It’s 2 a.m. and I’m staring at a pregnancy test box I bought at the gas station
My dorm room smells like leftover miso ramen I forgot to throw out yesterday, and my roommate’s fancy lavender candle that she lit before she left to go home for her grandma’s birthday. She’s been snoring for an hour, face down in her pillow across the room, and I’m propped up against my headboard with this crinkly blue box half under my covers, like if I hold it close enough no one else can see it.
I’m 20. I’m two weeks late. And I’m so scared I can barely taste the iced coffee I poured three hours ago.
I knew it was probably just midterms. My doctor told me when I got off birth control three months ago that it’d take a while for my cycle to right itself, and I’ve been pulling all-nighters, skipping meals because I’m too stuck on my bio study guide, lost six pounds just from running between classes and the barista shift I work off campus. All the random forum posts I’ve scrolled say stress can make you miss a whole period, even two. But those same posts also say condoms aren’t 100% effective, even if they didn’t break. Even if you checked.
I bought this three days ago, on my walk back from boba with my best friend Lila. It was pouring rain, my white sneakers were soaked through, and I walked past the student health center first. I stood on the sidewalk under a tree for five minutes, debating just going in and getting a test there. But everyone knows everyone at this school. What if someone from my 8 a.m. stats class saw me coming out of the women’s clinic wing? What if they told someone? So I turned and walked the extra ten blocks to the gas station off campus, the one that sells beer to undergrads if you flash a fake ID.
I grabbed the test from the family planning aisle, and then I panicked and threw a pack of mint gum and three condoms in front of it in my basket, like that’d hide what I was really there for. When I got to the counter, the cashier was that Jake guy from stats, the one I smiled at last week when he lent me a pencil. My hands shook so bad the gum fell out of the basket and rolled under the counter. He bent down to get it, and I just wanted to disappear into the linoleum. He said “Pretty wet out there, huh?” and I mumbled yeah, threw my cash down, and ran out before he could even bag it, for god’s sake. I don’t think he cared, probably didn’t even look at what I was buying, but I still wanted to crawl into a storm drain.
I’ve been hiding the box in my sock drawer, under my holey gym socks and the pair of fancy wool socks my mom sent me for Christmas. I’ve gone to the bathroom 15 times a day for three days just to check my underwear, every time my heart jumps into my throat when it’s clean. I’ve been drinking three extra cups of coffee a day because I keep dozing off over my notes from panic, and I ate the whole bag of sour patch kids I bought with the boba in one sitting last night, something I never do because I get a crippling stomach ache from that much sugar.
I haven’t told anyone. Not Lila, who’s my ride or die since high school and would drive me wherever I need to go if I just asked. Not the guy I’ve been seeing, Eli, my lab partner. We’ve only been hanging out for two months, it’s not even official, we just get pizza after lab and hook up back here when my roommate’s gone. He’s nice, he’d do the right thing if it’s positive, I think. But I don’t want to drag him into it if it’s just a false alarm, you know? I don’t want to make him panic for no reason. And I definitely haven’t told my mom. She’s so proud of me for being the first one in the family to go to a four-year college, she texts me every Sunday to remind me to study and wear a coat. I know she’d say she loves me no matter what, but I also know she’d be so disappointed. I don’t want to be that kid, the one who messed up before she even finished her first two years.
I did the math last night, though. Just in case. I have $820 saved from my barista tips, that was supposed to go to spring break with Lila and the girls, down to the Gulf. I looked up the nearest clinic that does the procedure, how much it is, how much a cheap motel for one night would be, gas to get there. It’s almost exactly all of it. I wrote it down on a scrap of my bio notes and then crumpled it up and threw it in the trash, but I still know the numbers by heart. I know where the Planned Parenthood is an hour away, I know what bus goes there. I didn’t plan for this, but I guess I’ve been quietly planning for the worst for three days anyway.
Part of me feels so stupid for being this scared. I know so many people my age go through this. I’ve read all the stories online, I’ve held Lila’s hand when she thought she was late last year. I was the calm one then, I told her it was just stress from sorority rush, I bought the test for her, I waited outside the bathroom with her. I thought if it ever happened to me, I’d be that calm too. I’m the friend everyone goes to when they need to not panic. But now I can’t stop my hands from shaking when I look at this box. I was supposed to take it this morning, first pee of the day like the instructions say. I got up, brushed my teeth, went to the bathroom, stood in front of the toilet for five minutes, and I just couldn’t. I left. I peed without the test, and I went back to bed and stared at the ceiling until my alarm went off for class.
It’s 2:30 a.m. now. The heating’s broken in this old dorm, it’s like 58 degrees in here, I’m wearing my faded high school cheer hoodie that has a coffee stain on the cuff I can’t get out. I keep picking at the plastic edge of the test box, making little creases in it that won’t smooth back out. I don’t have a big inspiring thing to say here. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, or next week. I just know I’m scared. I want my period to show up when I wake up, I want to throw this stupid box in the dumpster behind the dorm, I want to go back to stressing about my midterm and whether Eli will ask me to be his girlfriend and if I’ll still have enough money left for spring break even after I buy my plane ticket.
If it doesn’t show up, I’ll do it. I’ll take the test. I’ll go to the clinic. I’ll be okay, I think. I just don’t want to be okay right now. I just want to be scared for a little while longer, without anyone telling me I need to be brave or it’ll all work out. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. Right now I’m just 20, and I’m late, and I’m scared. That’s all.
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