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The bathroom fan hums above you, too loud in the small tiled room. Loud enough to fill the space between your uneven breaths and the three plastic tests lined up across the edge of the sink, each one showing the same thing.
Positive. Positive. Positive.
You keep staring at them, as if one of them will change just out of pity if you look at it long enough. Maybe it’s just faulty. Maybe they’re all faulty. You don’t have any more, but you could always go buy another one. What difference would it make, though? After all, you’ve been stuck hiding in the bathroom for nearly twenty minutes, and you don’t think you can even move.
Your hands shake where they rest in your lap. You try to count your breaths, because Levi’s always told you to do that when you start to panic, but every inhale catches, trapped behind the fear and the heaviness of every question you can’t answer.
What do I do? What am I supposed to want? What if he wants something different? What if this changes the way he looks at me?
Your stomach twists. You think you might be sick, though you can’t tell if it’s from the fear or the reality waiting on the sink beside your toothbrush and hand soap.
You’re pregnant.
A soft knock sounds against the bathroom door.
“You’ve been in there a while.”
Levi’s voice comes calmly, and normally it would comfort you, but tonight it only makes the panic rise inside you and through your throat. There’s no more time to keep this to yourself.
“I’m fine,” you try to say, but your voice cracks badly.
Silence follows. Then Levi’s voice comes again, lower this time. “Open the door.”
You look at the lock, then at the tests, then down at your trembling hands, and some part of you just wants to shove everything into the trash and wash your face and pretend the last half hour never happened.
But then Levi speaks.
“Baby.”
He knows you too well for you to lie. He always knows when something is wrong. And you wouldn’t feel good lying to him. Not when it’s this important.
You reach up and unlock the door. The second it opens, Levi’s eyes land on your face first, not the sink or the floor or the mess of open small boxes and crumpled instruction papers near your feet, and somehow that makes you want to cry harder because he notices your panic before even noticing the reason behind it.
Then his eyes shift. He sees the tests. Then he sees the two lines. He goes completely still for one second. Your chest tightens in the silence.
“Please don’t look at me like that,” you whisper, though you don’t even know what that means, since he doesn’t look angry or disappointed or horrified, just stunned. His gaze returns to you, but you start talking before he can. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel, and I don’t know if I’m scared because I don’t want this or because I don’t know what wanting this would even mean, and I’m sorry, I don’t even know why I’m apologizing, but I just—”
“Breathe first,” he says. He steps into the bathroom, closes the door behind him, and crouches in front of you so he’s not standing over you. He doesn’t touch you, only because he doesn’t know whether you can handle being touched right now. “Look at me.”
You do. His face is serious, slightly pale, but his eyes are steady enough that you feel like you have something solid to lean against. You wish you could physically lean against him, but you’re not sure if you’re ready to touch him right now.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” you say.
“You don’t have to know that right now,” he says.
“What if you hate me?”
His expression changes instantly, eyebrows drawing together like the question offends him. “Don’t say stupid things.”
“Levi—”
“I mean it,” he says, softening his voice even if the words remain blunt. “Don’t apologize to me for being scared.”
You press both hands over your face, trying to hold yourself together and failing badly, because both futures ahead of you feel impossibly terrifying. You feel like whatever higher power has done this to you is demanding you step into one path before you even know how to stand.
“I don’t want you to expect anything from me,” you whisper through your fingers. “I—I don’t want you to look at me and already know what you want, because I don’t know what I want, and I can’t—I can’t make this choice because someone else needs me to.”
Levi is quiet for a moment, then he reaches for you, his touch careful as he wraps his fingers gently around your wrists before he lowers your hands from your face. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Your throat tightens. “You don’t even know what I’m going to choose.”
“Doesn’t matter.” You stare at him. He brushes his thumb over the tear dripping down your cheek. “If you want to keep it, I’m here. If you don’t, I’m here. If you don’t know yet, I’m still here.”
Your face crumples. Levi shifts closer, and when you lean forward, he catches you immediately, arms wrapping around you as you fall into him. You cry against his shoulder until it hurts to breathe, until the front of his shirt is damp, until the panic finally begins to loosen its claws. He doesn’t rush you or ask for answers or touch your stomach or speak about a future he could’ve easily already decided. He just holds you.
Eventually, he reaches over and turns the tests facedown on the sink, moving them out of your line of sight. “Come on,” he murmurs. “You’re freezing.”
Your legs feel weak when he helps you stand, so he keeps one arm around your waist as he guides you into the bedroom. He gets you water, he gives you one of his clean shirts, and he pulls the blanket around your shoulders when you sit on the edge of the bed and stare blankly at the floor.
“What if I can’t decide?” you ask quietly.
Levi sits beside you, his thigh pressing against yours. “Then we don’t decide tonight.”
You exhale lightly and lean into him, and he lets you, one hand resting over yours on top of the blanket. Anywhere else feels too loaded.
“I’m scared,” you admit.
“I know, baby.”
“Are you?”
He pauses, then answers, “Yeah.” Your eyes sting. “But not of you.” He presses his mouth lightly against your temple. “Not of whatever you choose.”
You close your eyes as his hand grips yours harder. The future is uncertain, and it still waits for you with open arms. Whether they are welcoming or meant to harm, you don’t know yet. It’s impossible to understand right now.
Nothing is fixed by the time you fall asleep against Levi, and nothing is simplified, but Levi stays beside you through it all. Loving you has never depended on knowing what happens next. He brushes his thumb over your knuckles and sighs, staring down at your sleeping form. He places one last kiss to your forehead before laying you down and covering you. With a brush of his fingers to your hair, he whispers one final thing.
“One day at a time, sweetheart.”