Chapter Twelve – Louise

I prop myself up onto my very shaky elbows and I look at the back of Oliver’s head. Maybe I should be talking about what just happened, another moment of weakness that cannot lead to anything good, but the weird tension in the room makes me forget about all of that for just this moment. The stress that’s evident in Oliver’s shoulders has me really freaked out. What do the results show? I need to know and now before I dive back down into the I’m about to die hole.

“Oliver, what’s going on?” I ask with a trembling voice. “What happened?”

He turns slowly and looks at me with wide shocked eyes. All the words that I saw on the Internet come flooding back and my heart almost stops dead in my chest. Ice cold terror bolts right through my system. The pleasure that Oliver just gave me, which by the way is the best damn thing that I’ve ever felt in the whole damn world, evaporates and all I feel is a deep seated fear.

“It’s… it’s your results,” he tells me anxiously. “They show… erm, they show…”

“What?” I explode. “Just tell me please. What the fuck is going on?”

Tears fill my eyes. I can barely see anymore. “Will you just tell me, Oliver? This is my life!”

“You’re pregnant.” He nods slowly as I try and process his words.

They don’t make any sense at all. I feel like they’re words that make sense, but not meant for me.

“Yep, that’s the result of your one night stand. You’re having a baby.”

No. I shake my head rapidly and jump down off the bed. No, no, no, no, no.

“I don’t think… that can’t be right,” I insist. “There’s no way I can be… pregnant with Adam. I can’t have Adam’s baby. That might not even be his name, I don’t know the guy at all. I can’t be pregnant. Let me see the test results. I need to see them, to know for myself.”

Oliver doesn’t show me the results that he’s looked at but he moves across the room and grabs a pregnancy test from the drawer and hands it to me. I know these pregnancy tests have the absolute best of the best results, the most accurate on the market. I grab it from him without meeting his eye and I race into the bathroom just off the doctor’s office. My heart thunders in my chest, hammering violently against my rib cage, my lungs squeeze so tightly that I can barely get even the tiniest bit of air inside them however hard I try. My vision is so blurred that I can’t see the instructions at all. Luckily, I know how to do a pregnancy test so I don’t really need them. I just need to take that brave step and actually do it. There isn’t anything holding me back… well, except for me of course.

Just do this, I tell myself. Just to prove Oliver wrong, there’s no way he can be right.

That’s the only thought that spurns me on, the thought of telling him that he’s made a mistake, so I step towards the toilet and I sit down to pee on the dreaded stick. I think about all the girls that I heard having to do this in high school and college, surrounded by their friends while they anxiously find out the results of their idiocy. I always looked on them with a silent judgement, wondering how they could be so dumb, and now I’m way worse than any of them. I’m the one who’s waited until I’m an adult to act like a crazy bitch. At least they had the excuse of being young for their errors.

I pace the tiny toilet cubicle while I wait the long and agonizing moment for the test to reveal itself. This is painful, it’s the longest few seconds of my entire damn life. I don’t know how I’m going to survive it.

The entire time my brain spins desperately as I try to work out who Adam was and what he looked like. Why can’t I remember him that clearly? What the hell is wrong with me? My memories of him are totally fuzzy which is ridiculous. He could be the father of my child and I don’t even know a single thing about him. All I can remember is him telling me that he wanted to get to know me and then him not actually wanting to get to know me at all.

Okay, time to look at the test. I’ve placed it on the back of the toilet while the test reveals itself, which now I’m realizing is a mistake. Because now, I have to pick it back up again to see it.

I step tentatively closer and I extend out my shaking hand. As my fingers curl around the test some vomit rises in my throat that I have to gasp back down so it doesn’t spill out. Not yet, I can’t throw up until I know the truth, just in case Oliver’s right and I’m about to get the terrible, scary news that my one night stand is about to have some very permanent consequences.

Positive… oh fuck. I see the blue cross which can only mean one thing looking back at me. Oliver’s test was right, which I guess I already knew since it’s incredibly accurate. I just had to see it for myself, and now I know. I’m going to have a baby. What the hell am I going to do?

