Creative Writing Final

This was one of two pieces I wrote for my creative writing final. The prompt was to write about a young girl entering a drug store to buy a pregnancy test, and then to describe the scene and the emotions brought about by it. After reading it, it's strange to me how much my writing has grown this year, and honestly, I'm pretty proud.

My feet step cautiously down the lane toward the drugstore, my bag slapping annoyingly at my hip. I can nearly feel the heat off of the sizzling summer asphalt burning through my rubber flip flops. They are obnoxiously loud, and my clothes are annoyingly bright. I stand out terribly. Everyone is watching.

            It is a small town that I’ve grown up in, one full of judgment disguising itself as acceptance, nosiness costuming itself as compassion and caring. Everyone is watching me. I feel all eyes glued to me, and my eyes become glassy. A single mistake and I can already tell – even before I’m sure myself – that they know. I swing open the door of the drugstore, and a bundle of bells ring metallically and far too loud above me. I wince at the chatter and whispers I hear as I enter. No. I must be imagining it. They can’t know. Not yet.

            I walk down an aisle of chips and pretzels, crackers and dip. Then one of sandpaper, thumbtacks, construction paper, and glue. The items become less and less innocent as I walk, and I can feel the stares dig into me. I weave and slalom down the aisles until I feel sure that I have rid myself of any tails. I am alone, standing in the aisle, swathed in fluorescent light and the humming of the freezer cases at the back of the store. I wish that what I was buying was as childlike as a can of pop.

            I wonder if this is what it might feel like to have a horrid disease that no one wants to catch, to feel like the only one in a sea of people who know you so well. My back already seems to ache, my ankles are swelling preemptively as I stand in the aisle alone.

            But I wonder then, perhaps I am not alone. In the sense of anyone who actually cares for me, for my happiness, I certainly am. However, just because someone is not strong enough or loud enough yet to let me know, I am afraid that I’ve never been more surrounded. My hands land on my stomach almost instinctively. Is this what it is like to be relied on for the well being of another?

            I turn back to the shelves, which advertise that the product in question is buy one get one 50% off, as if the average person walking into this tiny drugstore in this airless town would wish to buy two. As if anyone in my situation would want to buy one. Exhaling deeply, I grab one off of the shelf and leave the aisle, staring not at the ground or straight ahead, but past everything. I stare past the shelves and the counters and the glass store windows. I stare past the cashier and the screen that displays $7.97 as my total and the $2.03 I get back as change. I stare past the chipper ‘have a nice day!’, and I walk from the store, bag in hand.

            Five minutes later I arrive home and then I know – I am as alone in this house as I was in the aisle. Two dreaded pink lines emerge on the small device and I know that I am to pack my bags and find someone who will take me in, somewhere to live and work. Although I know I am imagining it, I can feel my clothes beginning to tighten, and I think of all the new clothes I will need to buy, the toys and the books and the bottles and diapers.

            The man in question is the least of a man I have ever known, and in a five minute mistake my life is irreparably altered. One thing I know, however, makes me feel far wiser than my sixteen year old mind should. As I reach to my still flat stomach, I find that I was never alone for even an instant.