I stared down at the plain, cheap pregnancy test cradled in my hands. I stared imploringly at the inanimate object, silently pleading with it. Please don't be blue. The grim irony of it rushed around my head.
How many times had I sat on this toilet, praying for a blue? Lord knows it wasn't for lack of trying. Every time John came home, we were at it like crazy. John would make such a good father.
But the last time he came he'd brought his student. It had been two hours after he'd arrived and he'd gone again, whisked away on urgent business.
I was mad, angry my husband had left me yet again. I drank far too much and all I remembered of that night was piercing blue eyes, soft, smooth arms around me and the taste of cherries.
I woke up the next morning to find his legs tangled with mine and his arms around my waist, him lying in the bed I-John and I slept in, staring at the ceiling. He never said anything, he just left. But he wasn't drunk that night. I knew it. I was and he wasn't.
Was I a diversion or did he really feel something for me?
Did he leave because he was scared I'd scorn him or because if John had walked in he'd have been disappointed?
I guessed I'd never know.
But please god, don't let it be blue. If it wasn't, I'd never play away again.
I promised that to a god I didn't even believe in. And what good did it do me?
I looked down and was greeted by a blue as piercing as his eyes. I barely had time to lurch to my feet and lift the toilet seat before vomit exploded from my mouth and into the toilet.
What on Earth would I tell John?