“Sorry…how many to completion?”
“Oh um…” She sits on a stool so she’s level with my knees. Her smile is kinder than it should be. This is her job. She doesn’t owe me this.
“Is this your first?”
I just nod because that lump is back in my throat and I don’t want to cry, don’t want to burden her with that. She smiles and it’s like a small pocket of air in the otherwise suffocating room.
“It’s going to be okay. Everything feels hard now but if you’re doing what’s in your heart…it’ll be okay.” She tips her head back at her clipboard. “How many sexual partners do you have?”
“Just one.”
She continues asking questions and then draws three vials of my blood before flicking off the lights.
“Okay honey. Lay back for me.” I do what she says as she wheels over an ultrasound machine.
“Oh. I don’t—” Panic flares in my chest.
“It’s protocol. I’m sorry, but you don’t have to look. Let me just—” Her voice is gentle,
practiced, as she tilts the monitor away so I can’t see and tears flood my eyes because I should see, shouldn’t I? Isn’t that what my instincts should be telling me? To protect, to cling, to see? But my instincts are tangled, at war with my body which feels at war with my mind.
She spreads a warm gooey substance across the base of my stomach and for a moment the room is silent save for the quick clack of the keyboard. Seconds feel like minutes as I stare at the tiled ceiling, anchoring myself in the lines of grout. I feel a towel wipe away the goo and then feel a tissue on my arm. “Here,” she says. “For your eyes.”
“Thanks,” I whisper, my voice hoarse.
“You opted for the D&C so we are going to send you back in just a few minutes once the room is prepped.” Her voice falls into the steady rhythm of reciting information. “The procedure only takes about ten minutes but we’ll monitor you for at least thirty while the sedation wears off. You’ll have some bleeding, similar to a standard period that will last anywhere fromtwo to three weeks. You have someone in the waiting room to drive you home?”
“He’s on his way,” I say, my voice flat and she gives me that same tight lipped smile I saw on the receptionist earlier. Like someone who wants to be kind but isn’t sure how. It says, I see you but only as far as I’m allowed.
Minutes go by until she finally leads me back to the procedure room.
She was right: ten minutes. That was all that separated me from holding life and letting it go, the drugs making it feel even shorter, like seconds, the time it takes to light a candle and blow it out.
The brunette wheels me into the recovery room and says something that the sedative doesn’t allow me to register. I watch her gesture toward the juice box and saltines on a table to my left. I take a small sip which earns me an appreciative smile.
“What name should we call in the waiting room? We want to inform them that you’ll be leaving in the next thirty minutes. Give them a chance to pull their car around.”
“Oh um, Elliot.”
She nods, patting my shoulder gingerly before leaving. I lay back in the hospital recliner, closing my eyes and letting my hand find that spot on my belly, the one strange comfort in this entire ordeal and it feels the same, flat, soft, empty. I watch the sun shift in the blinds, letting my eyes close and reopen as I fight the endless sleep the painkillers brought on.
I’m awoken by the receptionist, her crinkled eyes worried as she gently rubs my arm.
“Sloane, we thought maybe he ran to grab a snack or something but it’s been about thirty minutes and we still haven’t seen him in the waiting area. Do you have a good number we can call for him?”
I blink the sleep away, letting what she’s saying filter into my cloudy mind.
“Oh, I might have given him the wrong time. Could I use my phone to—” The nurse interrupts, rushing to grab my bag from the table on the farther end of the room.
“Yes of course.” She hands me the bag and I find my phone flicking through it until I get to Elliot's name. It goes straight to voicemail. I smile to ease the worry in the woman's eyes and call again. Voicemail.
“He’s probably on his way. Let me just text.” I type out a quick message and stare at the blue screen, waiting.
“We’ll give him a little more time, sweetie.” The nurse looks uncomfortable, like maybe this isn’t protocol but her pity outweighs the rules. Still she leaves me, staring at my phone. More time passes and finally my phone chimes.
Elliot
Sorry, running late. Be there soon. Xx
