Chapter Fourteen
Morgan
Friday
“Are you okay?” Nickie asked me curiously. “You feeling better now?”
“Hmm?” I was barely listening, stuck in the same catatonic state I’d been in all week. I still didn’t know how to process this information. It had been hard enough to think about what my future held when it was all hypothetical, but now it was real...and it was damn near impossible. “Oh, erm yeah, a little. I’m going to see my doctor after lunch, so I’ll find out for sure then.”
“You do look a little better,” Nickie observed. “But yeah, might be good to see if he’ll get you anything.”
“Hopefully. I don’t know how much longer I can stand feeling this way.” I was trying to make light of the situation so Nickie wouldn’t pick up on the severity of what was going on with me, but the hollowness to my tone was apparent.
I felt bad keeping a secret from my friend, especially one this huge, but it felt like the right thing to do for now. At least until I had confirmation from a medical professional that I was actually having a baby. Maybe I’d done three tests that all said the same thing, but there was still a small bit of hope. I just couldn’t face getting into it until I had all the information.
I hadn’t even mentioned my hook up with Terrance yet. I was pretty sure Nickie had worked it out, but she was patiently waiting for me to be the one to bring it up first.
It was just so embarrassing to say that I’d had sex with a virtual stranger in a club and now I was knocked up. I couldn’t get my head around the fact that this had happened to me – the person who did nothing out the ordinary.
“You know, if you’re feeling better tomorrow, we’re all going to Lights Out again.” Nickie cocked her head to one side and looked at me curiously through her eyelashes. She flicked her braid in front of her, reminding me of the bird’s nest piled on the top of my head. “I know you’ve been feeling a bit shit, but you’re not working, are you? It might... I dunno, lift your spirits a bit, to have some fun.”
I’d been avoiding Lights Out for so long now, the name actually made me blanche. For some reason, it had become this awful place in my brain, the devil that made me act out of character. “We’ll see,” I replied blandly, refusing to give anything away. “See what happens today when I see the doctor.”
“Yeah, you’ll have to let me know. I have been worried about you.”
Guilt cringed in my chest. I felt horrible for being so quiet when I knew that Nickie would be nothing but kind to me. She’d help me to do whatever I wanted – she’d be the listening ear, the shoulder to cry on – but I just didn’t know what I wanted to say yet. As soon as I figured out how I felt about it at all, she’d be the first person I spoke to.
After all, I couldn’t exactly tell the father now, could I?
“Thanks, Nickie.” I stood up and turned away from her, doing my best to disguise the tears pricking the corner of my eyes. “I will do. I better get back. I’ll text you later, let you know how I’m getting on, okay?”
“See you soon.”
As I walked from the room, that sickly sensation filled my stomach again. Only this time, it wasn’t possible pregnancy related; it was more to do with the image of the apocalyptic future that lay ahead of me, the making of my own doing.
***
“Morgan Roache?” the receptionist called me back into the doctor’s office. “Doctor Cooke will see you now.”
He had my results – that man already knew my future. Deep down, I did, too, but to know that someone else had the confirmed answer was horrible. Each step I took to where he was waiting for me made me feel even sicker than before. My future had already shifted, but as soon as Doctor Cooke confirmed it, I was going to have to start being serious. I would have to sit down and make a real life plan.
That was the scariest thing of them all.
“Hello there, Mrs. Roache.”
He gave me a friendly smile, but I couldn’t even slightly bring myself to return it. “It’s Miss, actually.”
“Okay, well, I have some very good news for you. The tests all came back positive, so you are having a baby...” He continued talking, speaking as if this was good news, something that should be celebrated, but I couldn’t hear any of his words anymore. Only the important ones over and over again.
“You are having a baby.”
I was going to be a mom. I would have a child in my arms, a life that relied solely on me. It was ironic really that the thought scared me so much when I’d been wanting it so badly not that long ago, but it was terrifying when I didn’t have the whole picture. I would have the baby, but not the husband, and that made it scary rather than exciting. I mean, I was still a modern woman and all that, but how could I do this with no help? And no experience?
How did anyone know how to be a mother?
“Thank you, Doctor.” I jumped up quickly, scraping the chair noisily along the ground. “I have to go now.”
“But I haven’t finished...”
“That’s okay, I work in the hospital. I know how to look after myself. I need to get back to work now, actually, so thank you.” I was babbling and forcing myself to smile far too brightly, but I just needed to escape before the panic squeezed all the air out of my lungs. “I’ll just see myself out.”
