Page 113 of Ink Me Three Times
I grab the second test with shaking hands, the plastic wrapper crinkling as I tear it open.
I don’t even need to look. I know what I’m going to see.
I piss on the stick and wait again, though I’m suffocating under the pressure of this thing that’s been growing in me without my permission.
The second test.
I pick it up, and the two pink lines are glaring back at me, like they’ve been there all along.
Two pink lines.Again.
I nearly laugh. It’s an ugly, breathless laugh, the kind that cracks with disbelief and disbelief alone. My whole body is trembling now, and I can’t stop it. I don’t even know how to process this. It’s happening too fast. It’s too much.
I can’t keep up.
My head spins. My thoughts are a tangled mess. I’m falling into some kind of void, a place I don’t know how to get out of. The walls feel too close. The air feels too thick.
I grab the third test, my fingers slick with sweat. There’s no choice now. I need to know.
The third test. The same. Two pink lines.
It’s real. It’s all real.
I stare at the three tests in front of me, the pink lines dancing in my vision, and I want to scream. I want to smash something, anything, just to break the crushing weight of this reality.
I think about my options.
Adoption. Abortion. Keep it.
There’s a moment where they all collide in my mind, flashing with neon signs in a dark room. But nothing stands out, nothing feels right.
Adoption could be an answer. It could be the right thing to do. But then the thought of carrying a child, living with it, feeling it grow inside me, and just… giving it up? The idea feels alien, a life I could never imagine.
Abortion. Maybe that’s the logical choice. But I don’t even know if I could go through with it. The weight of that decision, of what it might mean, crushes me in a way I can’t put into words. I think about the possibility, and the room seems to tilt again.
Or keeping it. Raising a baby on my own. Could I even do that? Could I even bring a child into this world when I can barely make sense of my own life? I barely know where I’m heading, and a kid… Akidwould change everything. I would change everything. But is that enough? Am I enough?
But would I have to do it alone?
I mean, this isn’t just about me, is it?
I also need to consider Freddie, Mitchell, and Timothy.
I’ve slept with all of them. One and once, and all together too. I’ve let myself be tangled up in each of their worlds, not knowing what the hell I was doing or where it would lead.
Freddie, who’s so full of charm and humor, but underneath it all, so fragile, carrying a whole history I haven’t even scratchedthe surface of. He’s Penny’s dad, and that changes everything. But does it change this? This baby, this future? Do I want to add the stress of another baby to his already muddled life? Even if he’d be there for me, what will he think about having another child?
Mitchell, who's always been steady and in control, but seemingly a commitmentphobe. I don’t think he’ll like this at all.
And Timothy… I know he likes me. I know he wants me. Butthis?
Urgh, I don’t know.
I picture it in my head: keeping it, or maybe... not. But either way, I’m alone. The weight of it presses down on my chest until I can barely breathe.
Pickle’s soft whines through the door break through the fog in my mind. I don’t even have the energy to get up, to let him in. I just sit there, still as stone, the tests clutched in my hands.
The little guy pawing at the door is a tiny echo of everything I’m too terrified to say out loud.
