The Test (Part Two)

You sit on the toilet lid. Its cold and you wanted to make as little noise as possible so decided against finding a pair of bottoms to wear, lest the opening and closing of the cupboard doors wake your parents, and you suspected that they might choose to creek every inch of the way, in spite of all your efforts to keep quiet. It’s also quite dark, as you would expect at 3 in the morning. The bathroom is situated next to your parent’s bedroom and tonight is the night your father didn’t drink enough to make him snore. Mum’s not snoring either. Not even the bloody dog… typical. So at 3 am you sit on a cold toilet seat in the dark because you forgot to turn the fan off. You also, you sigh, speaking in your head, forgot to use a condom.

You’re holding the instructions in your hand, you can just make out the words and the figures, and so, having read the “basic steps to taking your pregnancy test” you carefully lift the water glass up and slowly bring it towards you. You worry your unsteady hands might drop it; you can hear the thunk of the glass on the carpet. The dog’s alarmed barks against the door. Your parents getting up, their shocked, appalled faces when they see test in your hand. But this is all in your mind. Silence surrounds you.

The glass, of course, wobbles noiselessly through the air. You settle it on the floor. Agonisingly slowly you pull yourself off the toilet seat so you can open it. Your eyes follow all they can see off your hands. The dim moonlight casts a deathly complexion over them and you feel as washed-out as you look. Your heart beats against your chest, the unremitting drum coursing though your body. You can hear it in your head, so loud you feel ready to pass out under the pressure. You can see it in your hands as they bit by bit pull the elastic of your knickers away. It makes you twinge as you draw them down over your mound, the edge of them brushing against the inflammation and bowed hairs, another reaction from that ill-fated night.

Silently you perch yourself back onto the toilet. You sit awkwardly on it, having placed yourself to the very back of it, more of your thighs rest on the cold surface. Hesitantly you pick the glass up and dip it under you, taking care not to let glass strike porcelain. You breathe in deeply, loosen your muscles, and push slightly. Nothing comes. You push again. A little trickle runs down your hand. You align the glass and push once more; again nothing. You weren’t exactly desperate when you got up this morning, but there must be something, you think. Nothing will come of nothing…and so you try again. Nothing. Though you can’t understand why, you woke up in need of the toilet.

You allow yourself a small exasperated sigh, pull the glass from the toilet, and settle it on the carpet again. You lift yourself off gently, pull your knickers back up, pick up the instructions and the pack, and leave the room as silently as you came. Back to what you hope is still a warm bed. On the short return journey you consider how lucky you may have just been. Could I have held it in if I had been pregnant? You’ve been jumpy enough with just the possibility of a baby. Could you? No, you already know the answer.