Angels Wear Blue Jumpsuits

Part 16

"I see Alligators," you say, smiling as you leave for work. You actually said "I'll see you later", but because I didn't sleep a wink that night, your words are slurred to me. Understandable, though– I might be fucking pregnant. Might. I did some research and I was banking on my missed period being because of the drastic change to my metabolism. My body was exercising almost five times more than it was used to, plus I'd been pumping it full of vitamins and eating, y'know, actually healthy food instead of stress-induced cheese bread. Some women experience missed periods due to their bodies undergoing such stark physical and nutritional changes.

It's gotta be that.

It has to be.

Right?

A day passes, maybe two and I'm getting real tired of my tits hurting so much. They feel twice as heavy and like I have vice-grips attached to my nipples. I'm still tired. Even starting to feel a bit nauseous in the mornings. I've read the bible-length medical information included with my contraceptive pills probably six times. Although highly efficient in preventing pregnancy, they are still only ninety-nine per cent effective. One in one hundred women will still conceive a child every year while taking the medication religiously– and I don't know how I feel about it.

Sure, we are both of the same opinion that we want to have a family one day– particular emphasis on 'one day'. But we never clarified what 'one day' even meant. In ten years time? Five? Next month? Now?

"Just fucking do it, Isla," I sigh into my palms and make the decision to get a pregnancy test from the local pharmacy.

I quickly learn that buying a pregnancy test is a lot like buying condoms and not at all like buying a cake.

Because with a cake, and only a cake in your shopping basket, you can make a perfectly good excuse to the cashier. You can quite easily say "it's my cousin's birthday," as you watch that massive lump of carbs be scanned and the clerk will smile knowingly. "Good choice, then!" they might say, "chocolate always wins."

And then when you get home, you eat the entire thing all by yourself because you don't even have cousins.

But with pregnancy tests and condoms? You can't really rely on those sweet little lies.

Yeah, you could say you're buying them for someone else, but are we? Really?

And what the fuck else do you do with condoms? Use them as party balloons? What other use does a pregnancy test have? You just really like peeing on a stick for no reason?

I take that pee-stick in its obvious packaging up to the cashier and I'm served by a girl around my age. While I feel hope from her seemingly thinking nothing of what I place before her, the fact that the product scanner isn't working makes it dissipate.

"Sorry," she whispers and turns to her co-worker, "hey, can you get a price check on this please?"

Her co-worker walks off to the designated aisle and people start to queue up behind me. Lovely. Good. And the guy price-checking clearly doesn't understand the concept of subtlety.

"Is it the three-pack or the single pregnancy test?" he calls out. The cashier is just as embarrassed as I am.

"The single," she says and he calls back. "First Response Two Minute Pregnancy Test?"

Earth, just fucking swallow me up.

"That's the one," the cashier smiles spitefully at him.

"Eleven-fifty," he confirms and the cashier punches the price into the register.