“Miss Rhodes...” Doctor Cooke wasn’t getting the hint and was still trying to talk to me, but it was far too late for that. I was out the door and gasping noisily.
I just needed to get outside. As soon as I had some fresh air everything would be alright. I’d be able to think better, to see clearer, my body would calm down. I was freaking out, and I really didn’t want anyone else to witness that.
I pushed past people in the waiting room without even looking at any of them and kept on going until the cool breeze was tickling my cheeks.
This isn’t so bad, I tried to convince myself. You want a baby one day; it doesn’t matter if it isn’t exactly as planned.
I wasn’t the first person to get pregnant, and I wouldn’t be the last. People got unexpectedly knocked up all the time, and they coped, so I could do it, too...somehow. Just because it seemed scary now, didn’t mean it wasn’t possible. Loads of people had kids and still kept their careers. I could somehow “have it all,” too.
Ring, ring... Ring, ring...
“Shit,” I muttered angrily as I scrabbled around in my bag for my cell phone. Always at the wrong times I got calls. Couldn’t people sense when I needed some time alone to think? Or maybe they could, and that’s why they chose those exact moments to contact me, purely to wind me up.
Mom.
My mom again with her incredible timing. I hovered my finger over the decline icon, considering cutting her off like I always did, but it wasn’t so instinctual this time. This time there was an unexpected tug in my chest. In this hour of need, I felt like I had to have a comforting voice to speak to, and while I’d never tell my mother the truth about the situation, maybe speaking to her would help me feel better.
“Hello?”
“Oh my goodness, Morgan, I’ve been worried sick about you.” She started ranting before I could get too in depth with my greeting. “Why haven’t you been speaking to me? I bet they’ve been running you ragged at the hospital, haven’t they?”
“Erm, yeah something like that.” It seemed pointless to argue.
“Well, that won’t give you any time to find a man now, will it?”
I rolled my eyes and raised my frustrated eyes to the sky. “Not everything in life is about finding a man, Mom.”
“You aren’t getting any younger,” she informed me as if I was already an old maid. “If you want to have children, then you really need to start upping your game.” My spare hand protectively wrapped itself around my stomach as I thought about the life growing in there.
“I mean, the last thing you want to worry about is heading to one of those awful sperm donor places to make your dreams of motherhood come true,” she continued. “It might seem like a good idea at the time, but I can assure that raising a child by yourself isn’t easy. You’ll need to have someone by your side to help you along the way.”
“But...people do it all the time,” I practically whispered. “You did it with me.”
“Which is why I don’t want it for you. I want you to be able to have a life, too. I love you, Morgan, but it was not easy having you all by myself. I never got a minute to myself.”
I gulped down the massive ball of emotion lodged in my throat. Mom didn’t know it, but her words were cutting it close to the wire. Maybe I wasn’t strong enough to do this by myself, maybe... Oh God, maybe this was all just a big giant mess.
“Yeah, okay, well I have to get back to work now,” I lied through my teeth, this time without a care in the world. I really needed to get her off the phone now; she wasn’t making me feel any better at all. If anything, I felt a million times worse. “I’ll speak to you soon, Mom, okay?”
“Don’t leave it so long next time.”
I hung up and slid my eyes closed for a second, trying to block the outside world out. My mom had me thinking a lot about Terrance, even more so than before, and his potential at actually being a father to this child.
Maybe it was unfair of me to not seek him out, to not tell him. After all, it wasn’t just me having this baby. Maybe he would be a dick, maybe he’d blame me or deny and responsibility, but I had to give him a chance, didn’t I?
Maybe seeing Terrance and judging his reaction would help me to decide on what I did next. I certainly didn’t have any other sparks of inspiration right now.
If I truly was going to see Terrance, then there was only one option available to me. It didn’t appeal to me at all, and it probably wouldn’t even work – chances were he’d already moved on to somewhere, and someone, else by now – but that club was the only place I knew him to be. Unless I wanted to show up at his home like some crazed, random stalker, that is.
I was going to have to suck it up. I would have to stomach Lights Out one more time.
“Nickie,” I made myself sound happy as she eventually answered the phone. I needed her to believe the lie this time. “Good news, as it turns out I’m alright, so I can come clubbing with you tomorrow night, after all.”
“Oh, that’s incredible, I’m so pleased. And, you’re really alright?”
I would tell her when the time was right. I just needed to keep up the lie for a little while longer. “Yep, absolutely fine. So, what time are you and the girls getting there?”