Tip money. The thought reminded me of something awful—I was supposed to work the closing shift that night. But I’d have to worry about that later. After. One problem at a time.
“Okay then, I think I’m set,” I said, trying to sound infinitely cooler and braver than I felt. “Let’s get out of this place, please.” I could do this. Pay for the tests, drive back to Hannah’s, pee on the sticks.
Then this would all be behind me.
I wedged the boxes between my crossed arms and started toward the front registers, hoping that other shoppers passing by wouldn’t notice what I was holding. I’m a virgin, I wanted to scream. A virgin! Stop judging me!
The whole confidence act crumbled as soon as I got in line to pay. The cashier looked sweet, plump and middle-aged—she was definitely someone’s mom. What would she think of me? Would she say something? Ask me anything?
Izzy reached out and grabbed both boxes. “I’ll do it,” she said, avoiding my eyes. “Just give me the cash.”
I was so stunned and relieved, I couldn’t find the words to thank her. I just nodded and fumbled through my purse for the wad of bills I had stuffed into an envelope after my last shift. Izzy took the money from my hands and stepped closer to the customer being rung up in front of her, casually putting both boxes down on the conveyor belt. She looked completely nonchalant and at ease, as if she were buying a box of Kleenex or a new toothbrush, not a test that would determine if another human being was growing inside of my body. Yeah, lady, her calm demeanor said, I’m buying a pregnancy test. So what? Making babies is a natural part of life. Give me my change, and let’s both move on with our days.
God, I loved Izzy. I hoped that I would be half as composed and courageous as she was being if this was happening to her or Hannah.
The cashier didn’t so much as blink when she scanned and bagged the tests. I guess pregnant high school girls weren’t such a shock to her after all. Teens in small, backwoods places like Green Hill and Kauffmanville and most other towns within an hour or so radius of here didn’t have many options when it came to entertainment. A few girls in my grade had actually already had babies, though I couldn’t say that any of the pregnancies so far had been particularly surprising or newsworthy. They were the girls you’d expect it from, I guess, the ones who’d carried their reputations long before any babies came along—the girls who had worn eyeliner and pushup bras since fifth grade, bumming cigarettes from older boys and cutting as many classes as they wanted, because their parents either didn’t notice or didn’t care one way or the other what their kids did. They were the girls who no one expected to ever go to college, to ever leave our town at all. There were no shockwaves rippling around the halls when their bellies started to show. But Mina Dietrich—or better yet, Menius, as some of the kids still called me, short for Mina the Genius, a nickname from middle school that I could never seem to shake—with the highest grade point average in the class and who was the girlfriend of Nate Landis? It was safe to say that there would be a reaction.
“Where do you want to take the tests?” Hannah asked, her arm linked in mine as the three of us walked through the exit and into the brilliantly blue-skied and sunny late-August day.
The air was dense and sticky and infused with the smell of sweet, powdery doughnuts being boxed by the thousands at the factory on the next lot over. It felt too hot and summery to believe that senior year, our last year at Green Hill High, my last year with Izzy and Hannah by my side, could possibly start next week. I’d never been good with lasts, and the next year would be bursting at the seams with them. I shook the thought off, though—worries for another time. I had nine months of school to get through first.
Nine months. I cringed.
“I figured we would go to your house,” I said, but then I noticed Hannah shooting Izzy an anxious glance. “Or . . . maybe that’s a bad idea? I wouldn’t want your parents picking up on anything weird.”
“How about we go to your creek?” Izzy suggested. “The old tree house?”
“You’re kidding, right?” I asked, almost laughing out loud. The warm, sparkling sunlight made everything feel slightly less frightening.
“Only half. I’d say our actual houses are out, since we don’t want our families sniffing around. So that leaves some kind of public restroom, because I refuse to let you do this in the back of my brand-new car. And the idea of you pissing in some dirty McDonald’s bathroom is way more depressing than even I can handle right now. The creek is looking pretty fantastic if you ask me.”
Thinking about the tree house flooded my mind with a heavy, rushing stream of golden memories. Long, lazy summer days with Hannah and Izzy, digging for treasure along the soft banks of the creek, creating entire meals out of mud and twigs and stones, and having sleepovers up on those high branches. We’d lie awake all night telling ghost stories and listening to the eerie and beautiful chorus of toads and crickets and birds that swooped and hunted even in the blackness, the stars blotted out by the thick canopy of maple and sycamore leaves.
Izzy was right, as she usually was, and for once I didn’t mind admitting it out loud.
“Of course that’s where we should go,” I said, looking over at Izzy. “That’s a great idea.” Her dark eyes were wary at first, softening only after she realized I was being sincere. “The creek is the perfect place. If there could be a perfect place for Mina Dietrich to be taking a pregnancy test, at least.” Izzy choked on a laugh, which made me laugh, and suddenly the three of us were all giggling like the little girls who had played house day after day along that creek. We were practically skipping to the car, caught up in the thrill of an entirely insane and entirely ridiculous new adventure.
“Let’s stop and pick up some coffee and sandwiches or something on our way back,” Hannah said. “We can have a little picnic out there like the good old days. Plus it’s almost noon and we haven’t even had breakfast yet.” She rubbed her hands against her stomach, which rumbled, precisely on cue.
I felt calmer than I had in weeks just picturing the way the sun danced along the ripples of the creek, the way the trees seemed to block out all evidence of the rest of the outside world.
In those woods it was only us: Mina, Hannah, and Isabelle. Nothing bad could happen, not there, not in our special place. The knot that had been coiled up deep inside me for weeks released, and I grinned up at the sun in relief, because suddenly I knew.
Everything would be okay.
Everything was really going to be okay.
“The good news, according to the instructions, is that the whole thing should only take about three minutes once Mina downs that liter of root beer,” Izzy said, squinting at the little unfolded manuals fanned out in front of her on the picnic blanket. “So we won’t have to wait long to get some results.”
I nodded as I chewed on the same piece of bread that I’d put in my mouth a minute or two before, over and over into a tasteless mush, unable to make myself swallow.
We had stopped at my house first to pick up supplies and make small talk with my parents, who were both beyond thrilled that we wanted to eat lunch out by the old tree house—“the three princesses making an epic return to their kingdom,” as my mom had put it. Thankfully, Gracie had just been picked up for a birthday party at a friend’s house. She would have been begging to tag along otherwise, her impossibly gigantic blue eyes pleading with me, even though she’d never once showed the slightest interest in our precious fort before—she was more of a dollhouse girl than a tree house girl. I usually loved having Gracie follow me and the girls around, but I certainly didn’t want my shadow trailing me to the tree house that afternoon.