Page 73 of Dash

Unknown:

Dear Miss Harrington. You are now overdue for your appointment with the practice nurse. Please contact the surgery as soon as possible to reschedule.

I didn’t think it was possible for a soul to leave a body, but that is what happens to mine. I’m pretty sure I transcend to another dimension the moment the ramifications of that message sink into my brain.

Every part of me drops into a black hole beneath my feet.

No. No. No.

Fuckity, fucking, fuck.

I scroll up the message thread, seeing reminder after reminder, telling me to make appointments, but nothing for the last seventeen weeks.

That nausea curling in my stomach is no longer an irritation.

It’s a fucking symptom.

I don’t care that I’m supposed to be working, I shove up from my desk and rush across the floor to the fire exit.

Usually, there’s somebody smoking out here, but luckily everybody is set up ready to start work.

My heart is thundering as I dial the surgery. It takes far too long for someone to answer, far too long for worst case fucking scenarios to run around my brain.

“I just had a message about making an appointment for my birth control shot.” The words spill out of me in a rush, panicked and breathy. “I didn’t get a reminder. I rely on the reminders.”

I’m aware I sound hysterical, but I don’t care. Because if my calculations are correct, I’ve been having unprotected sex for the entire time I’ve been with Dash while thinking I was covered.

I’m going to pass out.

I’m going to puke.

I’m going to maybe do both.

I bend over, putting my head between my knees as I try to breathe past the choking terror.

The nausea. The tiredness.

I’ve had sensitive boobs all week—I thought it was hormones. Ovulation—I don’t fucking know. I was so busy getting smashed by Dash, I didn’t stop to think about my fucking uterus.

“I’m sorry, Miss Harrington. The messages that usually go out are on an automated system,” the receptionist says lightly, as if she’s not running a bulldozer through my life. “We had some problems with our computers when those messages were supposed to go out, so I don’t think you got a reminder. Do you want me to make that appointment now?”

Her perky tone almost has me screaming into the phone.

I force calm into my voice. “I’ve spent the last two months having the best sex of my life with a guy who has awards in orgasms. And all that time, I was letting him come inside me because you didn’t send a reminder to tell me that my injection was due.”

The silence that follows is choking. Awkward. She clears her throat, as if she’s digesting my confession.

Then she says quietly, “Miss Harrington, you’re seven weeks late with your shot. If you’ve been having unprotected sex in that time, I’d recommend taking a pregnancy test before you recommence your birth control.” If this woman was standing infront of me, I’d kick her in the fucking ovaries. “Would you like me to make the appointment?”

I don’t know what I say to her after that. I’m pretty sure my brain blacks out. Somehow, I make it back to my desk, my head whirling.

The nausea is worse, and I don’t know if my body’s just being a dramatic bitch or if it’s reacting to a potential Dash-shaped deposit that could be hijacking my uterus.

I get through to lunchtime, even though I feel like I’m going to have a heart attack.

At the stroke of one p.m., I’m out of my seat, snatching my bag, and rushing out of my building before anyone can say a word to me. I don’t have time for idle chat. I need to get the fucking test and figure out if I’m fucked or not.

I power walk to the farthest part of town so I don’t run into anyone from work and find a small pharmacy buried in the back of a shopping centre. I’m wheezing when I slide the pregnancy test on the counter, and I feel the weight of judgment from the clerk, even though she says nothing.

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