You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone

I wonder who will bring flowers for Adina one day.

As I’m leaving the room, the tag outside the door informs me it’s 2240, not 2420, meaning whoever’s in 2420 is flowerless. I’m not about to steal the roses back, so I buy the nicest arrangement in the gift shop I can afford, scribble We’re all thinking of you. Get well soon on the card, and present it to the man in the right room.

I’m relieved when my shift ends. When I pull out my phone in the lobby, I have three missed calls from Lindsay, which is odd because I can’t remember the last time the two of us talked on the phone. I’m debating calling her back—I’m still annoyed with her for essentially ignoring me after the test results—when she calls again.

“Is everything okay?” I ask as I head into the hospital parking garage.

There’s a long, shuddering breath on the end of the line. “No.”

When she doesn’t elaborate, I say, heart rate picking up speed, “You’re going to have to give me more than that. Are you hurt? Is it something with Troy?”

“I’m at the Bartell’s on Forty-Fifth,” she says, “buying a pregnancy test. And I thought I could do it by myself, but I’m on the verge of a meltdown in the pregnancy test aisle, and did they have to put the pregnancy tests right next to the diapers?”

The words “pregnancy test” obliterate every other thought in my head. I unlock my car and jam the key in the ignition. “I can be there in ten minutes.”

Lindsay’s sitting on the aisle floor, hood pulled up over her head.

“Linds.” I sink down next to her and place what I hope is a comforting hand on her shoulder. Obviously I knew Lindsay and Troy were having sex, but we all put condoms on bananas in health class. We learned about the pill and the patch and what our teacher called “outercourse.” While I blushed through the entire sex-ed unit, I was glad no one simply told us “don’t do it.”

“Thanks for coming,” she says. She sniffs but doesn’t cry. “Can you pick one for me? I can’t decide. There’s too many.”

She’s right. Rows and rows of brightly colored boxes loom over us. “Probably not the kind that shows a smiley face if it’s positive?” It’s a horrible joke, but I’m not sure what else to say.

Fortunately, Lindsay’s not offended. “No, probably not,” she says, chewing back a smile. “Get two? To be sure?”

I grab the least pregnancy-is-a-beautiful-gift-looking ones and pull her to her feet and toward the front of the store. With her eyes cast downward, she hands a wad of bills to the red-smocked cashier. The impulse-buy section tempts me; I buy a few pieces of candy, because whatever the outcome of these tests, we’re going to need the mood-boosting phenylethylamine chocolate provides.

We decide without words that I will drive us both to Lindsay’s. I nibble a chocolate bar while we sit in traffic, though Lindsay just plays with the wrapper of the one I give her.

“Does Troy know about this?”

“No. I didn’t want to tell him until I knew for sure,” she says, and maybe it’s the phenylethylamine, but it feels good to have something that, for now, is only mine and Lindsay’s.

Lindsay flips on the lights in her dad’s single-story condo. Her parents divorced a few years ago, and she spends weekdays and every other weekend with her dad because her mom’s busy with school. She worked twenty years as an accountant before realizing it was draining the enjoyment from her life. After the divorce, she adopted two cats and a guinea pig and went back to school to become a veterinary technician.

Lindsay has always wanted to do it right the first time: go to the right school, get the right degree, marry the right person. It’s why she pushes herself with so many AP classes. However, she’s not as certain about what she wants as Adina or Zack or Troy or I am, only that she’ll figure it out once she gets to college. She likes most of her classes but doesn’t seem to deeply love any singular thing.

In the bathroom, Lindsay crosses her legs on the rug and I lean my back against the cabinet next to her.

“How did this happen?” I say as calmly as I can.

Lindsay sighs. “We started having sex without a condom. A couple months ago.”

“Without a condom?” I practically yell, and then get ahold of myself and lower my voice. “Sorry. But . . . without a condom?”

“We’re the only people we’ve ever been with. And I’m on birth control.” Twin pink spots appear on her cheeks. “We wanted to know what it would feel like. Without one.”

My face is burning too. “What did it feel like?”

She digs a hand into her thick black hair and pulls it across her face. Hiding. “I don’t know. Different. But then I missed my period. It’s two weeks late, I think. I’m not great at keeping track.” She yanks more of her hair across her face when I raise my eyebrows at her. “I know. I know. Believe me, I know. So I started googling things last night, and did you know pretty much any minor discomfo

rt can be a pregnancy symptom? Mood swings. Fatigue. I was like, shit, I’m always tired.” She laughs, and this gives me permission to join in.

I’m probably supposed to say something reassuring like, I’m sure you’re not pregnant! But instead I say, “Let’s do this,” and I open one box and she opens the other, and I glance away while she pees on both sticks.

“And now we wait,” she says, perching them on the sink edge.

Wait. Her words knife through my stomach. Lindsay will know right away if her life will change. I had to wait four years.