Step Through to Me

Funk

I leave the dress in the room I got ready in but I take the heels. After all this, I think the least I deserve is these damn heels. And make my way back down the stairs and out the door. It's on the other side of town and it's cold, but I'll walk. Gives me time to think anyway. I could have my future assured, as long as the futures of those I love, but at what cost? Marrying a man who could never love me, who I would be wife to in name only? I would never fall in love, could never have children. Do I want children? I don't know but I like the option. I would love my life a sad, lonely, rich woman with a vibrator. Is it worth that? I don't think so. I can't. I love love. I do, more than anything.
When I get home, Mom is already asleep on the couch, even though she has her own bed. It's midnight when I strip down and lay in bed.
When I wake up, everything will be normal again, I can pretend this was all a bad dream, hell, maybe it was.
*******
I did ignore it the next day. And the next and the next and a couple weeks after that. I only got a text two weeks later, asking if I was alright. It said it was from Tyler but I don't remember getting his number, so I don't respond. I don't do much of anything except what I have to to survive. I'm so depressed that anything beyond that seems to be too big of a leap. I stop talking to my friends and eventually they stop trying to talk to me. I'm living like my mother now, and somehow, the thought depresses me even more. On the third week I get an unlikely visitor. The Mother. She asks how I am and I mutter fine and ask her how things are, she smiles back, and says fine. I make her coffee and we small talk and before she goes, she hands me a yellow envelope with my name on it. "At least look it over," she says, "Can it be worse than this?" I shrug, "I don't really know." She smiles, but it's s sad smile, one that makes my heart twist violently in my chest. "My number is inside if you change your mind or if you just, I don't know, want to talk." Then, before she leaves, I do something that surprises us both when I wrap her in a hug, even more surprisingly, she hugs me back. She smiles when she walks out the door, but if I'm not mistaken, it's a smile that makes it clear she thinks she'll see me again. I don't think so. I hide the contract on my bookshelf and go back to watching crime shows with a tub of ice cream in my lap. This is what I've been reduced to. I stare at the ice cream before chucking the spoon in the sink. I trudge down the hallway to my room and throw open the door. What now?
Another two weeks passes like this, a big blur of nothing. Until two more days pass and this day is marked by a specific something. Something very important. Today marks the day that I'm one week late. I pop right out of my depression and try to convince myself that I have
My dates wrong but no matter how I look at it it's the same. So, I tell my mom I'm going to lunch and she's so surprised that I'm leaving the house that she doesn't even ask questions. But I pass Alicia's and instead head to the drugstore. Inside I make my way to the back where I know they keep the delicate things and make my way to the front with a pregnancy test in my trembling hands. The clerk doesn't even try to make small talk, and for that, I'm sincerely glad. I take the test to the bathroom, and force myself to pee on the stick. Two minutes later and I have my answer. Albeit not the one I wanted but I do have an answer.
Two pink lines.
Pregnant.