Bulletproof Love

“Emily, open the door.” Vic demanded, pounding against the wood with his fist.

“No, fuck off Vic.” She wasn’t really mad at him, or she hadn’t been earlier; not before he had given her a reason to be mad at him.

“Come on Em, I’ll pick up my underwear, promise.” If she wasn’t mad at him, she would have laughed.

“That’s not why I’m mad you jerk.” He thought she was mad at him because he kept leaving his dirty underwear on the bathroom floor, and although it was gross and gnawed on her nerves a little, she wasn’t mad. No, she hadn’t gotten mad until he had called her a pig for leaving her ‘girly things’ (perfume, hair product, makeup, ect.) all over the bathroom counter. Normally something like that wouldn’t really bother her, but a lot of things had been bothering her lately, and she had a pretty good idea why.

The answer was sitting in front of her on the counter in the downstairs bathroom in the form of a little rectangular box. She had snuck it into the downstairs bathroom after picking it up at the drugstore because Vic was a lot less likely to find it there than any of the upstairs bathrooms, and she really didn’t want him to find out about this. It wasn’t the first pregnancy scare they had had over the years, and she really wondered how they didn’t learn with each one, because it wasn’t like they didn’t want a baby, but it was never the right time. Their lives were hectic and unstable, they were always breaking up, or Vic wasn’t home, recording an album or touring. It just wasn’t the right environment to raise a baby in, even if they did start to get their hopes up with every false positive.

After she had done what she needed to do, she put the little pink cap on the white stick and laid it out flat on the counter before washing her hands. She hadn’t heard another word from Vic, which made her think he was up to something, but she had other things to worry about that the moment, so she cast the thought to the back of her mind and sat on the closed toilet lid to wait. The instructions on the back of the box said to wait five minutes for the results, so she pulled her phone out of her pocket and set a timer.

All Emily’s friends had always told her it felt like an eternity waiting for the results, but she had always found that time went a little too fast. She didn’t want to know what the results were, so maybe she could go on living her life normally pretending like it never happened, so it was probably life’s little way of saying ‘fuck you’.

The vibrating of her phone in the palm of her hand startled Emily out of her thoughts, drawing her out of her mind and back into the real world. She took a deep breath before getting to her feet and walking the small distance to the counter, holding it in while she picked up the stick.

Frowny face.

She let out the breath she had taken, relived. She loved kids, and she wanted one of her own one day, but she had been completely put off the idea of pregnancy after the last pregnancy scare she had, a little over a year and a half ago, had turned out to be more than a scare. She had just stopped going to counseling a few months ago and she wasn’t ready to go back.

The jiggling of the door handle startled her, causing her to drop the stick on the ground. She quickly picked it up and shoved it in the box, before practically throwing it into the small trashcan beside the toilet. She hadn’t been feeling too great lately, one reason she thought she might be pregnant, and all the sudden movements caused her stomach to churn. She rushed back over to the toilet, barely managing to get there and lift the lid before bile and whatever else had been in her stomach came rushing up her esophagus and out of her mouth. The bathroom door opened and Vic came rushing in, going straight to Emily and holding her hair back.

“You okay?” He asked, sounding concerned.

“’M fine” she grumbled. Of course she wasn’t fine, but in light of recent discoveries, she was pretty good.

“I thought you got rid of this stomach bug last week.” His hand started rubbing soothing circles on her back and she closed her eyes, waiting for the sickness to pass.

“So did I, must have come back.” It wasn’t really a lie, sure, it hadn’t gone away, but now she knew it was definitely a stomach bug. Emily was still nauseas, but she quickly stood up and pushed Vic back towards the door anyway, she had gotten lucky, he had been too focused on her earlier to notice the box laying on top of tissues and other bathroom trash, but she wasn’t going to keep counting her chickens.

“Do you want to cancel the barbecue?” Now that all the guys were back home and settled in, Emily and a few mutual friends had gotten together and planned a welcome home barbecue; just something small scale and fun so the boys could see people they hadn’t seen in a while, and Emily had volunteered to host it at their house.

“No.”

“Are you sure, you don’t look so-”

“I swear to god Vic, if you cancel that barbecue, I will kick you in the balls.” She interrupted, smiling to show him she was fine, and she was, besides the nausea.

“Alright, go brush your teeth then, I don’t wanna be the guy with the smelly girlfriend.” She gasped in mock shock, because that was totally something he would say and she was expecting it at some point. She brought her foot up as he was walking away and hit him smack dab in the middle of his left ass cheek. He jumped and turned his head around so she could see wounded puppy look he had going. “That one hurt!” He rubbed his wounded ass cheek for effect.

“Good!” She ran by him, smacking the other side on her way over to the stairs. Vic chased after her, catching her from behind in their bedroom and spinning her in circles. “Oh my god, you’re going to make me punk again.” The spinning wasn’t having much of an effect on her stomach, but when he put her down her head was spinning in circles, and she felt like she had just gotten off the teacup ride at Disneyland.

“Are you sure-”

“Balls, Vic, balls.” That got him to shut up.