Nochelle - Our Stories

S H A V E D L E G S

~Post TNS~

"Richie, are you okay in there? Henry wants to be in there to shave for that audition tomorrow."

Richelle jumps at the sound of Noah's voice, her eyes shooting to the inside of his bathroom door, opposite which she sits, her bare legs chilly against the cool tile of the floor. A soft breeze filters into the room from the tiny window in the corner - she takes this air into her lungs slowly, largely in hopes that it'll make her voice sound more stable when she replies.

"Sorry. It's. Uh... girl stuff," she says eventually, her voice cracking a little, and actually finds herself cringing at the uncertainty in her voice. She's such a bad liar.

"Oh, okay. Tell me if you need anything, okay?"

She smiles inwardly at her boyfriend's immediate sweetness, but no part of her relaxes; her hands are clammy, almost dampening the huge shirt of his that she's wearing under her grey-zipped-hoodie where she holds it.

In front of her, on the bathroom floor, sits a pregnancy test. Next to it, her phone timer, currently counting down from two minutes and thirty seconds. She wasn't exactly fazed by the extra thirty seconds when she bought the stupid thing, but right now it's the most irritatingly long space of time she's ever had the displeasure of experiencing in her life.

The timer, currently at 1:46, ticks down so slowly Richelle swears she can feel herself aging.

Every part of her is panicking at once.

This is not the plan. Not that there even is a plan for this; she's touring with Jennifer Lopez for God's sake (JLO!), and she and Noah are still doing the long-distance thing for now. Their lives (when together) consist of takeout, movies, a hell of a lot of music, and fitting in dates around shows, his filming schedule, and her flights.

If you could name one thing that is undeniably, completely incompatible with these lives, it'd absolutely be parenthood.

Richelle's stomach churns at the thought of it, even though it's all she's been thinking about all morning. Somehow, the idea of a baby is able to petrify her with fresh fear every single time it comes back into her mind.

She's never late. That's how she knew something wasn't right- at first, she actually thought it could be a cyst, or a hormonal problem, not a pregnancy. That is, right up until she'd had the harsh realisation that she and Noah had, indeed, had unprotected sex, late after one of her flights in, out of sheer laziness.

Despite her strict adherence to the pill, Richelle had immediately started to panic, and dashed to the store straight after her tech run to pick up a test. She'd then come to Noah and Henry's with Amy for a game night, as planned, and found herself completely unable to wait.

Which brings us to now.

Her eyes dart back to the timer.

1:40.

Six seconds? Richelle sighs, leaning back into the glass of the outer wall of the shower.

What breaks her heart is that there's no way she'd be able to keep this thing, this child, if it's there. She's got a life ahead of her, a career. A long, successful career. Her mother had had her first child at 15 and although she insists to this day that parenting Michelle, Richelle and their younger siblings was and is her biggest accomplishment, the mere thought of it exhausts Richelle to death.

What if Noah wanted it and she didn't? What if, god forbid, an abortion hurts her somehow, and she can't have children later on? What if she convinces herself to keep it?

Her head pounds so hard she wouldn't be surprised if someone could hear it, her brain hammering away against her skull.

"Richelle," Amy's softer voice comes from just outside the door, "how're you doing?"