The bathroom light was still on. It hummed faintly behind the closed door, a thin strip of yellow spilling across the hallway carpet. Four plastic tests lay on the sink counter, lined up like tiny white verdicts. All of them said the same thing. Positive.
Lena stared at them until the word blurred. Her hands were trembling—not with fear, not exactly. It felt more like standing on the edge of something enormous and bright. Something terrifying and miraculous all at once. She pressed a palm to her stomach.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, and then she laughed—a small, disbelieving sound. “Oh my God.”
In the living room, Marcus was stretched across their secondhand couch, laptop balanced on his knees, a spreadsheet open. He was muttering under his breath about rent and hours and how his manager had cut his shifts again.
“Babe?” he called. “You okay in there?”
The bathroom door clicked open. Lena stepped out slowly, the tests clenched in her hand. Her face looked pale, but her eyes were shining in a way he hadn’t seen before.
Marcus sat up immediately. “Hey, what happened?”
She didn’t answer right away. She walked toward him like someone walking through water. Then she held out her hand.
“Well?” he asked, already bracing.
She held a pregnancy test out like evidence in a trial. “I’m pregnant.”
The word cracked through the room. He stared at the stick, then at her.
“Are you sure?”
Her laugh was sharp. “No, Marcus, I just collect positive pregnancy tests for fun.”
He winced. “That’s not what I—”
“I took four.”
Silence. For a split second, something like awe crossed his expression. Then it shifted. Tightened. His brain started calculating before he could stop it. Rent. Bills. His cut shifts. Her car that barely started in the mornings.
“Pregnant,” he repeated.
She nodded, a breathless smile breaking through. “We’re going to have a baby.”
Silence. Marcus swallowed. He set the laptop aside slowly, as if any sudden movement might shatter something fragile.
“Okay,” he said carefully. The smile on her face faltered.
“Okay?” she echoed.
He ran a hand through his hair. “I mean… okay. Wow. That’s… wow.”
She waited for him to stand. To pull her into a hug. To laugh. To say this is crazy and beautiful and we’ll figure it out. He didn’t. Instead, he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, staring at the carpet.
“How far along do you think you are?”
“I don’t know. Maybe five weeks? Six?” She hugged herself. “I missed my period and I just—I knew.”
He nodded slowly. Too slowly.
“Marcus,” she said, her voice thinning, “say something.”
“I’m trying.”
His mind was already racing ahead: rent due next week, the electric bill they were late on, the cracked windshield they still hadn’t fixed. His community college tuition. Her part-time job at the café that barely covered groceries.
“You look like someone just told you you’re going to prison.”
“Because this is serious, Lena!”
“It’s also exciting,” she shot back. “Or did that not cross your mind?”
He stood up abruptly. “Of course it crossed my mind! But do you want me to throw confetti? We can barely afford groceries!”
“We’ll make it work.”
“How?” His voice rose. “With what money? With what space? We’re in a one-bedroom apartment with mold in the bathroom!”
“So we move!”
“With what savings?!” he barked.
She flinched but didn’t back down. “People figure it out all the time.”
“Yeah, and they’re drowning half the time.”
“At least they try.”
He froze. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re already looking for an exit.”
“No I am not.”
“You haven’t said one single positive thing since I walked out of that bathroom.”
“Because I’m not an idiot, Lena!” he snapped. “This isn’t some Instagram announcement. This is eighteen years. Minimum.”
Her face hardened. “You think I don’t know that?”
“I think you’re romanticizing this.”
“Oh my God.” She threw the test onto the coffee table. “You think I’m stupid.”
“I think you’re emotional.”
Her jaw dropped. “Wow.”
“Don’t twist my words.”
“You just said I’m emotional.”
“You are!” he shot back. “You’re running on adrenaline and hormones and—”
“Say it.” She stepped toward him. “Say what you’re actually thinking.”
He hesitated.
“That we’re not ready,” he said finally.
“And?”
“And that maybe we should think about whether this is the right time.”
Her voice dropped to ice. “Whether what is the right time?”
He looked away.
“Say it, Marcus.”
He swallowed. “Whether we should… go through with it.”
The air left her lungs like he’d punched her.
“Go through with it,” she repeated. “You mean have your child?”
“I mean make a decision that doesn’t wreck our lives.”
Her eyes blazed. “So that’s what this is? A wreck?”
“You don’t even need to think about it?” she asked, voice trembling with disbelief.
“I am thinking about it!” he barked. “That’s the problem!”
“You mean you’re thinking about how screwed you are.”
“I’m thinking about how screwed we are.”
“No,” she shot back. “You’re thinking about yourself.”
He spun toward her. “Oh, that’s rich.”
“Is it?”
“Yes, it is! Because you’re acting like this is some miracle dropped from the sky instead of a disaster.”
“A disaster?” Her voice broke. “That’s what you think our child is?”
“I think it’s terrible timing!”
“You don’t get perfect timing!” she screamed. “Life doesn’t send you a calendar invite!”
He dragged his hands down his face. “We are twenty-two. We are broke. We fight about gas money. And now you want to bring a baby into that?”
She stepped closer, trembling. “I don’t want to bring a baby into it. The baby is already here.”
