Eleven Weeks (11 page)

“You are the most confusing person I know,” Michael whispers.

Ain’t that the truth.

December 10

T
HE WARM
sun beats down on my face. I open my eyes, fighting the stickiness that falling asleep while wearing mascara brings. I run my tongue along my teeth, the gross feeling of furry and—

Oh God.

Last night.

Michael
.

I inch my leg behind me, hoping to feel his warmth. Maybe we can make this work, somehow. Michael seems to think we can.

One inch: warm bed sheets.

Two inches: the bed cools.

Three inches: nothing.

I flip over. His side of the bed is empty, the quilt pulled up, and the sheets tucked in, as if he had never even been there in the first place.

On his pillow lies a note, man-scrawl scratched across its surface in blue hotel-room pen.

I’ll keep your secrets.

I just won’t be one.

Ouch.

December 17

N
OTHING SAYS
I’m a glamorous eighteen-year-old who has just finished school
quite like lining up at the doctor’s for the second time in a month. Because the pap smear wasn’t enough. Ugh.

I take my phone from my handbag and click the screen on. Nope. Nothing. No new messages.

I don’t know why I think there will be. I’ve been waiting for a text from Michael all week, but since I was the one who pushed him out the door, who made him think I was embarrassed of him? I guess it was really no wonder.

He’s not good for me. I have bigger things to worry about.

Me:
Why did the calf cross the road?

I hit send before I can stop myself.
What am I doing?
I’ve made it perfectly clear to Michael that I’m not interested, meaning I have him right where I want him.

So why am I sending him a text message?

Sometimes, you do something even when you know it’s bad for you. You break the rules; you indulge when it’s forbidden. And as you do it you think, screw it, damn the man, I’ve got this—I
deserve
this. I get this one small thing as a reward for all my times of good and hard work. Then you remember you don’t deserve shit. Because if you did, you wouldn’t be paying for your rebellion right now.

At times like this, it’s easy to become addicted to pain. Especially when it’s self-inflicted.

I glance around at the six other people in the waiting room. There is an elderly couple; the woman clutches the man’s arm as if she is afraid his skin will wrinkle up and drop to the floor. Well, more so than it has already.

Then there is a guy a little younger than me—sixteen, maybe?—and a woman who looks to be mid-thirties. This is a sexual health clinic, a free doctor service that deals with all things between the sheets—what problems do they have that call for a visit to the sexy doctors’?

I busy myself with imagining their problems while I wait my turn. Maybe mid-thirties lady is a porn star. And sixteen-year-old has a weird fetish for cotton wool, and wants to know if it is normal to wrap his penis—

My phone vibrates on my lap. I look down and smile.
Michael.

Michael:
To get to the udder side. You’re gonna have to do better than that, Allison …

I smirk. I guess that means he doesn’t hate me, at least?

“Stacey Allison.” A middle-aged man walks out into the waiting room from a poorly lit corridor behind him. At least it isn’t the same guy who gave me the pap smear.
Must have rotating rosters.

I stand up and sling my handbag over my arm, then follow the doctor down the hall into a small office. It is just like every other doctor’s office I’ve ever been to: clean, full of medical equipment, the good ol’ height-to-weight chart on the wall, and a model of a vagina. Well, okay, so maybe that wasn’t in
every
doctor’s office.

“Hi, I’m Dr Simpson.” The doctor sits down in a chair next to his desk and gestures for me to take a seat on the one behind me. I oblige.

“I’m Stacey.” I smile, then cringe. “Sorry, you already know that …”

Dr Simpson doesn’t let my awkwardness fluster him. “So, what can I do for you today?” He smiles a thoroughly pleasant smile, the kind that makes me feel completely non-intimidated.
I hope cotton wool ball guy gets this doc, too.

“Well, so …” I swallow. Oh yeah. This isn’t a social call. “I think I’m pregnant. I mean, I am. Well, I did a test, and it said I was, so I kind of presume that it’s most likely a foetus growing inside me.”

The seconds tick on into what feels like hours as the doctor licks his lips, takes a deep breath—ew! He’s a mouth breather—and then tilts his head to the side, studying me.

“And when was your last period?” He clasps his hands together over his crossed knee.

“It was …” I do the mental maths, and feel like that idiot girl in every pregnancy movie. You know the one.
Oh, how didn’t I realise that my period is, like, ninety weeks late?

“It should have started around seven weeks ago,” I say. “So I’m kind of … three weeks late.”

