Chapter Twelve
Morgan
Monday
Urgh, why did I always wake up feeling like shit these days? It was as if I never got any sleep, even when I’d had a full night. The exhaustion was truly getting to me, even making my body ache all over. If I allowed myself to believe it, I could truly start to think that I was coming down with something...
Oh God! It was official, I was sick. This time as I forced my body off the bed, I was overcome with an intense heat, a dizzying sensation, the feeling that I was definitely, certainly, one hundred percent going to be sick. I raced to the bathroom as fast as I could, and threw up everywhere. I vomited until I felt like I had nothing left inside of me.
Panting breathlessly, I eventually allowed my body to fall back onto the cool tiles of my bathroom floor. My hands clutched my pounding forehead and my eyes slid shut, just to block the world out for a moment.
I couldn’t take the day off work, however deathly ill I was feeling. The hospital always felt understaffed as it was, and it was much too late to have someone cover me. I would just wear a mask over my face at all times to ensure no one else caught whatever the hell it was that I had.
With a loud groan, I pushed my body off the floor and physically forced it into the shower. The steaming jets of water helped to wash off the sick feeling and clear my head, so by the time I got out, I felt like I was a little more prepared. Maybe not totally ready for a full day of caring about other people’s problems, but good enough to cope.
***
Coming into work was a massive mistake I should never have made. I staggered into the break room and slumped into the nearest chair, allowing my eyes to fall closed. This was tiredness on another level. What the hell was wrong with me?
“Hey, you okay? You look like shit.”
“Thanks, Nickie, blunt as always.” I sighed and allowed the light to shine back into my eyes. “I do feel like shit, actually, but you know how it is.”
She made up for her harsh words by handing me a much needed cup of coffee. Funnily enough since feeling extra tired, I wasn’t up for a lot of caffeine, but right now it was like heaven wrapped in cardboard.
“You’re always tired these days.” Nickie sat down beside me and shot me a look. “What’s going on with you? Are you doing some late night partying without me?”
“Ha, as if!” If only that was the case, then at least I’d have an interesting story to tell her. “No, I think I might be coming down with something.”
“Well, you have been working every weekend for the past month or so, maybe that’s why? Maybe you’re overdoing it. Why are you doing so much extra work? Are you having money troubles or something?”
“Erm, I just want to save up for somewhere better to live, you know how it is.” I was only half lying. I did want that, but it wasn’t why I was working so much.
I desperately wanted to avoid being asked to go out again. I wanted to bury my head in work to get back to the “real me.” My moment of madness with Terrance had affected me in ways I hadn’t expected. I guess I wasn’t the type of woman who could justify a night of fun to myself – it just wasn’t the life for me.
I could only blame my mother for that! She was ingrained too deeply into me; it really wasn’t fair.
“Well, I’ve missed you a lot. I haven’t even been able to tell you about-”
“Oh God,” I interrupted Nickie and jumped from my seat. “I feel...” But I couldn’t finish my sentence. Instead, I ran from the room to the nearest bathroom to throw up all over again. I’d been feeling waves of nausea all throughout the morning, but it hadn’t been this bad.
It seemed that I wasn’t as over my illness as I had first assumed.
“Are you okay?” Nickie hammered on the door, worry lacing her tone. “Morgan, are you alright? Do you need to go home?”
“Maybe,” I admitted, wiping the splashes of sick from my chin. “I think I might have a bug or something. I don’t want to pass it on.”
“Are you sure it’s that?” There was a teasing tone to her voice now that she knew I wasn’t dying. “Are you sure you aren’t pregnant? Fulfilling Mommy’s dreams just without the boyfriend or husband?”
“Oh, you’re so funny,” I replied weakly. “You know you have to have sex to get pregnant right?” I was just about to declare that I hadn’t had sex in forever, but I stopped myself just in time. Anyone could be listening out there, and I didn’t want the whole world to know that I was practically a born again virgin.
Except...
Oh shit!
Mental calculations raced through my brain as I recalled the feeling of Terrance inside of me. My one night of madness. Did we use protection? I could barely recall that now, my brain was driven by lust – all I could think about was him and my desperation for him. Had I made a fundamental slip up along the way and allowed myself to make this huge mistake?
I felt numb and panicked all at once, almost like I was having an out-of-body experience. Now that this potential possibility was in my mind, I was going to have to get a test just to eliminate the change. It was far more likely that I was just sick, but I wouldn’t be able to relax for the next nine months if I didn’t one hundred percent know for sure and I really didn’t want to add anxiety to my ever growing list of problems.
