-MIA-
"It's going to be all right, honey," my mom said, squeezing my clammy hands.
We were sitting in the cramped waiting room of the free clinic near Myrtle and Edgard’s basement. My eyes were glued to a poster about mental health taped to the beige wall. I’ve been pretending to read it for the past fifteen minutes.
My stomach’s been lodged in my throat ever since I spotted that old box of tampons two days ago. I slammed the medicine cabinet shut and ran to the nearest drugstore for a home pregnancy test.
It came out positive. All five of them.
First came the panic. Then the sprint to the clinic for an hCG test. They say false positives are rare, but I clung to the sliver of doubt. Schrödinger’s box. Until I opened it, the cat might still be alive.
Then I called my mom. Told her eve