Damn idiot. I was an idiot.

“Right.” The doctor pauses, scribbling some numbers on a chart. “Your periods are usually quite regular?”

“Yes.”

“And when do you think you conceived?” He turns his head to look at me.

“About five weeks ago.” I swallow.

“That would have put you at the peak ovulation period in your cycle.” He nods, tapping his pen against his lip. “I’ll get you to do a test, just to be sure, but yes, it certainly does sound like you are pregnant.” The doctor jerks open a drawer and rifles through its contents until he finds a small plastic cup with a yellow lid.

“Here.” He holds it out in my direction.

Oh God no. Please, no, don’t make me—

“You’ll need to urinate in this cup. Try and catch it mid-flow, not after the initial burst.” He smiles and jiggles the cup a little, as if that will make it more appealing.

Again?

I take the cup and walk out of the room, my shoulders slumped, and head toward the toilet sign I’d seen down the hall. As I pass the reception area, I try to hide the plastic cup of shame in my pocket, but it’s obvious what’s happening. The elderly man gives me a knowing nod, and the middle-aged woman winks at me. You never just ‘forget to go’ before you see a doctor and have to break up your appointment to pee. This is a urine test, people.

I shut the door behind me, pull down my shorts, unscrew the lid on the cup and—

Nothing.

Waterfalls, rushing water, open taps …

Dry as a bloody desert.

I imagine the cup of coffee I’d sucked down this morning speeding through my throat, down into my stomach and my intestines or whatever the hell path liquid goes through, and filling up my bladder, all the way to the brim. I squeeze. I push.

Zero.

I wish I’d know there was going to be a pee test.

I stand up and waddle—well, my pants are around my knees—over to the sink where I wrench open the faucet and stick my head under the tap, drinking as much of the spewing water as I can. I gulp so much down I feel my stomach expanding, to the point where I could be sick.

Then, leaving the tap still running at full ball, I waddle my way back to the toilet, hover and try again.

After three minutes, I finally pee, and start the awkward
should I shove it under now/is this mid-stream enough
dance, followed quickly by the
where the hell is my pee and—crap it’s on my hand
routine.

Altogether, the experience is rating very below par.

I finally wash my hands—four times—and head back to the doctor’s office, pee cup firmly sealed. I cringe, trying to find a way to hold it so I can’t feel how …
warm
the liquid is.
Shudder.

“Here.” I shove the cup of liquid onto the good doctor’s desk and sit down, turning my head away. Something about seeing my pee makes me feel nauseous.

When I look back, I see Dr Simpson has opened the lid on my pee jar—ew!—and stuck a little thing in it. Looks like his pregnancy test is very similar to mine.

“May I ask, is this a planned pregnancy?” The doctor fishes around on his desk for a little mouse and right-clicks, bringing his computer to life.

“Not exactly, no.” I shake my head. “Or at all, really.”

He turns to me, and I swear, there is something like sympathy in his eyes. “Are you in a relationship with the father?”

“No.” My voice is quieter this time.

“Do you know who the father is?”

“No,” I squeak. My fingers fidget with each other on my knee.

Dr Simpson sighs, then leans over as if he is about to squeeze my hand, jerking his arm away at the last minute.

“Sorry, I—you remind me of my own daughter,” he says. He turns back to his desk and grabs a blood pressure monitor. “I just need to take your blood pressure.”

I thrust out my arm, and he wraps the Velcro material around it. “Just relax,” he says, and I unclench my fist as he starts pumping that little balloon.

“So you’re not sure who the father is. Could it be … one of multiple people?” Dr Simpson asks. My fingernails dive straight for my palms again. “Relax, please.”

I want to say,
then stop asking me stressful questions!
Instead, I reply, “No. There’s really only one.”

“Well, that’s a start. So you don’t know who it is, but you know it’s not say, one of five men.” Dr Simpson nods, as if this is indeed a fact I am to be rewarded for.
Good work, Stacey. Only slutted yourself around to the one random guy. Nice to know.

“So, we’ll need to get you checked for any diseases—”

“Done that.” I nod, giving myself a mental high-five. “After it happened, I came in here and saw one of your other doctors, who gave me the tests. And I went to the pharmacist and got the morning-after pill. Which I, uh …” I fiddle with the hem of my shorts. “… kind of forgot to take.”

“That’ll do it,” Dr Simpson says with a wink. I smirk. This guy is my kinda doctor.