Two Pink Lines

Home : Stories by Mick : Twisted Web : Two Pink Lines

Summary: Who knew peeing could be so monumental?

AUTHOR: Mick
EMAIL: mick@cryptoffic.com
RATING: R
SERIES: Twisted Web
CHARACTER: Chandra Johnson, Chandra POV
WORD COUNT: 1,856
COMPLETED: July 4, 2008
DISCLAIMER: If I owned them I’d be too busy to write this stuff. Just fiction, folks. I own NOTHING and am affiliated with NO ONE mentioned here. Not the drivers, not the teams, no one. This is all fiction and fun. In other words...NOT REAL, NOT REAL, NOT REAL. ;-)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lake Norman, NC - The Johnson's Home

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. This CANNOT be happening. There's no way in hell. Granted, we weren't always safe, but fuck. I'm on the pill for Pete's sake! I use a diaphragm! My damn cycle has been running like clockwork for years. I'm never late. Not ever! So why the hell is it a week late all of a sudden? I haven't missed a pill in years and the one or two times we went at it without protection, I wasn't even close to ovulating. It doesn't make any sense. Why is this happening? What the hell did I do to deserve this? I know I bitch and moan about cramps and bloating and fatigue, but fuck! What girl doesn't bitch about those things? It's our right as women to complain about all the discomfort we have to deal with on a monthly basis! It doesn't mean I want my period to not show up. In fact, I'd love for it to show it's face right now. This very second.

I'm fucked. Completely fucked. The worst part about all of this is that if I AM…If I'm… I can't even say the word. But if I am, Jimmie's going to know that it's not his. He's going to know that I've been cheating on him all this time. We haven't had sex in at least a month. We've barely even spoken to one another since the day he came home early from work and I wasn't there. I'd told him I'd headed to the shop with lunch for him, which wasn't a total lie. I had gone to the shop under the pretense of meeting him for lunch. I'd just left out the part about giving Junior a blowjob under the desk while his sister was in the room trying to talk to him about licensing for the Nationwide team's new diecasts. He'd nearly pulled my hair out when he came, from trying so hard not to let on to what was going on. I wish I could have seen the look on his face when he did…

Dammit, Chandra! Knock it off! Stop thinking about Junior. You've got bigger things to think about right now. Like what the hell you're going to do if your period doesn't show up. If you are…that. What the hell am I going to do? How am I going to deal with this? There's plenty of options, but none of them are all that appealing. I couldn't get rid of it. It's just not an acceptable concept for me. There's always adoption, but how would it look if I got pregnant and then Jimmie and I gave up "our" kid? I could tell Junior and see what he wants to do about it. Or I could just jump Jimmie's bones right now and if I am pregnant pray the kid looks like me so he's none the wiser. Then I wouldn't even have to tell Dale it's his, although I'm sure he'd be plenty suspicious. I mean, why wouldn't he be? Of course, I could tell him about my plan to trick Jimmie and see if he'll go along with it. I can't see a reason why he wouldn't.

…except that it's Junior's dream to have a child of his own. By lying to Jimmie about it, I'd be denying Junior the one thing he's always wanted. I'd never be able to bear the anguish on his face at having to watch another man raise his child. No, I definitely can't tell Junior about this. If I even am…that. Even if it is his, no doubts about it. I could never put him through such cruel and unusual punishment. I care too much about him to hurt him like that. Although, the same could be said for Jimmie. If I tried to pass it off as his and then it popped out with red hair and an Elvis lip-curl, he'd know in an instant that it wasn't his. He'd figure out what was really going on and then…I don't even want to think about it.

I went to a convenience store several towns west of us early this morning after Jimmie left for the shop. Picked up a box of pregnancy tests, that E.P.T. brand that can tell you if you're positive before you even skip a period. Now that I have them though, I don't know if I want to use them. I don't know if I can face those two pinks lines. And it's funny, really. The entire fate of my life rests on two stupid pink lines in the middle of a piece of plastic that I have to pee on. Who knew peeing could be so monumental? I've never had to use one of these things in my life and now here I am with a box of three, ready to pee on all of them in hopes that even just one will tell me I'm negative. In the hopes that the second line won't show up and this will all be over.

