PROLOGUE

My feet gave out from underneath me. I crumpled to the floor, the cold linoleum slapping against the backs and sides of my thighs. Shocking and chilling them at the same time.

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit. This couldn’t be happening. Could it? How could it? We had been careful. Really careful. So careful that it had bordered on the ridiculous. We had even been laughed at how careful we had been.
The more I thought about it, the less it made sense. The how of it all just didn’t add up. Unless…

Blink…blink…blink…swallow…

There had been that one night, that last night, the night after we had- correction, the night after he had-

Trying to maintain my composure, I held up the pee stick with one hand and the box it had come in with the other. I had to make sure that I wasn’t seeing things. Or misreading things. You can never be too sure with these things; I‘ve heard stories…

I scanned the box; a pink cross meant “positive”, a blue dash meant “negative”. A brief smile flashed across my lips; that actually made a lot of sense…

And then it sunk in: A pink cross meant “positive” and a blue dash meant “negative”…I was staring at a pink cross.

My hands began to shake. So much so that I almost dropped both the box and the test.

But there was still a chance that I wasn’t, right?

Of course there was. There was absolutely no way to be certain until I went to go see my doctor. These tests gave bum results all the time. There was no need to call the Calvary just yet…

But a part of me wasn’t buying it. It was false optimism and I knew it. A part of me knew, actually knew that that pink cross; that big, pink “Fuck You” cross was the real deal. That my life as I knew it was officially and irrevocably over.

Say hello to mother hood Sharon.



“With Arms Wide Open”
A short story
By L.A. Lutara