Yesha eyed the drugstore on the other side of the street as she exhaled sharply. Her pretty face twitched as she swallowed, looked from left to right before moving to cross the street.
The door chime rang as she stepped inside the establishment and her eyes immediately scanned the isles for the items she came here for. Reaching the farthest corner of the place, she eyed the boxes neatly arranged on the shelves and sighed as she saw the one she was looking for. Reaching out, she picked up one and read the box.
Home pregnancy test kit.
The instructions didn't seem complicated. She just had to pee in a clean cup and use the dropper inside to transfer the specimen to the strip. If there's only one line then it meant negative and if there were two, then it meant the opposite. But she read somewhere that for the person to be sure, she needed to at least take the test three to six times using different brands and compare the results.
Yesha bit her lip. She didn't really know why she came there to buy the test kit, but something about what Jane told her yesterday stayed in her mind. There had been a lot of changes in her that when she asked her sister, Jane suggested that she could be pregnant.
A week ago, Adam came home with cold noodles and since that night, she'd been craving the same food at weird hours in the morning. She also told her sister she'd been irritable lately and it was Adam who was always the brunt of her annoyance. She would find herself biting her boyfriend or pulling his nose randomly. Although she didn't feel any morning sickness, she noticed herself becoming sleepy lately and she was gaining weight.
Of course, her period hadn't come yet. But Yesha didn't think it was strange since her menstruation was not regular since the beginning. There was even a time she didn't have it for three months since she was stressed over her schooling.
Am I pregnant?
She wondered as she took six boxes of HPTK from different brands and went to the counter. Seeing her purchase, the counter clerk beamed up at her.
"Oh, suspecting?" she friendly inquired and Yesha smiled shyly.
"Yeah," she responded with a nervous smile and the clerk nodded as she summed the total and put the boxes in the plastic. "Good luck," she said as she handed her the bag and she nodded before hurriedly leaving.
Outside, Yesha flinched at the bright sky and glanced at her wristwatch. It was half-past three in the afternoon, plenty of time to take the tests before Adam came home. With a sigh, she raised her hand to hail a cab and asked the driver to take her back to the apartment.
Inside the bathroom, she took the kits out of the boxes and arranged them so she could easily drop samples of her urine there consequently. When she did, she held her breath as she waited for the tests to change and gasped as she saw the results.
Two lines. Positive.
Oh Lord, she thought as she leaned weakly against the wall and slowly sat at the side of the bathtub.
"I'm pregnant…" she whispered in wonder as she stared at her reflection on the mirror.
She lifted her shirt and placed a hand on her still flat stomach and blinked. Although she and Adam used protection now, they didn't on that first night. She couldn't believe that for a short time with her lover, she would already be conceiving a child. No, not just any child.
Adam's child.
The thought of a new life inside of her, something that she had created with Adam filled him with elation…and dread.
"What to do…"
She had no idea how to tell her boyfriend about this. She and Adam had one weird relationship after all. Yesha bit her lip as she sighed. Honestly, until now, she had no idea how she felt. Aside from Hiro, she'd never had a serious relationship before and so she was confused.
When she was young, she decided that when she reached the age of twenty-five, she would settle down and have children. She was twenty-four when she met Hiro at a common friend's wedding. People had already warned her about the man's dubious character but she ignored it. She was so happy to finally be in a relationship that she just went on with it and made the best out of it.
She heard that in order for her ex to be promoted, he needed to be married. She knew that it was the only reason she and Hiro got engaged, but she didn't mind. She still agreed. She had already noticed Hiro's superficiality but chose to be blind. She had been resigned to marrying him since that's what she thought she should do.
That night when she had seen him in bed with another woman, she had thought her world had ended. Thinking about it now however, her pain was more about her pride than her heart. Her dream of settling down at twenty-five was after all had been thwarted. If she truly loved Hiro, she wouldn't be okay with her current set up with Adam, right?
Right. That's what she was thinking about lately.
At first, she allowed the man to hold her because of her pain. She felt awful that she had used Adam's feelings for her to ease her own sadness. Making love with him made her heart stop hurting and she never thought of the consequences.
The morning after they made love, Yesha had been filled with regrets. Adam had confessed his feelings for her and she took it for granted, not caring about anything except for her desire not to be alone.
She knew Adam's history. He knew that Adam grew up without affection, having a cold father who lived and breathed business and a mother who was too busy to spend the family fortune to bother with her child.
Matt and Jane told her about how Adam became jaded. They told her how his outlook in life changed drastically because of the people who used him one way or the other – friends who hanged out with him because of his name and money, and so-called lovers who did the same.
In short, Adam had been fooled and used enough to learn not to trust anyone and anything. By sleeping with him, despite not feeling anything for him that night, Yesha was no better than those people who had used Adam for their own means.
Each time Adam held her, she would try bring up the courage to ask him if it was okay for her to stay with him even if she didn't know her feelings yet. She was feeling guilty for being unfair to him. But Adam seemed to evade her questions every time and she really didn't want this weird relationship to end, so, she never had the chance to ask him that.
"What to do?" Yesha asked no one in particular as she sighed once more.
Adam had already told her that he didn't care if she didn't love him as long as she stayed with him. Yesha's heart broke that night when he told her that but still decided to remain with him.
Having to spend so many times with the man, made her grow fond of him, however. She wasn't used to living alone anymore. She was restless if Adam wasn't there.
But did she love him?
Yesha frowned at herself on the mirror. "I don't know," she whispered as she sighed.
All she knew was that she couldn't live without him and she was scared because Adam did not trust anyone – not even her.
Would Adam think that she planned this pregnancy in order to stay with him?
She heard that there was once a case like that. Adam had a girlfriend and that girlfriend told him that she was pregnant. He had arranged for them to be married, but the woman had his child aborted when Adam asked her to sign a pre-nuptial agreement making him abhor women.
Would he think the same with her?
Yesha didn't know and she didn't want to know. She was scared.