Sex + Love
There’s nothing worse than taking a pregnancy test when you don’t want to be pregnant.
It’s especially bad when you don’t know who the father is.
Last year, this is the exact situation I found myself in: 23, single, not on contraception, and with a late period. I was nothing short of panicked.
After finding the least expensive test that CVS carried (by the way, can we talk about how expensive pregnancy tests are?!), I went home to find out my fate. After locking myself in the bathroom, I turned the shower on to drown out the noise of my thoughts. I waited five minutes and then peered at the stick, leaning as far away from the sink as possible in case it showed two lines.
I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw one clear line on the screen.
I quickly tossed the test in the trash, turned off the shower, and hopped in bed with a bottle of cabernet.
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“I don’t want to die alone,” I mutter to myself as I sweep the kitchen floor in my new home. These words represent my greatest fear.
It’s a Saturday morning, and I am alone. A loud silence rings in my home. It's a silence formed by my son, who is not here. There isn’t an iPad blaring with cartoons on Netflix or Hulu. The only noise is a broom raking across a linoleum floor. The sink is filled with pots and pans, remnants of a recent dinner. Alongside the casserole dishes and saucepans is a solitary plate.
In my new home, I am alone half the time.
The other half of my time is spent with my child. He isn’t responsible for my happiness. I want to watch him grow up, find independence, and learn to fly. I never want my fears to hold him back.
He watched as his father and I finalized our divorce in December. He'd started splitting his time between two houses in July, when I moved in with my mother.
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This article first appeared on SHE'SAID' and has been republished with permission.
I never thought I’d be the kind of person who’d ever admit they needed help. But I’d had my heart smashed into pieces, and my bad dating choices were making me depressed. For instance, I was dating this one guy, and, let’s just say, there were four other women who could have said the same thing about him.
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