Free Her Dad's Friend by Penny Wylder Page B

serious flatulence problem. Pop a Beano already, Jesus Christ. If it wouldn’t make me late, I’d get off at the next stop and walk the rest of the way. Unfortunately, I can’t afford to be late and so I endure it by pulling my shirt up over my nose. I really need to start saving up for a car.
    Emily meets me at the coffee shop. She usually spends my shifts sitting at the bar, keeping me company and getting discount caffeine. I feel hungover and yet I haven’t had a drop to drink in weeks. Normally I make small talk with my morning customers on their way out to work, but this morning I don’t seem to have the patience for anyone. I’m even getting annoyed with Emily as she talks non-stop after several cups of coffee, which I normally find kind of funny.
    “What’s wrong with you?” she asks. “Your face is pale green.”
    If she can tell, it must be bad. “I think I have a stomach bug. I should probably go home. The smell of coffee is making it worse.”
    Emily stands so suddenly it makes my head spin. She makes wide, dramatic circular motions with her hands. “Oh my god,” she says.
    “What?”
    “Oh my god.”
    “Just tell me already, you’re stressing me out. What’re you oh-my-godding about?”
    She hesitates a moment longer before saying, “You’re pregnant.”
    My hand freezes in mid-air as I’m handing a customer his extra-large peach tea. “What? No I’m not. I just had my period …” I quickly do the math in my head and suddenly my stomach drops. “… six weeks ago.”
    Shit.
    I’d meant to get to the pharmacy several times, but kept forgetting until after Paul and I had sex. I kept thinking I had plenty of time and told myself each day, I’d make it there eventually. But it seems I may have run out of time.
    I break out into a cold sweat.
    “Miss, my tea,” the man says.
    I shake my head, snapping out of my reverie. “Oh, sorry,” I say and hand it to him.
    “We’re going to the pharmacy,” Emily says.

    * * *
    I leave work early . I just can’t do the coffee smell any longer. Seeing the green hue of my skin, my boss happily lets me go home. But I don’t go home. Emily and I go straight to the pharmacy and pick up three reliable brands of pregnancy tests.
    If I’m actually pregnant, I have no idea how I’m going to tell Paul. I don’t know if I could take him flying off the handle, or blame me for not using birth control. Although he didn’t do anything about it either. What the hell was I thinking? —Oh, right, I wasn’t. Not about that anyway. I was too worried about eye-crossing orgasms. Remember when I said Emily was a better adult than I was? These are the sorts of things I was talking about.
    My thoughts are on a Tilt-a-Whirl, spinning through my head until I’m dizzy: If I’m pregnant what would that mean for me and Paul? What about graduating? I’m so close! No matter what, I’m finishing and getting my degree. And my parents. Jesus, they’re going to kill me.
    We stop at a gas station because I’m too impatient to wait long enough to get to my apartment to see the test results. We have to step through a puddle of beer-vomit and over a homeless man lying on the pavement singing drunkenly to get into the bathroom, but I don’t even care right now.
    Emily fixes her makeup in the murky mirror while I pee on each of the three sticks. I play Candy Crush on my phone while I wait for the results, panicking when a text pops up from Paul asking where I’m at. He must’ve stopped by the coffee shop and I wasn’t there.
    “What should I say?” I ask Emily.
    I should probably tell him what’s going on, but I don’t want to worry him unnecessarily if there’s no reason for it.
    The lights flicker and buzz. There’s a glory hole in the wall and an advertisement written in black Sharpie that says, “For a good time call …” and someone’s number next to it. Great place to find out if I’m pregnant or not.
    “Tell him we’re shopping,” Emily says.
    “I