The Test

She held the coffee cup close to her mouth. Under normal circumstances, the heat would have been unbearable, but at that moment, she hardly noticed it. She paced back and forth in the kitchen watching the timer tick down. Two minutes left. She took a quick sip of her coffee that made her  flinch as it singed her  top lip. 

“I promised myself I would wait the full three minutes this time”. 

She looked over again. Only 15 seconds had dribbled by. How could that be? The knot in her stomach began pulling  tighter and tighter with every passing second.

Her cell phone rang, distracting her momentarily . She glanced down at the screen and saw on the caller ID that it was her life-long friend. She didn’t pick it up. She waited until the voice mail light came on and  listened. She sat there and soaked in her confidante’s voice. Her strength. She continued to pace the floor, fighting the urge to look over at the numbers. It was a short battle. She gave in and saw there was 30 seconds to go. She gripped the ceramic handle so hard she thought it would crumble. The timer relinquished it’s control and beeped. Finally.

The knot was now strangling her stomach so intensely that she could barely breath. She walked toward the closed door, the barrier between her and the need to know. She turned the knob, forcefully pushed open the door, took a deep breath and walked in with purpose. She looked down at the pregnancy test  as she set her coffee cup down on the counter. That wretched blue line eluded her again. The knot transformed into a stabbing pain she knew all too well. The familiar feeling of disappointment came spewing out of her. She snatched the test off the counter and pitched it in the trash can beside her crying, 

"THIS IS NOT FAIR!"