Anna
It takes me a full hour to come down from my post-coital high, my whole body floating through the house as if my veins are filled with air. Luka never leaves me feeling unfulfilled or used, but goddamn, this time, I’m not sure how he managed to get me to this place.
I check my phone to see what time it is at home in Seattle, making sure I haven’t missed any texts or calls from Rachel since we’ve left.
When I see the date at the top of my screen, I pause. It’s the seventeenth of this month, and it’s been a suspiciously long time since I’ve had my period. I’ve spent so much of my days in a haze blended together by sex and boredom, but there’s no way I wouldn’t have noticed my period starting.
Apprehensively, I open my period tracking app to see when I logged my last period, only to remember that it ended on the fifth of the last month.
Oh, fuck.
The skin of my face prickles with panic as I count the days. How did I not even notice? How did I manage to forget to have a period?!
Another question could be: how could I even be shocked? Luka and I never use protection. Whether he thinks I’m on birth control or just doesn’t care, he’s never been concerned with using a condom, save for one single time when he wanted to prove he was too big to even fit in magnum size. We ended up tossing it before we were done anyway because he was right.
I suddenly feel sick with anxiety.
What have I been thinking? I just got done raising Rachel. I can’t get pregnant, especially not with a man who kills people and deals obscene amounts of drugs for a living. That’s insane!
Living with Luka has been so comfortable for me that I’ve lost the survival edge that I used to have. Before Luka, I was adamant about using condoms with every single person I slept with, even when I religiously took my birth control.
I could puke. My blissful afterglow has been rapidly replaced by a sheen of nauseated sweat. Am I sick because I’m pregnant or because I think I’m pregnant? My mind is racing, and I can’t breathe.
“Hey, are you alright? Do you need anything?” Luka asks as he walks out of the bathroom.
“What? Oh, I think I might just be a little dizzy from before. You had the water kind of hot in there,” I lie. I always have the water too hot, not Luka.
He glances at me with confusion and concern on his face. “Are you sure? I can order you something. Do you just need some water?” he continues. “Jet lag can hit you pretty hard.”
I don’t know how much more of his hovering I can take before I snap. I’m more stressed than I have been in a very long time. I just don’t have the tolerance for it anymore.
“No, really, it’s fine. I’m just going to go out and get some air,” I insist, but as I attempt to climb out of bed on my shaking legs, Luka grabs my arm.
“Hey, I think you should lie down if you feel that unwell. You’re really pale,” he says.
I glance at myself in the far-away reflection of the bathroom mirror. To my horror, all of the color has fallen from my face, and I’ve taken on a ghastly shade of off-white. I look like I’m already dead.
“Please just let me get you some food. I’ll feel better if you eat,” he says.
I can’t think of anything less appealing to me than food right now, especially the rich, decadent food Luka is accustomed to. “No, I’m going to go for a short walk. I think the air will help me,” I insist.
Luka finally relents, and I gather up some clothes from my suitcase and slip into them as quickly as possible.
Under so much pressure, it’s difficult to keep calm, but I’m eventually able to type in the directions to the closest corner store where I can hopefully buy a pregnancy test with the little Brazilian currency Luka gave me for snacks leaving the airport.
If I were operating under the most ideal circumstances, the walk to the corner store would be charming and enjoyable as I pass the local shops and feel the heat of the sun on my skin. I’m admittedly a little overexcited about the warm temperatures here, even if I won’t get to enjoy it due to my life possibly being over.
However, the heat feels like punishment, and not the good kind that Luka gives me when I act bratty. This one is mixed with sickening anxiety and the urge to throw myself into the road and give up.
I eventually wander into the little pharmacy, where I stagger through the aisles without a clue as to where I’m going. Searching for a pregnancy test in an unfamiliar store has to be one of the most humiliating experiences, and I don’t even have to worry about seeing somebody that I know here.
After what feels like a lifetime of combing the aisles for the feminine care section, I stumble upon a poorly stocked collection of pregnancy tests, visually scanning each of them for some indication that this particular brand will tell me only what I want to hear and nothing else.
Refusing to make a selection is only prolonging my internal torture, so I hastily grab two boxes and nearly sprint towards the self-checkout.
I’m so nervous that I drop my boxes, and I could faint from the combination of embarrassment and excessive anxiety. If I thought it was a good idea, I’d ask Luka if he had anything I could take to suppress this horrible feeling, but there’s nothing I could have that wouldn’t be detrimental to a developing fetus. Ambien was probably bad enough.
At this point, I have to assess how much waiting I want to do before I find out my true fate. Do I risk bringing the tests back to the rental for Luka to find? How would he even react? One of my foster moms once told me that you don’t truly know a man until you’ve seen him respond to a potential pregnancy, and I’m stunned to consider that I’ve never even thought about something like this happening to us.
Would Luka become violent? Would he be overjoyed?
Would he claim to take responsibility and split parenting duties, only to hand off our baby the second it stops being cute and fun?
I understand that my perspective is warped considerably by my upbringing, or lack thereof. However, the reality of my poor experiences with men settles deep into the grooves of my mind until it’s eating me alive.
I have to take the tests here, at a pharmacy in Brazil. I’m not even going to bring them back to our place, lest Luka discovers them.
I’m able to locate the bathroom with little issue, which is one subtle blessing that I can thank the Universe for amidst this clusterfuck of a situation. Despite appearing completely normal on the outside, perhaps a bit tense, I can’t silence the feeling that everybody in the store is watching me, judging me to themselves for being a gang leader’s little house bitch.
When I’ve locked myself in the bathroom, I dig into the plastic bag for the tests and drop them both on the floor again. “God damn it!” I shout, suddenly extremely self-conscious of my voice carrying throughout the store.
I take a deep breath and pick them up.
I carefully unbox the first test, noting its ridiculous pink coloring and feeling genuinely insulted by it.
Light pink! How casual. Don’t you understand that my life could be over?
I summon whatever urine I can from within my body, and once I’ve completed the first portion of this absurd ritual, I place the test flat on the sink, and I wait.
The waiting is the worst part, and I don’t know how I expected any different. I was hoping that I would be able to distract myself or enter some kind of a fugue state in the three minutes it takes to get a result, but here I am, fully present and shaking in terror.
I imagine a life with Luka and a baby, trying the best I can to envision him as a careful, affectionate, present father. How can I expect him to be that way when he hardly had parents himself? All of the personal issues that I blame my parents for could be things that he faces as well. What are we supposed to do? Would he be a heartless disciplinarian? Would he be excessively permissive? Would he leave me when the child turns two, telling me that he “just can’t do it anymore” after he’s cleaned up vomit one time?
Two minutes go by.
The panic begins to race through my veins, icing the surface of my skin as a thin sheet of cold sweat forms. What if pregnancy is dangerous for me? What would it feel like to have a little parasite inside of me, always present, always making itself known? I would spend the next nine months feeling infringed upon, watched by something that won’t even have a central nervous system for a few more weeks.
Three minutes is up. I check the test.
It’s positive.