November Blues

Feeling nauseous and dizzy, November Nelson staggers into the bathroom. She sits down in front of the toilet, lifts its lid, and looks into the water, wishing “she could disappear into its depth” (1). As her nausea becomes more intense, she loses “her lunch in heaves and waves of vomiting” (1). November gets up and looks at herself in the mirror, noting her unkempt hair and unusually gray skin. She realizes that her mother will soon come home and will be angry at her for skipping school, but she can focus only on one thing: the package in her backpack. Although November knows that she is alone in the house, she makes sure that the bathroom door is locked and only then takes the box out of her book bag. As she unwraps the plastic and opens the pink box, she looks out of the small bathroom window and watches the remains of the early spring snowmelt. Although everything around her is familiar, deep inside, November realizes that this moment marks the beginning of a new stage in her life. She takes the little white tube from the package and follows the instruction. Three minutes later, the indicator confirms her suspicion: she is pregnant.