked me up, and spun me around. When I could move my face back enough to see his, he was beaming at me. Beaming at me. He was happy! Happy about it!
«Don't you dare be happy about this,» I said.
His smile began to fade around the edges.
Jean-Claude said, «Would you prefer he was unhappy about it?»
Richard put me down, while I looked at the other man. I glanced back up at Richard, who didn't look happy now at all. What would I have done if he had been angry, or sad, about me being pregnant?
I hung my head, resting the top of my head against Richard's chest. «I'm sorry, Richard, I'm sorry. I'm glad someone is happy about it.»
He touched my face, raised it so I had to look at him. «I can't be unhappy about this, Anita. I can't. If we made a baby…«He shrugged, and his eyes were full of happiness, worry, so many emotions.
«What do you want us to say, ma petite? If we are not to be happy, then what do you wish?»
I pulled away from Richard. I just couldn't be happy and his being happy bugged me. «I don't know, just be what you feel, I guess.»
Micah touched my arm. «I'm sorry you're unhappy about it.»
I smiled at him, and the fact that I could smile at anything was probably a good sign. «How do you feel about it?»
He smiled. «I love you. How could I not love a little piece of you running around?»
I shook my head. «Don't you feel cheated? I mean, it can't be yours.»
He shrugged. «I knew I gave up children of my own when I had the vasectomy.»
«Why did you have yourself fixed?» Richard asked. «You're not thirty yet, why would you do that to yourself?»
Micah wrapped his arms around me, held me close. «My old alpha, Chimera, liked pregnant shapeshifters. If one of the women came up pregnant by someone else, someone she cared for, Chimera would take her until she lost the baby. He got off on taking her from her lover, from fucking her while she was pregnant with someone else's child, and from her losing it.»
I held him tight, held him and listened to his heartbeat speed. His voice never showed how awful it had been, but his pulse did. I had heard the story before, but Richard had not; his face showed revulsion, and something else, anger, I think.
I'd never heard a story about Chimera that made me unhappy that I'd killed him. No, that was one death I had absolutely no regrets about.
Nathaniel came up behind me, and wrapped himself against my back, holding me between the two of them. It felt so safe. Even now, even with Micah's story still horrible and fresh, even with the news about the baby, I still felt safe. That had to be a good sign, didn't it?
Jean-Claude came to our side. We all raised our heads from the various shoulders we were on, and looked at him.
He touched my face, ever so gently, and smiled. «Whatever happens, ma petite, we will not desert you.»