Increased urination. Check.
Fatigue. Double Check.
Food aversions. Check again.
Her phone made a loud click as she set it on the table. What if she was pregnant?
She wasn’t ready for this and she had a suspicion that AJ wasn’t ready either. They hadn’t even discussed the possibility of kids, or even a future beyond next week. She had really hoped to meet his parents before they had children together, or at least have introduced him to her family.
This wasn’t how she had planned her life.
A baby with AJ. Surprisingly, the idea of carrying his baby wasn’t scaring her. In fact, she rather liked the idea of it. Someday. Not today, though. She was very much smitten with him, but she wasn’t exactly ready to start a family with a man she had just met two months ago.
What would AJ think? Kat’s nausea came back. He was embroiled in the middle of a horrible scandal regarding his partner being sexually inappropriate with employees. And now, she was about to tell him that he just knocked up an employee.
The press would eat him alive for this. This was the worst thing that could happen to him in the current media climate. They had been worried about the press finding out about them dating. She could only imagine the uproar that would come from him impregnating her.
Panic crept up her throat and she was afraid she was going to puke again. She needed a plan. She needed to know that this was actually happening. She knew better than to believe everything she read on the Internet. Maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t pregnant and it was just the flu.
There was only one way to know for sure. She had to go take a pregnancy test.
It only took her ten seconds to find a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. She tried not to think about the fact that the jeans felt tighter than usual as she tied her shoes and hurried out the door. Kat would have run to the corner gas station if she hadn’t felt so sick to her stomach. She wasn’t sure if it was the flu, morning sickness, or just nerves.
Inside the small convenience store, she quickly located the easiest to read pregnancy test, paid cash, and hurried out the door. She was so desperate to know, she considered using the convenience store bathroom, but decided to just use her bathroom at home. Maybe it was just paranoia, but she didn’t want anyone but her knowing that she had even purchased a test.
The walk home seemed to take forever. Her future, once so certain and clear was suddenly cloudy and about to change. The weight of the world, complete with a possible new tiny human, sat squarely on her shoulders with every step home.
Once inside the safety of her own bathroom, she ripped open the box and read the instructions. It was pretty straightforward. Just pee on the stick and wait for the lines to appear.
For the first time in the past week, she was grateful for her near constant need to pee. She reread the directions one more time, just to make sure that she was going to correctly pee on a technological wonder correctly.
Then she sat down to wait as the test processed. The timer on her phone seemed to go in slow-motion.
Would the baby have AJ’s eyes or hers? Boy or girl? He or she would be born at the end of February, if she was indeed pregnant. What hospital would she deliver at? What would AJ think? Would he ask her to marry him? He’d make a great dad. What if he didn’t want to be a father?
Stop it, she told herself, shaking her head to dispel the thoughts. There’s no reason to worry until there is one.
Kat’s stomach was in knots as she waited. The timer slowly ticked down the seconds, each one longer than the last. She knew her whole world was about to change as soon as she looked at the plastic stick.
The phone timer chimed. Slowly, fingers shaking, Kat reached for the test and read it.
Two lines. Positive.
22
AJ
AJ looked out the window for the fourth time in as many minutes. Kat would be at his home any moment, yet he didn’t want to wait that long. He wanted to have her in his arms this second. She was the bright spot to his entire day, his entire week even. Between the lawyers and the media, his days were hell. Even swimming, his usual stress-reliever, wasn’t helping.
But Kat did. When she was around, his tension melted and the constant ache between his shoulder blades faded. Being in the water wore him out so that he was too tired to think of the consequences of Paul’s actions, whereas Kat energized him.
The alarm chimed, indicating that a car was approaching the house. The grin spreading across his face threatened to break it in half. She was here and it was the best he’d felt all day.
He ran to the door, excited as a kid on Christmas. Of course he had seen her at work, but he hadn’t had any time alone with her since he brought her soup four days ago. He hoped she was feeling better. At the office, she said she was feeling okay, but they were both so busy that he didn’t really have a chance to follow up. Tonight, they had the evening to themselves. An entire Friday night all to themselves. He couldn’t have thought of a better way to spend it than with Kat.