Page 35 of Don't Look Away

I return her smile. For some reason, I’m a little nervous, which is ridiculous. I’ve been to the doctor’s a thousand times before. And this visit is just routine. Nothing to stress about, right?

She walks over to the sink and washes her hands, then dries them off. “Okay, so I hear you’d like to be put on birth control.” She picks my file up again. “But…you’re not sure when you’re last period was.”

Who ever remembers that kind of thing? All I know is that I’ve been with Roman since August—that’s when school started—and I haven’t had my period since being with him.

“It’s been a few weeks, maybe five or six,” I say, but when I notice her eyebrows shoot up in alarm, I rush to add, “But I’ve been under a lot of stress lately. My best friend was killed.”

Murdered. Snatched away from me. Her life viciously stolen.

I swallow hard, blinking back the tears.

Dr. Kimball’s eyes fill with sympathy as she sits down on her rolling stool, tugging a latex glove over each hand. “I’m so sorry to hear that. Stress can definitely affect your period.” She rolls up to the exam table. “Let’s take a quick look, and then we can talk about your birth control options.”

The exam is relatively quick. I’ve had a couple of pelvic exams at this point, so I know what to expect. But as Dr. Kimball rolls back and removes her gloves, throwing them in the trash, her brows are pinched, and that causes my heart rate to kick up a fewthousandnotches.

“Everything okay?” I ask, sitting up.

“Are you having any symptoms at all?” she asks casually.

Uh. “Symptoms ofwhat?”

“Breast tenderness, nausea, fatigue?”

Oh, Jezus.Those are all the early symptoms of pregnancy. Did she see something internally that makes her think I’m pregnant? Please, God, no. “I’ve been feeling fine. Why?”

“Let’s do a quick urine test, and then we can go from there.”

“A urine test,” I repeat. “Do you think I’mpregnant?” I can barely get that last word past my tight throat.

She stands up, shaking her head in a placating way. Like an adult trying to comfort a child. “It’s routine to do a urine test to check for pregnancy before prescribing birth control.” She grabs a plastic urine cup from the cupboard above the sink and hands it to me. “Fill this up, if you can, then meet me back here. The bathroom is down the hall to the right.”

I hadn’t prepared to pee on command, but I manage to get about half a cup’s worth into that tiny-ass cup. I only see after the fact that I was supposed to write my name in it with the marker they provided in the bathroom, so I do that, then leave it on the specimen shelf.

I head back to the exam room, and it’s only a matter of minutes before Dr. Kimball comes back in. My heart is beating so fast, I feel dizzy. I’m sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, trying desperately to read the doctor’s expression. She looks neutral, but maybeslightlyconcerned?

“Okay, we ran the pregnancy test, and it was inconclusive, so we’re going to need to do a blood test.”

Inconclusive.Okay, nowIdofeel nauseous.

“W-what does that mean? Does that mean I’m pregnant?”

She shakes her head. “Nope, it just means we can’t be sure either way. But with a blood test, we can be sure.”

“Okay. How long does that take?”

“Usually, we can have the results back in a couple of hours, but our pathologist is on vacation, so we’ll have to send it out to the lab. It’ll take a couple of days.”

A couple ofdays? Fuck. Me. She might as well waterboard me for two days straight. It’d be less tortuous than waiting to see if my entire world is about to be turned upside down.

She must see the panic on my face because she reaches over and places a hand on my knee. “No need to worry. This is all very routine. These urine tests aren’t always accurate and we just want to be sure before we put you on any birth control.”

I nod numbly. “Okay.”

“My physician assistant will come in and take your blood, then we’ll schedule another appointment for a couple of days from now, and go over the results. Then we’ll go from there.”

I just nod again, already making plans in my head to buy every possible brand of pregnancy test on my way home. “Thanks.”

The blood draw is pretty quick and easy, and within twenty minutes, I’m headed back down to the curb, where the driver is waiting. I’m still in a bit of a haze when I slip into the back seat. I mean, I don’t know anything yet, so there’s no real reason to freak out, but that doctor saw something during my internal exam, and then to have an inconclusive urine test…What are the chances that those two things don’t add up to something?

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