I really wish I had someone here with me right now. Anyone, really, just so I can have a hand to hold while I watch the clock and wait for the minutes to tick by agonizingly slow as my fate is decided. Unfortunately, I can’t tell anyone about this. I can't involve anyone else in this, it'd be far too risky of a move. Telling anybody that I might be pregnant would surely get me into more trouble than I want to think about right now. It'd get back to Jimmie and Dale in an instant and then I'd have two men looking at me accusingly and I just can't deal with that until I know for sure. Please God, just don't let that second line show up.

Sigh softly and look back over at the box sitting on the counter in front of me. I've been sitting here on the edge of the tub for nearly an hour now, playing mind games with myself. Staring down the stupid pink box with the pregnant belly on it, willing the stupid plastic sticks inside to keep that second line from appearing. I glance at my watch and let out another sigh. Jimmie's going to be home within the hour. It's now or never. I can't avoid it any longer. I have to take at least one of the tests and find out what the hell's going to become of my life. Push myself up and grab the box, tearing it open. Reach inside and pull out one of the sticks, reading the directions that came in the box as I hold onto it in an iron grip. I'm so nervous I can hear my heart pounding in my ears.

I go through all the motions and set the stick facedown on the edge of the sink before washing my hands and returning to my perch on the edge of the tub. I can't look away from it. I keep staring at it, silently praying that the positive line doesn't appear. My stomach is tied in knots, butterflies swarming in my chest as my legs bounce impatiently. I wring my hands over and over, checking my watch every ten seconds to see if the time's gone by. Every second seems to take an hour to pass and I'm not sure how much of this I can take. I need to know.

A clatter downstairs snaps me out of my trance and I can hear him calling out to me as the dogs bark happily, obviously excited at Jimmie's early arrival. Shit. He's not supposed to be home yet! It's too early! Before I can answer him, I see him come into the bedroom and my heart drops down into my stomach. Jump up quickly and close the bathroom door, making sure it's locked so he can't come in and see the pregnancy tests all over the place. I grab the box and shove it under the counter, far in the back behind a bag of cottonballs and some shampoo bottles. He knocks on the door and I swallow hard, calling out to him that I'll be out in a minute. A glance at my watch tells me I still have three to go. God dammit, this is the longest five minutes of my life! Why can't it just be over?!

He starts rambling to me through the door and I half listen as I get lost in my trance again, glaring hard at the stick on the counter. He's asking if I want to go out to dinner, telling me about some great new restaurant Chad and Bruna went to last night. It figures, too. I'm ready to tear my hair out and he's thinking about food. He doesn't have a care in the world right now and I'm in limbo between life and death. Stupid test, just hurry up and tell me! Look back down at my watch as he moves on to Ron and some funny joke he told this morning, nearly falling down when I see I only have a few seconds left. Silently, I count them down in my head.

30, 29, 28…

There's a press conference tomorrow that he has to be at. He'd really like me to be there for it because it's for the foundation and it's as much my baby as it is his. I yell back that I'm all for it.

20, 19, 18…

Now the dogs are being cute, and oh my god I need to see it! Roxie's playing dead and Maya's trying to see if she's okay. Stupid man, can't you tell I'm having a crisis in here?!

10, 9, 8…

Chan, are you okay in there? No, idiot, I'm not okay! I'm about to have a fucking heart attack and you're going on and on about work and the dogs with no idea at all that I've been cheating on you with your teammate and I'm quite possibly knocked up with his fucking child! I'm as far from okay as I can possibly be right now!

3, 2, 1!

I snatch the test off the counter and flip it over, my eyes going wide at the results.

Oh my God.

Oh…My…God.

Toss it into the trash and fling the door open, attacking my husband before he even knows what's happening. In an instant we're sprawling back onto the bed, kissing more passionately than we have in months. He's obviously caught completely off guard by my advances, not that I blame him. I haven't taken an interest in him sexually in weeks. After a few minutes of an intensely heated make-out session, he pulls away and looks up at me, eyes full of wonder.

"So I take it you'd rather stay in tonight?" He's only half joking but I smile and laugh all the same. Sometimes I forget what a dork he can be. It's one of the things that got me interested in him in the first place.

"Yeah, Jimmie. I'd rather stay in tonight."

Stay in and celebrate an absent pink line.

These authors spend lots of time to write these stories. If you took the time to read this PLEASE take the time to give them some feedback. Happy writers write more ;-)

Mick - mick@cryptoffic.com