“No. I only keep them with me when I’m on my period,” I say.
“Our cycles are the same. Are you late?” she asks. I freeze and stare at her while I do mental math. I don’t believe the answer that I get so I do it again and again. The more I think about it the more I start to panic. She sees the look of horror on my face, and just simply nods. “I thought so. Come on.” She grabs my hand and we leave the food court. Once out, we find the door we came in, so we can go back to the car. I’m fighting back tears as we head to the car. I might actually have to throw myself into traffic if he got me pregnant.
Beth shoves me in the car and gets in. “Where are we going?” I ask quietly.
“To a gas station to get a cheap pregnancy test. The cheap ones are the exact same thing you’d get at the doctor's office,” she says.
“I can’t be pregnant,” I whisper.
“How late are you?” she asks.
“More than four weeks. I missed two periods. How the fuck did I not realize?”
“Do you still take your birth control?” she asks.
“Yeah. I very rarelymiss days.”
“How often are you having sex?” she asks.
“Often,” I admit. She doesn’t say anything else until we pull into the parking lot.
“They have a bathroom on the side of the building. I’ll go in and grab it. Go to the bathroom. I’ll be there in a second.” I know I didn’t get out of the car. I close myself up in the bathroom and wait. It doesn’t take her long to get to me. Once she comes in, she locks the door behind her and hands me the test. “Go on, then we will talk about who this person is.”
I simply nod again and take the test out of its packaging. My hands are shaking so badly that it’s hard for me to do anything. I sit down and take the test and put the cap back on before she takes it from me.
“You’ll obsessively stare at it,” she laughs. I flush, then wash my hands before turning back to her.
“Anything?” I ask. It’s been a few minutes now so I’m sure the results are on the test.
She glances at the test before turning it around for me to see “you’re pregnant,” she says.
“No,” I say as I snatch the test from her. “No, no, no. I can’t be. I can’t be pregnant. This is so bad, Beth. This is so fucking bad.”
“Why is it bad? You can always have an abortion if it’s that big of a deal,” she says.
“I don’t have the money for that and I’ll have to tell him,” I say as I start crying. “Then I’ll have to tell my parents and they’ll hate me. They’ll never forgive me. Either of us. I’m pretty sure they’ll fucking disown me.”
“Who is it, Bella?” she asks softly. I shake my head as sobs threaten to break out of me. “Please, please tell me. We’ve known each other our entire lives. Whatever this is, you don’t have to face it alone.”
“I can’t,” I sniff. “You’ll judge me, and I can’t get judged by you. I judge myself enough as it is. This is so fucking bad.”
“I swear to God, I will not judge you. Well, I might judge you, but I’m not disowning you. I’m not going anywhere. You might have to deal with me teasing you for a while but it’ll be okay,” she says.
“It’s not okay,” I shout tearfully.
“Ahh. Honey. Just tell me, "She says softly.
“It’s Cory, Beth. The person I’ve been sleeping with is Cory,” I blurt out. “That fucking masked party. It was him. He was the one behind that fucking mask. We didn’t know until after. But then we just kept doing it. Now we live together. I’ve never even slept in that fucking bed. I’m always in his bed. I will have to throw myself off something. I can’t be pregnant. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t tell him. I can’t tell my parents. I can’t have a child with my fucking brother. I’m so fucking stupid. I should’ve known better. Of all things that could make me want to throw myself off a bridge and it’s because I’m a fucking idiot.”
“First of all, you need to calm down,” she says softly. I shake my head and back away from her before sliding down the wall and pulling my knees to my chest. I am mumbling the same things, repeating them to myself on a loop. It’s almost as if I’m trying to convince myself that just killing myself is the easiest way out of this.I’ve never in my life been suicidal, but for some reason, it’s the most logical fucking thing to get myself out of this.
“Hey,” Beth says into her phone. “I need your help… No, Bella is losing her fucking mind… She told me about you all… No, that’s not why she’s freaking out, Cory. She’s pregnant… No, I just made her take a test when she said that she’s two months late and now she’s quite literally going crazy. I’d like to get her back to y’all’s place but I’m afraid to put her in the car. She’s threatened to kill herself like six times now… No, she’s just talking to herself. She’s sitting on the floor in the corner of the bathroom at the gas station on the corner of Third and Willow… I tried that, Cory. She won’t listen to me. She won’t do anything besides sit there and talk to herself… Okay… No, I’ll keep her in here, so she doesn’t try to play in traffic… No, I’m not joking. She’s had a mental break or something. I don’t doubt that she wouldn’t try… Okay… Bye.”
I never imagined myself rocking in a corner somewhere, but here we are. Beth doesn’t say anything to me but she’s watching me like a hawk. An unknown amount of time passes before there’s a knock at the bathroom door. I find more tears to cry when Beth opens the door and I see Cory.
“Oh, Bella,” he sighs. Beth shuts the door behind him and keeps her distance and he comes over to me.
“Please don’t,” I cry. “Please, just go.”