Page 14 of The Forever Play

“Yes, why?”

“I need to ask you some personal questions, and you have the right to confidentiality if you want it.”

“Oh, um… no, Mom can stay. She knows everything anyway.” The questions were making me even more nervous, and the thought of Mom leaving me alone with this doctor was freaking me out.

Clinging to my mother, I gripped her hand tightlywhile the doctor gave us a professional smile, then asked the worst question ever. “Are you sexually active?”

My shoulders slumped, my voice quaking as I shook my head. “No.”

“So, you’ve never once had intercourse?”

“Oh.” I frowned, my shoulder hitching. “I mean, I have… had… sex. I just don’t anymore.” My insides jerked and trembled, sorrow consuming me like it always did when I thought of Zander.

“And when was the last time you had sex?”

I looked at my mother and admitted, “It was the night before he left, so… When was that?”

The color drained from Mom’s face, her eyes closing as she rasped, “About six weeks ago.”

“Yeah.” I sniffed, my chin bunching until Mom huffed and rounded on me.

“You told me you were being safe! You said you used protection!”

Startled by my mother’s snappy tone, my slow-ass brain was struggling to keep up.

Wait… what were they implying?

A cold fear shot through me, and I couldn’t comprehend that question.

All I could do was argue, “We did use protection. All the time!”

“Did you? That last time? Did you?” Mom’s voice pitched and her arms flailed. I hadn’t seen her lose it like that before, and it was throwing me.

I opened my mouth to emphatically say, “We did!” but then I remembered. As I sifted through the crazy barrage of emotions that had driven my every move that night, I finally got down to the facts.

“Sienna. Think! Did you?—”

“He pulled out,” I quickly interrupted her, remembering that moment with sharp clarity, the look on his face as he came all over my stomach, the way I loved him so deeply, so strongly in that moment that I nearly cried. “Yeah, he definitely pulled out.”

“Oh my gosh.” Mom covered her mouth with her hand and whimpered.

“What?” I looked at the doctor, panic finally blasting through my memories and telling me something I didn’t want to hear. The penny was dropping, and it was hitting every raw surface within me. And following in its wake was a tidal wave of pure terror. “No… that, no! Pulling out is a safe method, right? I mean, right?”

The doctor winced, folding her hands together on the desk and giving me a sympathetic smile. “It’s one of the least reliable.”

My brain seemed to freeze for a second, and I couldn’t speak properly. “No… you… I can’t… I can’t be pr-pregnant.”

“We’ll have you take a test to be sure.” Her voice was so calm.

How could she be so calm? How could she sit there changing my entire life and be so unaffected by it?

“I’m gonna be sick.” Lurching out of my chair, I raced to the bathroom, barely getting the toilet lid up before emptying the meager contents of my stomach into the bowl.

As I wiped my mouth with shaking fingers, the truth sank into my very bones. I somehow knew without any tests that the doctor was right.

Resting my hand on my lower abdomen, I struggledto breathe. I couldn’t move my ass off those cold restroom tiles until Mom came and got me.

She’d calmed down by the time the test results were in, and sure enough, the doctor was right.

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