Title: Waiting Game
Author: Lioness Black
Rating: PG13
Summary: They play the waiting game.
Warnings: Discusses abortion. Potentially racist remarks?
Disclaimer: Not mine, just good fun.
She sits on the closed toilet seat with her face in her hands. He thinks that she probably should have washed her hands, but he doesn't mention it. He sits on the edge of the tub. He doesn't touch her. That's what got them into this.
"I can't afford an abortion," she says. "If I can't afford that, how am I supposed to afford a baby? Didn't anyone think about that when they charged so much for abortions?"
"I guess not," he replies.
It was the one thing they had always agreed on, no questions asked - they didn't want kids. She didn't like being responsible for anyone but herself. He thought of children and he thought of sticky faces and hand prints on everything. He thought of little hands in his things, messing with his stuff, breaking his valuables. Tantrums, crying, whining, pitied expressions from the people around him. Frustrated people wanting him to shut the kid up already.
It was really too much to take.
She looks at the test, but doesn't pick it up. It's only been a minute. He has been watching the second hand go 'round his wristwatch.
"How did I get into this?" she asks.
He is a little put off by the "I" as opposed to the "we", though he supposes it's better than "how did you get me into this?".
"I've never has sex without a condom."
Neither has he. He knew better than to believe all those lies that teenagers told themselves to think that you could get around condom use and pregnancy.
You can't if it's her first time. If you do it in water. If she's on her period.
Better safe than sorry. He didn't want to be a teen father. He never wanted to be a father.
"Maybe you could go on the pill," he suggests. Make like it's definitely a no.
"I can't afford the fucking pill."
"I'll pay for half."
"You can't afford half," she mumbles.
That was true enough.
Two and a half minutes. Halfway there.
He wants to touch her. He wants to comfort her, but the only comfort she's going to find is in one line instead of two.
"I don't hate you," she says, as though he had been wondering that. He hadn't be until she said it.
"Good."
"I don't think this is your fault."
"We don't even know if there's something to fault."
"Come off it. You know how these things are. You know how they end. We're going to be the parents of some drooling, snotty, poopy baby, and we won't know what to fucking do. You think I know what it takes to be a parent?"
"There's... adoption. They're always looking for white, American babies."
"That's... yeah, I guess. But, ugh, pregnant. I hate that fucking word. I'm going to get fat, and then my skin will sag, I'll never get my figure back. I'll have hips the size of my grandmother. She had eight kids, you know."
"I doubt they turned out like that after the first one."
She pauses. "I guess."
Four minutes.
"I'll do whatever you want," he says. "I'll help you pay for it. I can get some money together, I can... I'll call my mom-"
"Who would love that you're paying for the abortion for your girlfriend that she hates-"
"She doesn't hate you!"
"She thinks I'm trash who stole her baby boy away from her. You know that's what she thinks. And I've seen how she fawns over your sister's kids, she'd have a heart attack if she knew she was funding an abortion!"
"I was planning to lie, but if you want to make this about you and her, then fine. I'll tell her and you can get it all out in the open!"
She sighs loudly in her frustration. "Maybe you should just wait outside."
"I want to be here. We feel the same way about this. If it's-"
"Fuck you."
"Too late!"
She stomps her foot against the floor, but she doesn't force him out. She sighs again. "Is it time?"
He looks at his watch. He counts the last few seconds in his head and nods. "Check it."
She picks it up and stares at it.
"Well?"
She looks up at him, eyes flashing. "Negative."