I slump back onto the toilet seat and stare at the test while trying to picture a baby in my arms. Having a child this early on, while I’m still training to be a doctor, on my own while I have absolutely no money to support him or her was never in my life plan. I don’t know if I ever particularly considered having kids, but now I’m really going to have to work it out. I need to figure out what direction my life is headed in, what I’m going to do, and how I’m going to tell everyone…

Shit. I stare at the door and think about Oliver waiting for me on the other side. He knows, he’s the one person who already fully knows the truth, and now I have to face him. We just did… well, what we did on the hospital table, where Oliver looked at me in one way, and then as soon as he saw the results his expression changed completely. He looked at me like I’m a stranger to him and I don’t like the way that feels at all. He doesn’t trust me anymore, he doesn’t think I’m smart and unique anymore. He probably just sees me as another dumb bitch who doesn’t know what she’s doing.

I push out the door and I race out the room, shoving Oliver out the way as I go. I know I’m acting like a crazy person but there’s an odd rest mist in front of my eyes and with my heart thumping in my ears I don’t know how I’m supposed to behave. I just want to get out of this place and deal with this shit all by myself, I don’t want to talk to anyone about this. Least of all him.

“Louise!” a voice calls out from behind me. Because it isn’t Oliver I stop in my tracks. I go against everything that I’ve just thought and I wait. “Lou, what’s going on?”

I turn slowly and look at Julia. She spots the wetness on my cheeks and she pulls me into a small room where we can have a private conversation. It seems like she’s already planned for this exact moment to happen. She opens up her arms and I fall into them happily, needing her embrace.

“Oh, Lou.” She strokes my hair in a caring gesture. “What’s going on? Is it bad? Really bad?”

I do need to get some of this off my chest and I might not have known Julia for a long time but she’s the best friend that I’ve ever had in my entire life. I need her support right now.

“I’m pregnant,” I mutter into her chest. “I’m having a baby with a man that I don’t know.”

“What?” Julia pulls back to look me in the eyes.

I can see pure shock in her expression. It looks like she didn’t expect this just as much as I did. “You’re having a baby with Oliver?”

“Oliver?” I shake my head rapidly. “No, not Oliver. Why would you say Oliver?”

She shrugs her shoulders and her cheeks go a little red. “Oh I don’t know. I just thought that you guys had a thing. There’s a lot of chemistry between you two that I thought you haven’t yet told me.”

I cannot even begin to deal with that right now. I shake my head again and tell her the truth. The truth that I should have told her in the beginning. “No, with Adam.” I cringe as the words fly out of my mouth. “I should have told you, but I had sex with him. I’m embarrassed and I don’t know why.”

“Oh, honey.” Julia grabs me in for yet another hug. “We’ve all screwed guys that we’ve regretted before. It’s just one of those things. You think I haven’t made a mistake in my life? I’ve made plenty. You don’t ever have to be embarrassed when it comes to me.”

I let out a little giggle, trying my hardest to lighten the atmosphere. “Oh thank you, Julia. I don’t know what I’d do without you. Thank you for listening…”

“So what are you going to do?” Her question reminds me of the actual problem I’m facing right now, which isn’t that I need to reveal all of my secrets. “About the baby, I mean?”

I pause for a moment and let my brain reel over all of this. Nope, still nothing useful comes to mind. Not yet. “I don’t know yet, that’s kind of what I need to figure out. Right now, I need to get the hell out of here so I can be at home and work that much out. I just ran out on Oliver after I found out the news and I really don’t want to see him right now.”

“Ah, because you like him.” Julia nods knowingly. “Of course, you don’t want to face him.”

“No, not because I like him… just because I have to work with him, It’s weird, isn’t it?”

“Wait a minute.” She holds up her hands to stop me. “You just got examined by him? That’s how he knows, right? Is that a bit weird? Isn’t there someone else you could have seen…”

“I know all of that.” I cannot deal with any of this right now. “Yes, it’s weird.” I’m not going to tell her just how weird, this isn’t the time or place for that. While secrets haven’t gotten me far up until this point, I can’t unload everything all at once. There’s only so much that Julia can take. “But that’s unimportant. Right now, I just need to get home, that’s all I can think about.”

“Of course. I’ll help you.” Julia moves towards the door and I follow her closely. “I’ll get you out of here, then you go home. I’ll have to stay here for the rest of the day, but I’ll come and see you later when I finish, okay? This isn’t something you should have to go through alone.”

My heart heats up, I feel overwhelmed by her kind gesture. “Thank you, Julia. That honestly means the world to me. You’re such a good person. I honestly don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Well you don’t have to worry about that,” Julia smiles at me. “I’m your friend now, I’m always going to be here. You aren’t alone at all.”