All Yours Somehow

The yelling coming from the opposite end of the bus was getting louder every minute. I had never heard either of them like this before and it was all my fault. Thankfully, besides them I was the only other one on the bus as all the other guys had gone into the venue whilst I had decided to stay here and have a nap.

“How could you not have told me?” I heard Jared say. “Do you not think I would have liked to have known before you started taking tests?”

“It’s not what you think Jare,” Tessa reasoned.

“Not what I think? That’s funny, because this definitely looks like a pregnancy test to me.”

“Yes it is, but it’s not what you think,” she told him. “Besides, what were you doing in my bag anyway?”

“I was looking for my phone, I can’t find it anywhere and thought maybe I’d given it to you while we were out last night,” he explained. “So are you going to tell me what this is about?”

I heard Tessa mumble something that I couldn’t quite make from where I was.

“Tess, we’ve been together a couple of years now, I would have thought you could have come to me with this first,” Jared said. “So are you?”

I stayed where I was and thought about what I could do. My first option was togo into the back lounge now and tell Jared the truth and save their relationship. The second was to stay here, pretend I hadn’t heard their argument and for no one to know about it being me other than Tessa. I still didn’t know what the test result was as I avoided being alone with Tessa for the rest of yesterday so she couldn’t force me to look at it.

I decided I had to go back there and tell Jared right now. It wasn’t fair to him and it definitely wasn’t fair to Tessa to put their relationship in jeopardy just to save my own.

“Tessa, tell me right now, are you or are you not pregnant?” Jared asked again.

“No she’s not,” I said walking in.

“What?” Jared looked stunned as I stood there.

“Hannah, you don’t have to do this,” she said.

“Yes I do,” I told her. “I’ll have to at some point anyway.”

“Do one of you want to tell me what’s going on?” Jared asked, still looking confused.

“It’s not Tessa that might be pregnant,” I explained. “It’s me. That’s my test.”

“Oh my god, Hannah. Tessa I’m so sorry,” he said.

“It’s OK, you weren’t to know,” she smiled.

The three of us sat down as I began explaining everything to Jared with him sat opposite and Tessa sat next to me.

“Look, John doesn’t know anything yet so I really need you to not say anything to him,” I told him. “And I don’t know if I am or not yet either.”

“Wait you did the test, how do you not know?”

“She won’t look,” Tessa answered.

“Hannah, you need to know even for your own sake.”

“That’s what I said,” Tessa commented.

“It’s hard though, if I am pregnant then what the fuck do I say to John?”

“He’ll be OK, but we’ll get to that when we need to, alright?”

I nodded and Tessa held out that box to me. “Do it now, we’re here for you no matter what it says.”

I sighed and held the box in my hands for a few moments just staring down at it. Finally I opened the box pulled out the stick. It had felt like a long time since I’d taken the test when in reality it hadn’t even been 24 hours. I looked to Tessa and then Jared who both gave me comforting smiles and then closed my eyes before finally looking at the test.

When I saw what it said, I felt my heart sink.

Tessa leant in and read the result and put her arm round me.

“Well, that’s alright, isn’t it?” she said.

“Yeah, I guess it’ll be fine,” I told her.

--------

“John what are you doing?” I asked walking onto the bus to find him sat with his head in his hands. He didn’t move when I spoke so I walked closer to him and sat down next to him. “John?”

“Anything you want to tell me?” he suddenly said, still not lifting his head.

I sighed and looked at him. “How did you find out?”

He suddenly lifted his head and I saw his face for the first time. His eyes were red, he looked pale and he couldn’t look directly at me.

“Does it matter?” he asked tiredly. “Although hiding it amongst the covers of the bunk we share probably wasn’t your best idea. Were you gonna tell me?”

“Yes, eventually,” I said, quietly.

“Who else knows?”

“Tessa and Jared.”

“Are you going to tell anyone else?”

“No.”

“How could this happen?” he said, standing up.

“I don’t know,” I said, looking to the ground.

“Well we need to sort this,” he said, pacing up and down the bus. “As soon as we’re home, we’ll go see a doctor and we’ll get this taken care of.”

“Taken care of?” I said, raising my voice. “Whats that supposed to mean?”

“Well you can’t possibly be thinking of having this thing?”

“This thing? What are you talking about?”

“Hannah we’re 20 years old, we are not ready to have a kid yet,” he raised his voice back at me.

“John-”

“Don’t try and change my mind, I cannot be a dad yet.”

“John-”

“How could we even let this happen? Fuck, this cannot be happening.”

“JOHN! Did you even look at the test or did you just presume?” I asked, standing up so I could face him properly.

“What do you mean ‘did I look at the test’? Hannah, it’s a pregnancy test! I’m not fucking stupid!”

“Well apparently you are!” I took the box from the sofa and pulled out this stick again. “Because if you’d looked at the actual test, you would have seen it says ‘not pregnant’.”

“What?”

“That’s right, not pregnant,” I told him as I reached down to grab my bag. “But nice to see how you’d react if I was.”

I turned around and went to walk off the bus.

“Hannah don’t go,” he said, calming down. “I’m sorry. Stay. Talk to me.”

“I have nothing to say to you right now, John,” I told him as I walked out this door.