“Fine,” I murmur, as she puts me in a room and asksme a bunch of questions before leaving me to wait on the exam table for the doctor.
A few minutes later, the doctor knocks on the door before entering. “Ashton? Hello, dear, how are you?” She takes a seat on the stool.
She’s a middle-aged woman with dark hair, wearing a white coat. Her red-rimmed glasses sit on top of her head.
“I’m fine.”
“Good. How’s your pain?”
I shrug. “It’s fine.”
Her lips pinch into a tight smile. “You’ve been through so much, are you talking to someone?”
Nodding, I say, “I have a therapist.”
“Great. That’s really good. So, I do want to go over some of your test results.” She glances at the computer hanging from the wall before adding, “Would you like your mother to come back?”
That strikes me as a little odd. My mom stopped coming with me to the doctor when I turned eighteen. She probably wouldn’t have come today if I were able to drive.
“Um… no. That’s okay.”
She flashes a small smile. “Okay. Well… I don’t know if you were aware of this, but we ran a pregnancy test with your labs earlier, and it did come back positive.”
“No. That’s not possible. They did that at the hospital. It was negative, and I’ve not been with anyone since.”
“They did, but you may have just been too early in your pregnancy for it to be detected.”
Your pregnancy.
The words leave her mouth, but when they hit my ears, it feels like she’s saying it in slow motion.
No.
There’s no way.
My head spins, and I feel like I might actually throw up.
“Ashton? Are you sure you don’t want us to have your mother come back?”
“No! No, I’m okay.”
“Okay, you’ll need an ultrasound in a couple weeks. I’m not an OBGYN so we’ll get you a list of doctors to choose from to get that set up.”
I swallow again, nodding.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Uh-huh.” Tears prick my eyes.
She reaches for a box of tissues and holds it out to me. “I know this can be scary, but you have options.”
She continues to talk, but I’m no longer listening. Instead, my mind wanders to Gabriel—all the nights I spent with him, where he is now, what he’ll say when he finds out I’m pregnant.
After getting lots of information and picking an OBGYN, the doctor leaves the room.
When I stand, my legs feel like they’ve forgotten how to carry me. I walk silently out of the office.
Luckily, my mom had to take a work call and spends the entire drive home on the phone, not noticing me wiping away tears.
