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SEVENTEEN
DAYNA
It’s two days later. On the way to work, I buy a disgustingly sweet coffee that has too much syrup and far too much cream.
It’s an expense I can’t really afford, but I need something to get me through my shift at the office and then my second shift later at the coffee shop.
My feet are dragging as I walk the rest of the way to work, moving with the flow of people all suffering the same corporate fate.
Working two jobs and spending all my free time getting my insides rearranged by Dash is taking its toll. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so happy and yet so tired in my entire life. It’s as if my bones are weighted down, and my brain has become soup.
So, I’m excited about my coffee. I’m hoping it’s going to perk my tired ass up.
The first sip curdles in my stomach like rotten milk. What the fuck?
I swallow down bile, my body staging some kind of internal séance.
I blow breaths out through pursed lips, trying not to puke.
Okay, clearly my body does not want sugar or caffeine today.
I wish it had told me that before I spent five fucking pounds on it.
I hold the cup like a trophy the entire way to work, and by the time I reached my desk, I know there’s no way I’m drinking it.
I want to cry.
I need more sleep.
I need a new stomach.
Janet from accounts walks past my desk as I shrug out of my coat, eyeing me like I personally sacrificed her firstborn on top of her filing cabinet.
I give her an over-enthusiastic smile until she’s out of my eyesight, and then I glare.
As I power up my computer, all I can think about is crawling back into bed tonight. Though if I fall asleep on Dash one more time, he’s going to stop coming over after work.
I miss him already.
I pull out my phone.
Play your cards right and I might dig out that tool belt tonight.
I’m grinning as I load up my emails, clicking through the first three and sending replies.
I’m just about to open my project folder when my phone vibrates.
Dash:
No point putting it on just for me to take it off.
My breath stutters. This man…
I’m about to reply something flirty when another message comes through. I open it, the smile still on my lips.
Unknown:
Dear Miss Harrington. You are now overdue for your appointment with the practice nurse. Please contact the surgery as soon as possible to reschedule.
I didn’t think it was possible for a soul to leave a body, but that is what happens to mine. I’m pretty sure I transcend to another dimension the moment the ramifications of that message sink into my brain.
Every part of me drops into a black hole beneath my feet.
No. No. No.
Fuckity, fucking, fuck.
I scroll up the message thread, seeing reminder after reminder, telling me to make appointments, but nothing for the last seventeen weeks.
That nausea curling in my stomach is no longer an irritation.
It’s a fucking symptom.
I don’t care that I’m supposed to be working, I shove up from my desk and rush across the floor to the fire exit.
Usually, there’s somebody smoking out here, but luckily everybody is set up ready to start work.
My heart is thundering as I dial the surgery. It takes far too long for someone to answer, far too long for worst case fucking scenarios to run around my brain.
“I just had a message about making an appointment for my birth control shot.” The words spill out of me in a rush, panicked and breathy. “I didn’t get a reminder. I rely on the reminders.”
I’m aware I sound hysterical, but I don’t care. Because if my calculations are correct, I’ve been having unprotected sex for the entire time I’ve been with Dash while thinking I was covered.
I’m going to pass out.
I’m going to puke.
I’m going to maybe do both.
I bend over, putting my head between my knees as I try to breathe past the choking terror.
The nausea. The tiredness.
I’ve had sensitive boobs all week—I thought it was hormones. Ovulation—I don’t fucking know. I was so busy getting smashed by Dash, I didn’t stop to think about my fucking uterus.
“I’m sorry, Miss Harrington. The messages that usually go out are on an automated system,” the receptionist says lightly, as if she’s not running a bulldozer through my life.
“We had some problems with our computers when those messages were supposed to go out, so I don’t think you got a reminder.
Do you want me to make that appointment now? ”
Her perky tone almost has me screaming into the phone.
I force calm into my voice. “I’ve spent the last two months having the best sex of my life with a guy who has awards in orgasms. And all that time, I was letting him come inside me because you didn’t send a reminder to tell me that my injection was due.”
The silence that follows is choking. Awkward. She clears her throat, as if she’s digesting my confession.
Then she says quietly, “Miss Harrington, you’re seven weeks late with your shot.
If you’ve been having unprotected sex in that time, I’d recommend taking a pregnancy test before you recommence your birth control.
” If this woman was standing in front of me, I’d kick her in the fucking ovaries.
“Would you like me to make the appointment?”
I don’t know what I say to her after that. I’m pretty sure my brain blacks out. Somehow, I make it back to my desk, my head whirling.
The nausea is worse, and I don’t know if my body’s just being a dramatic bitch or if it’s reacting to a potential Dash-shaped deposit that could be hijacking my uterus.
I get through to lunchtime, even though I feel like I’m going to have a heart attack.
At the stroke of one p.m., I’m out of my seat, snatching my bag, and rushing out of my building before anyone can say a word to me. I don’t have time for idle chat. I need to get the fucking test and figure out if I’m fucked or not.
I power walk to the farthest part of town so I don’t run into anyone from work and find a small pharmacy buried in the back of a shopping centre. I’m wheezing when I slide the pregnancy test on the counter, and I feel the weight of judgment from the clerk, even though she says nothing.
I tap my card on the reader and stuff the test into my bag.
Then I head to the nearest shop with toilets.
I don’t need to take the test. Deep down, I know I’m pregnant.
The list of symptoms I’ve attributed to other things, for other reasons, plays through my mind like it’s trying to torture me.
Dash is the first man I’ve ever trusted and who made me feel safe. And now, I may have destroyed everything.
Not because I’m pregnant, but because it’s going to read like a lie no matter how I spin it. He’s never going to believe I forgot to get my injection. No one would. It’s stupid. I’m fucking stupid.
The moment I tell him I’m pregnant, it’s over.
I take the test with shaking hands then cap it and slide it onto the back of the toilet. The cubicle feels claustrophobic, but it’s not the walls that are closing in. It’s my life. My mistakes.
My inability to manage my own responsibilities.
Why would you rely on some stupid automated system for one of the most important things in your life?
I close my eyes and try to breathe through the crushing fear.
He’ll think I trapped him because I told him I was covered.
My stomach lurches, and I drop to my knees in front of the dirty toilet. Everything I’ve eaten this morning comes back up with a vengeance. I can do nothing but endure it, my stomach contracting so violently it leaves me shaking on the floor.
I sink back against the cubicle wall, my hair sticking to my forehead, my throat and mouth burning.
The test mocks me from the back of the toilet. I don’t want to look. I don’t want to make this real.
I force myself to stand and reach for the test. Two pink lines look back at me. Two small little lines.
I don’t breathe. I don’t cry.
I just exist quietly as the world tilts and disappears.
I’m pregnant and completely fucked.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22 (Reading here)
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42