"Just take it- what's the big deal?"
"I just can't, Jason... it's.. I don't know... " she put a hand to her forehead. This just wasn't the time.
"Look- we have to know one way or the other. I'm not going to *watch* you take it, if that's what you're worried about," he pressed.
"I just.."
"Yeah. Whatever," Jason's voice had a biting, petulant edge to it that cut Ren to the core. The only thing worse was the slamming door as Jason left, then the other slamming door of his own apartment.
A week ago, in a heated, intimate moment, they'd had what Ren had thought was a one-night stand. Jason had been the moody, reclusive neighbor, and she'd steered as clear of him as she could manage, because, frankly, she was scared shitless of him. David had been half his size, and any time he whistled or demanded "come here, pet", she'd had to tremblingly obey, kneel silently, not fight in her restraints as David had done whatever the hell he wanted to her body.
Clear, free, away from Jason she'd tried to stay, but the quiet, haunted man piqued not only her curiosity, but the more he unwillingly spoke to her, she had coaxed from him a haunting, horrible past similar in part to hers. No, he hadn't been molested and left home as soon as able to... but he'd lost loved ones to fire, he was mis-understood, and sometimes, he tried to drown his problems with the same whiskey she enjoyed, when he wasn't throwing himself into buring buildings as a volunteer firefighter.
They'd stayed "apart" until the night the fire consumed her bookstore. He'd dashed in and nearly killed himself looking for her, trying to ensure her safety, only to find that she'd thankfully been around the corner at the coffee shop when the blaze started.
... With another man. With her ex.
Why had that bothered Jason so? He didn't have any claims on her. She was nothing more than a neighbor, wasn't she? But then... there was a lot about that meeting he didn't know. It wasn't just a friendly rendezvous, and Ren was as glad for it to be done as Jason would have been. There were also those strangled whispers during their previous coupling, those words.. those three words. Had they just gotten caught up in the moment?
She was until that quiet moment on the couch, when he'd dozed off, and been awoken by nighmares of screams and flames... and Ren had knelt gently with him, just touching him, offering him a gesture of comfort that coaxed him from his world of horror to waking.
They'd slept together at first- quite literally. They'd lain down together on his bed, slept soundly and safely, away from dreams until the morning. The more they'd talked, the more they realized that maybe they weren't quite so bad as they'd first thought. Ren wasn't so much a quirky, bizarre little pest, and Jason wasn't the muscle-bound roaring lion of a bully she'd first envisioned in cowering fear.
One thing led to another, and soon... it had happened. The thing had happened, which led Ren here.... and then... there.
The box hadn't done backflips, started tapdancing, or anything else in the two straight hours she'd observed it, either by sitting and staring fixedly at it until her vision blurred, pacing anxiously around it, or absently turning it over in her hands. Ren was as scared to open the damn thing as she was to take it.
Finally, with weak, watery knees, she went to the bathroom with a digital watch, took a breath and glanced around, as though she might never come back out again, and closed the door. Modern technology had made it a fairly mess-free affair, but then the fifteen agonizing minutes kept her sitting primly on the closed toilet seat, glancing anxiously at the watch, at the stick, at the watch, at the stick... until when the watch beeped, she lept off the seat and flung the watch into the sink. She didn't seize the stick immediately. It was still in it's little sleeve, as though it had a mouth that were pursed tightly against a secret and only intense goading would get a peep out. With trembling, numb fingers, she held the stick and sat down again. Ren's throat was dry as she slid it out and turned it over. One "not" line... very clear, very blue, as though it were a thumbs up... but then, like a demon on her other shoulder... opposite it was the faintest, slightest line. Two. No, one. Two. Was it one or two? "Fuck!" she whispered, more a squeak. "What does it mean," she murmured at the stick. Was this common? There was no pigmentation in the second line, but it was THERE. She could see just the ghost of it. Perplexed, frustrated tears welled up but didn't spill over. It was the limbo sort of "hold it in, then they can either be joyous OR tragic" . She had no idea what to do.
Ren had never felt so alone. When she'd tried to tell people close to her what her father was trying to do to her while they were alone in the barn or house, they had turned away, isolating her. When she'd tried to tell people about David... about the clothing she wore for him, the things she did to him- to herself- to give him pleasure, they had backed uneasily away, or scratched it down on their office pad and gave her more pills. How alone she always felt after an altercation with Jason. As though she'd never feel him again. This was another of those alones.
Perhaps, in at least one odd sense if irony, Ren *wasn't*, alone, however. Just a wall away, Jason brooded silently on his couch, a lukewarm beer in hand. It was some nerve she had, all but shooing him out to take the damn test... and then blowing him off, not so much as a call or a text one way or the other? What was it with women- no, what was it with Ren?
Jason had given her ample time, too. He'd worked out, jogged, gotten some work done down at the office, and done just about everything he could think of to soak up the time Ren wanted for herself.
What if she'd split, what if it was positive, what if, what if... so many different scenarios played out in Jason's mind as he butted his forehead frustratedly against his palms. Finally, his stomach tight, his nerves frayed.. Jason stood, pocketed his keys, and left his apartment. As he closed his door, he stood before hers and took an anxious breath. He'd crushed grown men with his strength, lept into burning buildings to save kittens... but a drop of his lover's urine on a platic stick scared him more than any of that rolled together.
Ren hadn't heard the door-knock. she was still too busy staring- no, squinting- at the line-or-not next to the NotLine. "Dammit... " she murmured, and bit her lip. Jason clenched his teeth as he slowly pushed on the door. When he'd knocked, it had come open slightly. It hadn't been closed all the way, and certainly hadn't been locked. He tensed, as if expecting the worst, and slowly stepped in. "Ren?" he called, though not loudly. He didn't want to startle her, and if she was asleep, he didn't want to wake her. There was no answer though, and the bathroom light was on and the door was ajar. He closed her apartment door behind him and locked it before walking toward the bathroom. He tapped on the door lightly. "Ren?" he called again, concern lacing his voice as he slowly pushed it open.
