Just Three Minutes

“How long?” She sighs as she answers him once again. It is the third time he has asked since she brought the test in here to her bathroom.

“Three minutes,” at his groan she adds, “Hey it used to be a lot longer. Mom said it took ten minutes to find out I was on the way.” She meant to be flippant, to change the tense atmosphere of the room.

“Good Lord!” He sputters out as he starts pacing around the confines of the bathroom. There isn't a lot of space to walk. Between the bathtub, toilet, and sink, as well as the stand alone shelving, he can barely move three feet. He makes the most of it though wearing a path from the window, opened to the spring rain and the door, tightly closed.

“I couldn't even imagine,” she sits perched on the edge of the closed toilet and watches him. Her ears are tuned listening for the sound of her parents, “I don't know how she didn't freak.” In the waiting to see, she adds in her head. She was a wanted and anticipated child, after all. Her boyfriend ‘s response confirms her unspoken thoughts.

He snorts as he passes the shelves full of towels and bottles of shampoo and conditioner. “Well, she was married. Wasn't such a…”

She jumps up. “Is that your solution? Getting married?” Her heart, already in her throat from the waiting, jumps more. She loves him but…

He nods his head even as he blurts out. “No!”

Now she snorts, folding her lanky frame back on the bathroom’s throne. “Then why were you nodding?”

Startled, he blurts out. “How much longer?”

She looks down at her smartwatch and it's blinking timer. “Two minutes. Is it because you don't love me? Why you don't want to get married?” It is a stupid thing to ask she knows even as her frazzled nerves blurt it out. He loves her, the fact he is even with her now proves as much.

He is facing the window, watching the spider web, hanging from the eave glistening with the rain drops. At her words, he turns sharply. “O’ course I do. I love you baby. You know that. It is just,” a sigh as he runs his hand through his hair, pushing it back out of his eyes, “we are only sixteen. Marriage is for adults, don't you think?”

A huff. “So is parenthood.”

“How long?” Is his only answer to this. She is right, of course. It wasn't supposed to happen. A broken condom have them hear, waiting with bated breaths for an answer.

A sigh as she looks down. “Ninety seconds.”

“There is always adoption.” He has stopped pacing and stands in front of her. The tiny stick that could change both of their lives lays on the sink behind them.

“Yeah,” She is bouncing her legs. Her bottom lip is worried between her lips, “yeah, but it is you and me. If it exists. How could we give it away to someone else?” She twists her hair, in its standard ponytail around her finger, twisting and releasing it.

He nods. “Right but how could we raise it? I don't make a lot at the restaurant, even if I make assistant manager, I won't. You can't work pregnant. After that, we couldn't afford child care. I just don't know.” He wants to be able to see to her and his child. It hurts his heart and soul that he can't.

“We don't know yet. It could be nothing,” a quick glance at her watch, “thirty seconds.”

They both swallow. He reaches out and takes her hand. All words stop. Until they know, there is nothing left to say.

He is thinking about his responsibility. In his mind, he is trying to figure out how to make it work. With graduation next year, he can then get a full time job. Maybe then he can make enough to see to them. His parents will be upset that he isn't going to college. They may be proud that he is seeing to his responsibility though.

In her mind, she is thinking about how hard it was for her mom to go through her pregnancy with her baby brother. She fell pregnant when she was ten so she remembers everything about it. How will she be able to handle it? But then there was the baby. She adores her baby brother and recalls how sweet it was to hold him and help see to him when he was so small. To have her own… Well that might be pretty cool.

Her watch starts to ting, startling them both out of their deep thoughts. Their sweaty hands squeeze tightly together. She feels her heart beating so fast that she feels nauseous. Looking at her man, she sees the same fear running across his face.

“I don't think I can do this.” Her voice comes out in a whisper.

“Me either. But together?” Her eyes, that had closed in the depths of her emotions, slowly opened. She lets her breath out and nods.

“Right. Together. Let's do this.”

Still holding her hand, he helps her up. With hands tightly clasped, they walk over to the waiting stick. Its innocent look belies its importance to the young couple approaching it.

They look down together. Both blow their breaths out in relief. There are no lines on the side. It is negative.

“Thank goodness!” she leans weakly against him.

“Oh man! Oh Lord, we got so lucky!”

“Yes. I didn't know how we would have handled this.”

“Nor I. I was thinking about how I could support you both. How my parents would be disappointed that I wasn't going to college.”

“I was thinking about how mom dealt with her pregnancy with my brother. Seeing myself going through the same thing.”

“Scary stuff.”

“Yes, but the idea of a sweet baby, remember how sweet he was as a baby?” he shrugs. He doesn't recall much about the kid as a baby, “I loved helping with him. The sweet little baby sounds. The way his head smelled.”

“You sound disappointed.”

She shrugs. “Maybe just a little,” a shake of her head, “in time. It isn't time.”

“Right.” They pick up the test, slipping it back into the box it came in. They will throw it away outside the house.

Neither notice the lines forming on the other side. Not negative after all.