YOU KNOW YOU'RE RIGHT // Kurt Cobain

Chapter 26

Los Angeles, CA

March 31, 1994

Thomas had not been happy to come home to an apartment reeking of weed with his girlfriend passed out on top of the kitchen counter, and I don't blame him. I tried to explain to him in my drunken state, but he kept whispering to me that it was fine, that everyone falls off the wagon at one point or another, that he would find a meeting for me the next morning, et cetera. I could only cry.

I was under close watch for the next week, attending AA and NA meetings as frequently as my parents used to send me to church. They were more similar than I had previously thought. The praying, community, guidance... just less supreme judgment and bigotry.

I had forgotten where I put the tape. I knew it was somewhere around the apartment, but if Thomas saw me running around looking for something, he might have assumed I was looking for drugs or alcohol, which would put me in more of a mess than I was already in. I concluded that I would find the tape when it found me. Until then, I was living in suspense.

I looked at the calendar tacked on the office wall, crossing off the past few days. It was already the end of March, and it was like it was yesterday that I had been in Kurt's arms in his Seattle house, without a care in the world.

And it had been an eternity since my last period.

My heart sank through my body and into the floor. No. This could not be going any worse. I could not be pregnant. I began to hyperventilate, and Thomas rushed into the office, his eyes widening at the sight of me having a full blown panic attack. He instantly ran to my side, calming me down.

"What can I do?" he asked, and I took a deep breath.

"Would you mind going to the pharmacy and getting a few pregnancy tests, please?"

***

"Oh god, oh god, oh god," Thomas anxiously sighed, pacing through the apartment as I sat in the bathroom waiting for the timer to go off. Oh god is right, I thought as I drew my focus away from the tests, more like ticking time bombs in my eyes at the moment. If I were pregnant, it would've had to be Kurt's. We neglected to use a condom in Seattle.

"Hey, E, I found a tape in the couch!" Thomas called me from the living room.

"Great!" I yelled back sarcastically, rubbing my temples. The timer went off, and my heart jumped. This was it. Thomas came sliding down the hallway and opened the door.

"So?" he asked. "What does it say?"

I picked up the tests and saw two pink lines on every single one. There was no chance of these tests being a false positive. This was it.

"I'm pregnant," I whispered, and Thomas audibly gasped.

"Really?" he exclaimed, and I put my head in my hands. "Yeah."

Thomas took my hands and pulled me up to my feet, his hands wrapping around me in a hug. "Babe, this is great! I mean, whatever you choose to do is fine, but... this is great! Oh my god, you're pregnant."

"Yeah," I responded, my tone dead. This was my life. I cheated on Thomas with Kurt, and karma hit me in the ass on the way out by handing me a child.

"We should celebrate! Also, I'm not sure if you heard me before but I found a tape in the couch with your name on it, pretty sure it was from Kurt," Thomas pulled away from our embrace, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"Yeah, I heard, thanks," I replied, running a hand through my hair. Thomas produced the tape out of his pocket, handing it to me. "If it's too much for you, we can always listen together," he offered. "I don't want you to ever be alone in this."

I did not deserve him.

"Thank you so much for the offer, love, that's so sweet, but I have to listen to this by myself. Part of the process," I said, taking the tape from his grip and slowly escaping the situation by walking into the office and closing the door.

I took a few seconds to look at the tape again, sober this time around, and decided against listening to it. I opened the bottom drawer of my desk, tossing it into the drawer before resuming the "festivities" with Thomas.

One thing at a time.