Holy shit.
I let myself panic in the restroom for five more minutes, and then I pulled myself together, shoved the test in the waistband of my leggings, and left the gym. In my rush, I didn’t say goodbye to Diane or any of my coworkers. I shot Diane a text from my car, letting her know that we’d reschedule. She responded with a heart emoji as I was pulling into the parking lot of the nearest drug store.
When I got home, I went straight to the bathroom.
Ten minutes later, I was staring at six more pregnancy tests, all of them different, and all of which were, in fact, stupidly expensive for being tiny wands of plastic. They all said various versions of the same thing.
I was pregnant.
THREE
DARCY
The waiting room was quiet, with the exception of the upbeat pop music gently playing through the overhead speakers. They weren’t current songs, but they weren’t old enough to quite be considered throwbacks yet.
The wooden arms of chairs sat side by side, pressed against one another in rows, and the cushions sagged slightly in the middles where people frequently sat. Pictures of smiling women cradling their rounded stomachs, and posters with motivational and inspirational quotes lined the walls.
There wasn’t a single picture of a woman who looked like she was on the verge of shitting her pants with nerves to be found, which seemed like an oversight.
The door in the far right corner opened with a slight gush of air, giving way to a young woman in bubblegum-pink scrubs.Her blonde hair was piled into an artfully messy bun atop her head, and something about her seemed fun—like she knew how to have a good time.
“Darcy?”
I jolted up from my chair in what Nurse Bubblegum probably thought was excitement.
She greeted me with a warm smile, and extended her arm in the direction of the hallway. “Hi, I’m Hannah. We’re going to go right down this hall, and turn into the first room on your left to get your vitals.”
Each step felt like walking through wet sand—thick and grainy—but I did as instructed.
After she grabbed my weight and blood pressure, she sent me to the bathroom to pee in a cup for her, which she promptly stuck a pregnancy test strip into.
The two pink lines were clear and dark, even from my seat four feet away from where it was still developing on the counter.
“Great! Okay, follow me.”
She led me to an exam room and had me take a seat on the table, the paper underneath me crinkling as I shifted my weight and scooched further back. Why did crinkling paper feel embarrassing?
“All right, Darcy, I just need to ask you a few questions and then the doctor will be in to see you.”
I still hadn’t said anything to her.
“Sure.” Nerves had that one word sounding much snippier than I intended, so I backpedaled. “I mean, yeah, that’s fine.”
She chuckled, as if not at all fazed by my attitude. I imagine she was on the receiving end of a whole host of amped-up emotions frequently—both good and bad.
“When was the first day of your last period?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I have an IUD and haven’t gotten a period since I got that put in.”
Her eyes widened marginally before she recovered. Even Hannah couldn’t hide her surprise.
That makes two of us.
“Do you know about when it was that you got that?”
“Maybe six years ago?”
Her fingers flew across her keyboard, and I couldn’t help but feel like she was typing about how big of an idiot I was. I’m sure she wasn’t, she seemed like a really nice girl, but I felt judged all the same.