“It’s barely the size of a seed!”
“It’s still ours!”
He shook his head, backing away like she was something dangerous. “We have options.”
There it was again. Options. Her expression hardened into something almost unrecognizable.
“You mean an abortion.”
He didn’t answer.
“That’s what you mean.”
“I mean we don’t have to ruin our lives because of one mistake!”
The second the word left his mouth, he knew. Mistake. Lena stared at him like he had just slapped her across the face.
“Say that again,” she whispered.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Say it again.”
He didn’t.
“You think this baby is a mistake?” she asked, voice shaking with fury. “You think I am stupid enough to call it that?”
“I meant the situation!”
“No. You meant the baby.”
He looked away.
Her chest rose and fell rapidly. “My mom was nineteen. Nineteen. Everyone told her I was a mistake too.”
“I’m not everyone!”
“You sound exactly like them!”
He snapped. “Your mom struggled her entire life, Lena! You told me she cried in the kitchen because she couldn’t afford groceries!”
“And she still chose me!”
“And she never finished school!” he shot back. “She never got out of that crappy apartment!”
“At least she didn’t kill her kid to make it easier!”
The word hung there. Kill.
Marcus recoiled. “That’s not what I’m saying, Lena! Quit putting words in my mouth!”
“That’s what it feels like.”
“You don’t get to twist it into murder because I’m scared!”
“You don’t get to dress it up as logic because you’re selfish!”
He stepped forward, eyes blazing. “Selfish? You think I’m selfish for not wanting to drag a kid through poverty?”
“I think you’re selfish because you’re scared you’ll end up stuck.”
His jaw tightened. “You don’t know what it’s like.”
“No?” she fired back. “To have a dad who bailed? To grow up watching your mom do everything alone? No, I definitely don’t know anything about that.”
He pointed at her, shaking. “Do not compare this to him.”
“How is it different?”
“I am still here!”
“For now!”
That statement landed with the subtlety of an atomic bomb.
“For now?” he repeated. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?!”
“You know what it means,” she said, tears streaming but voice vicious. “The second this got real, you were looking for a way out.”
“I’m trying to prevent a disaster!”
“You’re trying to erase responsibility!”
“I didn’t ask for this!”
He realized too late that he should’ve kept that to himself. The words were already out there, doing more damage than he could have imagined. Her face went white-hot.
“You didn’t ask for this?” she repeated slowly. “The fuck you mean you didn’t ask for this?!”
“You think I did this alone?” she demanded. “You think I got pregnant by myself?”
“That’s not what I—”
“You were there, Marcus. Every single time.”
He slammed his hand against the wall. “I know that!”
“Then stop acting like I trapped you!”
“I didn’t say that!”
“You don’t have to!” she screamed. “It’s all over your face!”
He stared at her, something ugly rising in him. “If you keep this baby—”
She froze.
“If I keep it?”
He swallowed, but he didn’t back down.
“If you keep this baby without thinking this through… don’t expect me to just pretend that I wasn’t against it.”
The room went silent.
“Are you threatening me, Marcus?” she asked quietly.
“I’m telling you I don’t know if I can do this. If we should do this.”
“There it is,” she said, voice hollow. “You’re leaving.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You just did.”
He ran his hands through his locs, pacing like a trapped animal. “I am not my father.”
“Then prove it. Because from where I’m standing, you sure as hell look like him.”
“I’m trying!”
“No,” she said, tears cutting down her face. “You’re doing exactly what he did. Panicking. Looking for escape routes. Making it about how unfair it is to you.”
“Because it is unfair!” he exploded. “Everything was finally starting to feel stable!”
Her eyes went cold.
“So that’s it,” she said. “I’m chaos.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“But it is.”
He felt something in his chest crack. “I am terrified I’m going to become him,” he admitted, voice raw. “That I’ll wake up one day and resent you. Or the kid. That I’ll look at our life and feel trapped.”
“And you think I’m not terrified?” she shot back. “You think I don’t know what it costs to do this, especially if I have to do it alone?”
The words echoed. Alone. They both heard it. He looked at her stomach. Then at her face.
“You’re really going to do this,” he said quietly.
“Yes.”
“Even if I’m not ready?”
“Yes.”
There was a long, awful pause.
“And if I can’t?” he asked.
Her voice broke, but she didn’t look away.
“Then you’ll just be another ain’t shit ass nigga who left.”
That did it. He grabbed his jacket off the chair.
“Where are you going?” she demanded.
“I need air.”
“Of course you do.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what? Call it what it is?”
He stopped at the door, hand on the knob.
“I’m not him,” he said again, but it sounded weaker now.
She stood in the middle of the living room, one hand protectively over her stomach, the other shaking at her side.
“Then stop proving me right.”
He hesitated. For half a second, it looked like he might come back. Like he might choose to not follow his father’s footsteps and stay. Instead, he opened the door and stepped out into the night, letting it slam behind him.
The apartment felt enormous without him in it. Lena stood there, alone, breathing hard, the echo of the door still ringing in her ears. In the bathroom, the light still hummed. On the sink, three other tests lay in a neat row. Positive. Damning.And suddenly, so was the silence.
In My Own Words... 