Destiny

Destiny was very worried. She had not been this worried for many years, but the reason for her concern was a very good one indeed. She felt like she was going to collapse with all of the stress that she was feeling in this moment, she needed a break from it all. She felt like running away.

She had missed her period. This had never happened to her, and she was worried that she might be pregnant. She had bought a home pregnancy test but she was afraid to use it. She did not need it to tell her that she was pregnant, she somehow already knew. She knew because she never missed her period, this was just not something that happened with her. She was pregnant, there was no doubt about it, and everything was going to change now.

Still, she had to be certain before she assumed anything. She was going to have to figure out, one way or another, how to tackle this situation, but first she needed to know, without any shadow of a doubt, whether she was pregnant or not.

She looked at the test that she had just peed on. It would take a few minutes before the test came back positive or negative, and this wait felt like it was the single biggest wait of her life. It seemed even more potent than the time she had waited for her mother to come out of surgery, the wait that had ended in heart break because her mother had never come out of that surgery, she had died on the operating table. Destiny did not know what she was going to do if she was pregnant.

The first thing that she thought about was her father. He had raised her to be a smart girl. He had been very religious and Destiny had adopted a lot of his religious beliefs. He was not a crazy bible basher but he was a man of strong moral fiber, and he expected everyone around him to be this way as well. Now that Destiny was in a situation like this, she realized that her father was going to be very disappointed in her indeed. He had raised her to be smart above all other things. He had never discouraged her from meeting boys or from having s*x, but he had always told her to be careful and safe at all times. He had always told her that pregnancy was a real thing that could happen to her if she was not careful, and she really needed to focus on keeping herself safe from that. He also told her that she would have to be very careful with protection because of the fact that she could end up getting a sexually transmitted disease.

Destiny had done none of that. She had not been careful at all, she had been stupid in fact. If she was pregnant she would have to tell her father, because she knew that he would be even sadder if she did not tell him. She hoped to God that she was not pregnant, because if she was that would mean that she would have to have a very difficult conversation with her father, one that would disappoint him a great deal. She did not want to have to have a conversation like this with her father. She wanted him to be happy with her, wanted him to feel like he could trust her with herself. In this moment, she felt like she was unworthy of his love.

There were a lot of other problems to consider as well. If she was pregnant, she was not going to be able to fly. She might be able to fly for a couple of months but as soon as she started showing she was going to be grounded immediately because the airline would not want to be responsible for any harm caused to her or her baby. She would have to sacrifice a great deal of money and live off of her savings, which was something that she really did not want to do. She would find it impossible to survive if she couldn’t fly and earn money.

She looked at the test. There was still nothing there, still no indication of whether her life was about to change or not. She did not know what she was going to do with herself.

There was another major problem that she had not thought of, and that was Jourdan. He was the father of this child without a doubt, since she had not had s*x with anyone else for months. She did not know how he was going to react to this. She would have to go to France, of course, and talk to him about it. However, she had to admit that she was really embarrassed by the whole thing. She knew that Jourdan was going to reject her. She knew that he was not going to be happy about this, on the contrary he was going to think of it as a huge problem. After all, he did not want a relationship, he had said so himself. He did not want kids, of course, he did not seem like the kind of guy that would want such things. Instead, he would probably just tell her that he would pay for the child’s expenses and that he would give her everything that she needed.

She was afraid because she did not want him to think that she was after his money. This was not the case at all. She really did not care about his money at all. She would be going there to tell him that she was pregnant, and that the child was his.

She thought of calling him to tell him about it but she knew that this was the sort of thing that you told someone in person. She had to be a bit more tactful about it. She did not know if she would be able to deal with anything if he thought that she was just trying to get money out of him.

She looked at the test again and her heart seemed to freeze. There it was. That plus sign that showed her that she was pregnant, that dreaded symbol of freedom being lost. This was it. There was no going back. She felt like crying, but at the same time no tears seemed to be able to come out of her eyes. All she could see, all she could feel, was the fact that she was pregnant.

She left the bathroom and stumbled onto her bed. Chantal was there next to her. She had no idea what Destiny was going through because Destiny had not known how to tell her friend about it.

“I…” said Destiny.

“What is wrong?” asked Chantal. “Are you okay?”

“I am pregnant,” she said. “I am pregnant, Chantal.”

“Oh fu*k!” said Chantal, “are you sure?”

“I just took the test,” said Destiny. “It showed that I was pregnant.”

“Okay listen,” said Chantal, “we can deal with this. Do you know who the father is?”

“It is Jourdan,” said Destiny. “I am sure of it.”

“Okay,” said Chantal. “That is good. It means you know who you need to talk to. If you… if you want to go and get an abortion I can go with you, I would not mind at all.”

Destiny turned around and stared at the ceiling. “I… I do not think so,” she said. “I do not think I would like to get an abortion. I mean, I have no problem with women who do get abortions of course, but I just do not think that that would be something that I would be into.”

“Okay,” said Chantal, “there is nothing wrong with that. Does that mean you are going to keep the child?”

“Yeah,” said Destiny. She started to laugh. “I guess I am going to keep the child. I am going to be a mother.”

“Well,” said Chantal. “Congratulations I guess.”

They both started to laugh until they were in stitches. They were laughing at the ridiculousness of this situation. How could Destiny be pregnant? All of this was so utterly silly, she did not know how she would even begin to process this.

“I actually do not mind the thought of motherhood,” said Destiny, “I just wish that it had happened under different circumstances.”