Painful Lullaby

"When are you supposed to do these things?" I asked Zoe, holding up a pregnancy test.

She shrugged, "We could look it up."

And that's exactly what we did. Donny had dropped us off ten minutes ago and we were already bored. So we dropped the bag on her bedroom floor and went over to her desk where a computer sat.

"Since when did you get a computer to yourself?" I asked.

"Since yesterday, it was my birthday," Zoe replied, clicking on the Internet icon.

"Oh, shit! I forgot about that! I'm so sorry, I didn't get you anything!" I exclaimed, feeling like an incredibly shitty friend right now.

"It's cool, I didn't ask you for anything," she told me, smiling at me. She typed 'when to take a pregnancy test' in the search engine and clicked 'submit'. Tons of results came up, so she clicked on the first one. We both skimmed the paragraph, looking for something relevant.

"There!" Zoe said, jabbing her finger at a sentence.

"You can take a pregnancy test on the first day of your missed period," I read, then looked at Zoe. She handed me the bag and ushered me into the bathroom, leaving me alone to pee on the things.

"Save one in case of an emergency!" Zoe called, her voice muffled by the door.

Fifteen minutes later I had taken all the tests, Zoe told me to line them up on the floor and provided me with a Pepsi so that I could have 'inspiration' as she called it.

"Okay, you can come in," I said. She wrenched open the door and bounced into the room, sitting on the floor and motioned for me to follow her lead. We sat down and anxiously waited for the test results to show up.

"Y'know, we should go watch some TV or something instead of sitting here," Zoe said, getting up and going into the living room. She turned on the TV and watched the first thing she seen that appealed to her: South Park.

I started shaking when it ended, knowing what faced me behind the closed bathroom door.

"Did you save one?" Zoe asked me.

"Yeah, I saved the one that took the quickest for results," I replied.

"Okay. Take a deep breath. Let it out. Now take another one and hold it," she directed me and pulled the bathroom door open. I closed my eyes as she led me over to where I'd lined up the tests.

"Open your eyes, silly," she giggled, noticeably happier. I opened my eyes and smiled as soon as I seen the results. Each and every test either had a negative sign or actually said 'negative'. I squealed and hugged Zoe.

"What if it was too soon?" I worried, losing happiness already.

"Well we'll just find out then, won't we? Now quit worrying, let's play Rock Band," Zoe said, helping me put the used tests in the grocery bag and throwing them out.

Yet again we found ourselves in the living room, but this time Zoe was plugging in Rock Band.

"I call guitar. It's the only one and the drums are broken. So you have to sing," Zoe claimed as she hooked up the guitar and the microphone. I sighed and sat on the couch, grabbing the microphone. She did this every time we played Rock Band, but I guess I didn't mind.

After failing most of the songs we played because I couldn't hit the notes, we decided to do something else.

"Let's go outside," Zoe suggested, throwing down her guitar. She didn't give me time to answer before she pulled on her shoes. I yanked on mine and ran after her. She ran into the field that was behind her house.

"Hurry up, honestly!" Zoe called. I ran up next to her, still trying to tie my shoes. I ended up just shoving the laces into my Converse and followed her. We walked silently to Gerard's Hideout.

Gerard's Hideout is a tree house thing we found one day when we were walking in the woods. It was called Gerard's Hideout because Veronica spotted it first and named it after her obsession with Gerard Way. It was kind of scary at first, but after cleaning it out and putting some posters up and filling it with some stuffed animals it became our favorite place to be.

Zoe opened the door and fell onto the pillows that were all over the floor. I lay down next to her, falling asleep quickly.