Chapter 4:
It was purely a matter of the process of elimination, Velma tried to reassure herself. That was all. "Eliminate the impossible... and what is left can only be the truth." She just had to be sure...
Even so, the whole drive home seemed unendurably long, and that couldn't possibly be only because of the icy roads, or the Christmas Eve traffic, or the detour she had to take after the bridge was closed...
When she got back to the apartments, Shaggy and Scooby were waiting as faithfully as only one's boyfriend and one's dog (or one's boyfriend's dog) could be. They started carrying in the myriad groceries practically the yoctosecond Velma parked the car. Either they were highly eager to help their friend, or they were highly eager to get their hands on the food.
All Velma could think in response to either situation was that she was highly grateful she had slipped the bag from the drugstore into her maroon totebag, and placed some random papers and other junk that had sunk to the bottom of the tote on the top. There was no way they would find it.
"Like, is that everything, Scooby?" Shaggy asked, his arms full.
"Reah... rooks rike it..."
No... it's not, thought Velma, almost dishonestly.
"Groovy." He climbed up the stairs, with Scooby at his heels. Either from chivalry or their magnetic attraction to anything edible, they had left nothing for Velma to carry in. She would have run ahead and gotten the door, but somehow Shaggy kicked it open before she got there. Ah well...
She followed them inside and checked for any belongings she may have left in the bathroom or bedroom. She then walked back into the kitchen, where Shaggy had gotten back to work.
"Well, Shaggy, I should probably be getting home now..." she told him, feeling guilty. He liked company while he was working in the kitchen. Hey, at least he had Scooby...
"Oh, well... goodbye, then," he told her. He would have given her a hug if his hands weren't covered in raw chicken juice. Instead, he held his hands behind his back, leaned forward, and kissed her forehead.
"Bye, Shaggy." She kissed him back.
She left the apartment. She was as painfully aware as Shaggy was blissfully ignorant that this could be the last time both were... painfully ignorant... of what was to come.
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She was in the security of her own apartment. It was okay. This was going to be simple. Think of it as just another routine lab assignment... all it was, really, was the simplest of tests...
She breathed and reached into the maroon totebag. She dug to the bottom for the bag from the drugstore.
First she pulled out all the basic, OTC flu remedies-- she had optimistically decided those were what she would really be needing, and it would be foolish to not get any if she was stopping by the drugstore anyhow. She placed them in the medicine cabinet, organizing them as neatly as possible, desiring to stall despite her rush to get here in the first place. Unfortunately, one could only spend so long alphabetizing Theraflu.
The test, she told herself. Right...
She pulled open the packaging.
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It was the first Velma could ever remember wanting to fail a test.
It was time to check it; she could know, she could know now.
But she didn't want to.
No, she should just get it over with...
Fine. She would check it already. Really, the whole thing was unlikely anyway. She was only humoring her fearful side, the way one checks the closet for monsters one doesn't believe in, just to prove they don't exist.
She read it.
Really, how could a two-syllable word take so long to decipher? Especially seeing as she was Velma, for crying out loud. Velma, who had read every single book in the Coolsville Public Library. Velma, who had finished Beowulf in a record four hours flat back when she was a high school freshman. Velma, who could comb an entire book for clues while the others were chained to the first sentence.
Velma, the speed reader.
Yet here it was-- a single word that felt like it took decades to read. The instant her mind finally processed it, though, she wished she hadn't read it at all. This was the very last thought to register with her before her blood froze solid in her vains.
Pregnant.