Barrett
I tossed again in my bed and looked over at my clock. It was just after 3am. I hadn’t slept a wink. In fact I hadn’t really slept since the day that Lilly Walters walked into my office.
Part of me was desperate to reconnect with her, to know if that baby she had was mine. It seemed to be eating me inside out.
The logical side of my brain told me that the possibility was pretty slim. We had one night together. The likelihood of that producing a child was slim to none.
Along with the torment of finding a way to speak with her again, I also had the constant replay of our brief encounter in my mind. Every time I closed my eyes, I remembered how she felt around my erection.
Finally, deciding I wasn’t going to get any sleep that night, I rose and dressed for the gym. If I was lucky maybe I could exhaust myself into some sleepless dreams.
My mind was full of statistics as I pumped weight. The chances of our encounter resulting in a pregnancy. It may have seemed unlikely, but so was seeing her again after all these years.
I never was one to believe in fate or a higher power, but there was something that had brought us together again.
I had debated letting her test results take the usual course over the last few days. It was office protocol that once the results were in, one of the girls at the front desk would make the call to inform the patients.
Only in circumstances of negative results was the doctor supposed to get involved and perhaps make the call myself. Lilly's results had returned yesterday completely normal.
I should have just let the receptionist handle it, but I couldn’t pass up the excuse. I had insisted making this call on his own.
So instead of sleeping that night, I was burning calories at the gym anticipating hearing her voice again. It would be unethical to lie and say she needed to come back in for more tests.
I was racking my brain for any sane excuse to have her come back in to the office.
Finally as the sun started to rise on the horizon I came up with the plan. I wouldn’t tell her anything. Just that we needed to discuss her results in person. I didn’t care if it would raise some brows in the office, I wanted to see her again and I was going to make it happen.
I got back to my place just in time to shut off the alarm clock on my bedside table. It wouldn’t be the first day going to work with little sleep and heaping exhaustion.
Spending the last few years with the red cross had taught me to keep a clear mind even when my body was beyond the breaking point. The places we went to get to people who needed help the most didn’t often come with luxury accommodation and mints on pillows.
I had relished that adventure. It was a million times better than the dull upper crust life I had been raised in.
Sure treating children in bomb laden third world countries had it’s disadvantages, but it was worth it to see someone on the brink of death recover. Out there I had been making a true difference.
I thought about what I did now. Spending my days between menopausal old ladies and teaching teenagers how to use birth control, wasn’t that what I had wanted?
It was worth it just to piss off the old man, though.
He had always considered my time with the Red Cross a phase that would run its course. He didn’t see the good that a high education could bring to the less fortunate. To him a doctorate was a fast tract to continuing the family fortune.
When I chose my own path separate from him, it was an irrational and inconceivable move in his eyes.
It was true that I wasn’t exactly thrilled with my own practice now, and choosing the speciality I had taken, but it was my own way and not his. That was satisfying enough to me. Now I had one more reason to be grateful for it. It had brought me back to the girl of my dreams.
Eight
Lilly
I was wringing my hands as I waited for Emma to come over. I didn’t know what was worse, the fact that I was called back into the doctor's office after some routine test or the fact that it was Aria’s dad who had been on the other line of the phone.
When he has spoken to me, it seemed nothing short of professional. At least that might mean he had no idea who I was or at the very least that we had a child together. But that didn’t stop the fact that I was going to have to see him again today.
I wasn’t going to be able to do that alone. So luckily I had my best friend to the rescue. Emma had promised to go with me.
I was beyond stressing out over this whole situation. I hadn’t slept well and was sure I looked it.
I checked my reflection one last time. I was wearing a little more makeup then I normally did and had taken the painstaking time to curl my hair this morning. I couldn’t help but smile at the fact that I was trying to recreate the same look, minus the revealing outfit, eight years ago.