Page 19

Evan

M ia asks both me and Jay to accompany her to her follow-up doctor’s appointment on Monday. As far as I’m aware, she spent the bulk of the weekend writing up pros and cons lists for her options under the ‘worst case’ scenario of the blood tests changing her life forever. Mia has always been a planner. She’s always had an ace up her sleeve.

This is the one time where she hasn’t been prepared and I think that has been the cause of most of her stress. Well, that and the whole ‘possibly pregnant at sixteen’ thing.

We get a few raised eyebrows when all three of us stand up when her name is called, but we don’t pay them any mind. We’re more concerned about Mia.

Doctor Rogers greets Jay with the familiarity of someone who has been their family’s medical practitioner for years before she turns to me and offers me a much warmer smile than she did the first time we met. I just nod and then she turns her full attention to the teenager gripping both our hands for dear life.

“Okay, well, let’s not prolong the suspense,” Doctor Rogers says as she pulls up the blood test results on her screen. She glances at them, nods, then looks Mia in the eye and informs her, “You’re not pregnant.”

Jay slumps with relief as Mia actually whoops for joy, and I…can’t actually pinpoint how I feel. Glad that things are not as scary and stressful as they could be for Mia, but also maybe a tiny bit…disappointed? Deflated?

I can’t quite understand why.

It’s not like I wanted my sixteen-year-old goddaughter to be pregnant.

But after all the build up of tension and stress and strategizing for worst case scenarios, this feels mildly anticlimactic.

“You should also be happy to hear that your results came back negative for sexually transmitted infections as well,” Doctor Rogers continues, “though I do hope you will consider using condoms going forward.”

Mia’s cheeks turn bright red, but she nods. “Yes. Of course. But, honestly, I think this has scared me off sex for a while.”

I’m pretty sure Jay’s relieved to hear that, too, but he’s smart enough not to say anything. Doctor Rogers strikes me as the kind of woman who wouldn’t hesitate to tell him where he could shove any thoughts of policing his daughter’s bodily autonomy. She’s scary, but all sorts of awesome.

“I’m going to refer you to a colleague of mine,” she tells Mia, typing away at her computer, “because experiences like these can definitely shake your confidence and, sometimes, as supportive as family can be, it’s easier to talk to an unbiased party.”

I can’t help but feel a little vindicated that the doctor is making the same suggestion of therapy. I squeeze Mia’s hand and bump my shoulder into hers, creating a knock-on effect into her dad.

“I told you so,” I sing-song under my breath.

“And,” the doctor continues, looking over at me pointedly before smiling at Jay, “I’d suggest you and…?”

“Evan,” I remind her easily.

“Evan,” she nods, “might also benefit with a session or two, just to deal with any lingering fear or resentment or,” she shoots an apologetic look at Mia, “distrust which might have arisen over the course of the past few days.”

I bob my head. I want to tell her that I already suggested it, but there’s no point.

I do, however, plan on serenading my boyfriend and his daughter with the strains of my ‘I told you so’ song for the entire drive back to their house.

As if sensing my plan to be smug and rub it in, Jay sighs and says, “Yes, honey, I know . You were right. We were wrong.”

“Well, that takes all the fun out of my I-told-you-so-ing,” I pout dramatically.

“Oh, God,” Mia complains between us, “I liked it better when you were oblivious BFFs. This is just painful to watch.”

“I thought you loved having me around as your stepdad,” I tease. “It was all your idea to begin with, remember?”

“You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?”

“Nope,” I pop the ‘p’, grinning from ear-to-ear, my weird moment from earlier all but forgotten. “You’re the reason we got together.”

She looks at the doctor, who seems thoroughly confused by our entire production. “Kill me now.”

Being the intelligent woman that she is, Miranda Rogers claps her hands together and says, “Well, unless there’s anything else concerning you medically, you’re all free to go.” She hands Jay the referrals she just printed out. “Be sure to arrange at least one appointment for her, James. Being sixteen is hard enough, you know?”

He nods. “Thanks Miranda.”

Then we’re finally leaving the clinic and we feel like an entirely different group than the one that filtered in earlier. Mia is carefree and laughing, James is smiling, and I…am about to get hit by a car.

Well , I think in the split second before the collision, shoving Mia and James back onto the footpath behind me, before the squeal of tyres and sudden searing pain has a chance to register, I didn’t have this on my bingo card for today.