“Perfect.”
When we pulled up across the street from the café twenty minutes later, I made sure Tackle wasn’t still sitting at the table by the window before I got out. I reached into my pocket to pay the fare, realizing then that I’d left the apartment without my wallet.
“I’ll be back in two minutes,” I told the driver after apologizing. “Keep the meter running.”
He nodded, and I got out, hoping Tackle wasn’t waiting for me inside the building. I didn’t see a single other person in the lobby while I waited for the elevator or when I came back downstairs after grabbing my wallet. I rushed out the door and didn’t see the cab either.
“Shit,” I muttered, looking left and right. “Where did he go?”
“If you mean the cabbie, he got another fare,” said a woman waiting a few feet away at the bus stop.
“I owed him money,” I mumbled.
“Whoever the guy was must’ve really needed to get somewhere quick cause I heard him say he’d take care of it.”
“Was he about this tall?” I raised my hand in the air. “Short hair and wearing a brown leather jacket?”
“Sounds about right.”
The bus pulled up, and she got on before I could ask anything else. “Thanks,” I called out after her.
By the time I got back upstairs to the apartment, the nausea I’d felt on and off for the last few weeks had returned. I peeled a banana, hoping I could get it down before I felt worse. After inhaling it, I went into the bedroom, intending to put the rest of my things into a bag and go home. Instead, I lay on the bed, buried my face in the pillow, and cried.
The time between my telling Tackle to fuck off and the day of my doctor’s appointment passed uneventfully. I went to work, came back to the apartment, and went home to my parents’ house, all without him showing up or me running into him.
I left his number blocked so I wouldn’t know whether he tried to call or not, yet thought of little else besides him.
While I wasn’t so sick that I thought it warranted a visit to urgent care, the nausea came and went enough that I knew something had to be wrong with me.
The nurse had called to say they wanted to draw blood, so I had to fast prior to my appointment. Fortunately, I was able to go in at seven and get it done. I always felt worse if I didn’t eat a decent breakfast.
Six hours later, I was ushered into a room and asked to strip down and put on one of those horrid hospital gowns that no one could ever get fastened in the back.
I grabbed my jacket and put it around my shoulders so I could stay warm in the chilly room. Ten minutes later, I heard a knock at the door, and the doctor came in, followed by a nurse.
She rolled a stool close to me while the other woman opened up a laptop and stood near her.
“You’re worrying me,” I said, wringing my hands.
“We were able to get the results of your blood and urine tests from this morning, and there is nothing for you to worry about. However”—the nurse handed the doctor the laptop—“you said twice that there was no way you could be pregnant.”
“That’s right.”
“I had the lab run the tests more than once, just to be certain. Both returned the same results. You are pregnant, Miss Clarkson.”
“That can’t be,” I whispered, gripping both sides of the exam table when vertigo overcame me.
The doctor put her hand on one of mine. “Evidently, this is a surprise to you.”
“I only…” Had sex a couple of times? Was that what I was about to tell her? My eyes filled with tears, and I buried my face in my hands.
This couldn’t be happening. I’d saved myself until I was twenty-six fucking years old, and I got pregnant the first damn time I had sex? What were the odds? I dropped my hands and laughed, maniacally, but it was still laughter.
“What is your relationship with the father?” the doctor asked.
“Nonexistent.”
“I apologize if this feels intrusive, but do you know who the father is?”