“Morgan, do you need me to get someone?”
“N...no,” I made myself get up, even though my body desperately wanted to remain curled over in that position forever more. “I’m okay, I’m coming out now. Then I’m going home, if that’s alright.”
“We’ll sort it, don’t worry.” I pressed the cubicle door open and fell into Nickie’s arms. “I’ll get you into a cab home.”
She was a good friend, and in that moment, I was so grateful that she was there. I would potentially need her a lot over the next few months, depending on what happened next. I didn’t want to think about the chance of the test coming back positive because it would confuse absolutely everything: my home would have to change as I really would need a bigger place, my life would be different, my career would have to go on hold, even my body would never recover.
It would be the longest ever payback for ten glorious moments of fun.
***
“Yes, here’s fine, thank you.”
I tried to give the cab driver the bill, but he kept shooting me a confused look. “Ma’am, the girl who called me was very insistent that I take you home.”
“I know that, but I need to go to the drug store to pick up some medication.” My teeth were gritted as I spoke, frustration was circling my stomach. “And I only live just around the corner, so really, this is fine. I’ll tell my friend that you took me home, okay?”
He wasn’t happy about it, but as I dropped the money on the seat next to him and hopped out, he didn’t have much choice in the matter. I was a woman on a mission. I needed to get that test to shut up my negative brain, and there wasn’t a damn thing anyone could do to stop me.
I grabbed a basket as I stepped into the store, needing to grab a few items to cover up the one thing I really needed. It felt like a stupid trick, probably an age old one that they saw all the time in here, but there was no way I could just grab a pregnancy test and boldly take it up there. I wasn’t brave enough. This just wasn’t me, and I didn’t want anyone to think it was. My eyes flickered untrustingly towards the counter, to the geeky teenage guy who would know more about me than anyone else did, before fixing back on the shelf in front of me.
My heart hammered anxiously, my mouth ran completely dry, my body shook with terror, but I had to go for it. I needed this, just to chill myself out.
I grabbed some vitamins, a couple of drinks, and some headache pills, before forcing myself down the right aisle. I shouldn’t be here, not until I was married or at the very least in a steady relationship. I never thought I would be the naïve girl needing a secret pregnancy test – especially not at the grand old age of twenty six, when I was supposed to know better. But it seemed that life had thrown me a crappy curve ball.
What happened next became a blur as my brain seemed to block it out in sheer panic. All I knew for sure was that I grabbed the test and somehow managed to pay for the items. I may have even made some small talk at the counter, I wasn’t totally sure.
As the fresh air hit my face, my body didn’t stop freaking out, and I didn’t think it would until I’d done the dreaded pee. My emotions continued to dance all over my body as I pushed the door to my apartment open and raced to the bathroom.
Once inside, I tugged out the test and grabbed the instructions. I could barely read them because my eyes were blurry and my hands shaking with fear. Still, it seemed pretty simple: pee on the stick and wait for three long minutes for the results to be revealed.
Oh God. The three minutes that would change my life.
Once the deed was done, I paced the room anxiously. I couldn’t look at the stick, not until the three minutes were done, because the wait would kill me even more then.
I jumped high into the air as my phone started to ring, I’d almost forgotten that the real world existed until that moment. I had no intention of speaking to whoever the hell it was because I was in the middle of a crisis right now – and that feeling intensified when I noticed my mom’s name on the screen.
It was almost as if she knew.
I hit the reject button quickly and threw my phone in the other room. There was no way that I could speak to her right now. I just needed to get through this with my sanity intact.
Had it been three minutes? I wasn’t quite sure. It felt like I’d been waiting for three damn years. I needed to know, I had to find out. I tiptoed quietly, cautiously, as if I was about to touch a bomb...which was almost the truth.
I touched it lightly, barely brushing my skin against the plastic, and picked it up gently. My heart pounded so loudly I feared it might burst from my chest at any given moment. I felt like I had cotton stuffed into my mouth, and my fingers hurt with nerves.
This was the scariest moment of my whole damn life. The world shrunk down, everything zoned into only me and this test. I needed to see it, just to confirm that there was no longer anything to worry about. That was all this was...
Positive.
The blue cross was there. There was no denying it.
I was having a baby.
Fuck.