The bottom of her stomach fell out as she read the evidence of the person who would be with her for the next 9 months. No, no, no, no, no, Carrie thought to herself. How did this happen? She had always promised herself that she would never give up her virginity until she was married. But, here she was, staring at the pregnancy test in her hand that read positive. She tried to remember how this could have possibly happened…

She was over his house. They had just come back from a group date with their friends at the bowling alley. His parents were away for the weekend at their beach house on the Cape. They talked for awhile, laughed, and just laid around doing nothing. Two hours later, they were outside on his back porch, taking about their love for each other and trying to put their feelings into words. Carrie said “Ben, I love y-“
He cut her off with a kiss, a kiss so passionate that Carrie almost melted from the heat of it. He pulled away, looked at her for a second, saying everything he needed to, without actually saying the words out loud. This time Carrie went in for the kiss. They pulled away again, her forehead resting on his. She stared into his eyes, drinking in his handsomeness. She felt like she could stay there, in his gorgeous brown eyes, forever. He kissed her again and again, and it was too much for Carrie’s knees to bear. They gave out, but Ben caught her up in his safe, toned arms and brought her inside. He laid her on his bed and they kept on kissing, while he made a move to take off her shirt.
She pulled away, reluctantly, and told him “No, I will not have sex with you, I am waiting until I am married.” He said, “Alright, I will just drive you home now, I guess.” The dead, disappointed look in his eyes made her feel so guilty; it was like leaving a puppy to die in the cold. Those eyes were the manipulative that made Carrie make the biggest mistake of her life.
She started taking off her shirt. He turned around, and the dead look disappeared, and the fire in his eyes was rekindled, but this time was joined with a look of hunger and longing. He stood there for a minute, watching her. Then he joined her and took off his navy blue American Eagle shirt, revealing his chiseled abs. She pulled off her worn jeans, he pulled off his jeans. She tugged off her socks, he tugged off his. The last thing left was their undergarments.

Two weeks later, Carrie woke up in her own bed, feeling a bit weird. After going to the bathroom, she guessed the weird feeling came from the arrival of her monthly gift. Whew, she thought, I am not pregnant! She was so tightly wound with nerves those two weeks, worried that she might have gotten pregnant. But she apparently didn’t and the nerves that had built up during that time of uncertainty were gone in a tidal wave of relief. She had found out that in two weeks Ben’s parents were going away again, and her parents had to go to a party that they would leave two days afterward. They both loved their beer but were not going to risk their lives driving home drunk, so they would sleep over. That gave her and Ben the weekend to themselves and she knew exactly what they could do to stay occupied.
Carrie and her friend Marty were at CVS, snooping around for the perfect color of nail polish that would match their new outfits they had bought at the mall. While Marty was waiting at the medicine counter to get her father’s medicine, Carrie, went over to the condom aisle. She picked one and brought it over to the cash register and bought it before Marty came back. Then she and Marty paid for their nail polish and left.
It was time to go over Ben’s house. Carrie was in a knot of nerves, even though she knew what to expect. She had a pretty bad feeling about this. The whole ride over to his house she felt as if a dark cloud was hovering over her, foretelling the arrival of bad news. As she rang the doorbell, she knew in the back of her mind that she was making a big mistake.






A week after Carrie and Ben’s “hangout time”, Carrie felt really strange. She wasn’t feeling sick or anything, she just felt really, really, weird. Two days later, Carrie woke up at 4:06 A.M. to find her stomach sloshing around as if she were on a boat, riding the waves of a big storm. She ran to the bathroom and made it just in time before she puked. She threw up a couple more times, then after waiting a little while, she thought it was safe to return to bed. She felt okay throughout the rest of the day, but the next morning, she was back in the bathroom. After two more days of this, she was starting to panic. She decided that she needed to head back to CVS and grab a pregnancy test. She tried not to look at the clerk as he scanned the box containing the device, in fear that he would brand her as a, you know, s-l**. He probably did in his mind, but he was the first of many to do so. Carrie grabbed her change and ran out of that store as fast as her legs would carry her, not knowing if that would be the last time for awhile that she would be able to run.
When she got home, she mumbled a quick “hi” to her mother and thundered up the stairs to the bathroom. She closed the door behind her and opened the box with trembling hands. She held the device in her hands, staring at the toilet. She couldn’t do it. But she had to. She took some deep breaths, trying to calm her stormy stomach and to enjoy the moments that might be the last ones of her childhood. Would she ever be a child again? Will Ben stand by her if she is pregnant, or will he leave her? Would he still love her? What about her parents? They are going to kill her! They brought her up as a good girl who would wait until she was married to have sex. What about the poor baby that might be forming inside her? Would she give it up for adoption, or would she take on the job of a parent herself? Could she take on the terribly difficult job of being a parent, between her job and school?
Finally, after taking a deep breath, she sat down on the toilet.

An hour had gone by and Carrie still was in the bathroom. Sobbing hysterically, she couldn’t bring herself to look at the results. She heard her mother climbing up the stairs, and just barely heard her ask if she was alright because she had been in there for awhile.
“Oh yeah, I am fine, I am just…t-trying out n-new hairstyles in front of the m-mirror” she said, holding her breath so that none of the sobs racking her body could escape from her mouth.
“Ok, just making sure, but you are going to have to get out of there in a little while and do some homework!” said Carrie’s mother.
“Ok, mom” she said, and with that, her mother walked away back down the stairs to the kitchen. Five minutes after she had left, Carrie pulls herself together and finally picks up the test. At the sight of the positive results the test yielded, she broke down again, this time not caring if any sobs were heard by anyone.