Page 7 of Say I'm Yours, Firecracker

C’mon, itspinned.

The thought clanged around in my head and heavy emotions I really don’t want to deal with today assaulted my already sensitive heart. It was going to be non-existent by the time I called the father. A not so random guy now.

My eyes traced over the room. On the table, there was a paper-like cover laid over top of the leather, and a blue piece of fabric folded and placed near the end.

“If you would, please remove your bottoms and cover yourself with the blue cloth. I’ll be right back and we’ll get everything taken care of for you.”

She left the room, shutting the door with a final snick. I took a deep breath, modesty had never been my middle name, but for the first time since I took my first pregnancy test a little over twenty-four hours ago, it finally felt real.

I refused to get my hopes up though because this shouldn’t have been possible, and I don’t know if I could survive it if my body hurt my little bean. I undressed from the waist down like Dr. Ass asked, situating my body on the cool cream leather and drapped the blue fabric across my bare legs.

I had to admit this experience was much nicer than the doctor I’d been seeing since Bellamy and I came into town a few years ago.

Ashton-because I should probably stop calling my new doctor “Ass” even if it was her initials-came back, with who I assumed to be Regina in tow. Regina rolled in a cart with all kinds of devices, colors, and tubes, it all tumbled over in my head.

“Regina, you two met earlier. This is Veronica, though she prefers Ronnie.” She waved a blue-covered hand and beamed a smile my way.

“Ronnie, Regina will be taking a couple of tubes of blood to test your varying levels, and then we’ll get to the ultrasound, is that okay?”

I nodded, unable to really look away from the tray Regina slid out from somewhere on the cart. She arranged a few of the colorful tubes in a row complete with a needle that was attached to the plastic thing for collecting blood through, gauze, alcohol pads, and that blue bungee cord I hated.

I tried not to tense my muscles as Regina started to talk, it wasn’t that I was scared of needles, I just didn’t particularly like the pain they caused. Which was why I had my one and only tattoo. I liked adventure, and I could never back down from a dare, two things that landed me with a bite mark permanently tattooed on my ankle.

Thanks, bestie.

Regina strapped the rubbery but pinchy cord apparatus around my arm tight, and then poked and prodded at my inner arm for a nice fat vein to bleed. When she was satisfied by the one she’d found, she cleaned the area and slid the needle in. I couldn’t hear a word she said. Honestly, I don’t think I listened to anything she’d said since she started.

It’s a curse really, my thoughts bounced from one thing to the next. If my therapist had anything to say about it, she’d call it my coping mechanism. I’d had to juggle so much on my own from such a young age that jumping from one task to another was learned early on.

The curse really came in handy during wedding season, which for Bellamy and I was all year. I don’t know how I got lucky enough to work with my best friend, but I thanked my guardian angel every night before bed that I had her.

The blue fabric shifted as Dr. Ashton positioned herself at my feet. My feet, that she magically moved into stirrups while my mind was elsewhere. Regina smiled like this happened all the time. I looked down at my elbow to see a neat bright green bandage wrapped around gauze to keep my blood from ruining my clothes while it dried.

“Okay.” I breathed. Anticipation lit up my stomach, or maybe it was the pop-tart I ate on the way over. Either way, Dr. Ashton was explaining the wicked-looking white wand that couldn’t possibly be going where I thought it was.

“What kind of torture device is that?”

I hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but I realized my mistake the moment Regina and Ashton burst into laughter.

“We’re doing an internal exam. We want to get accurate measurements as soon as possible.” Her smooth voice calmed me down, if only a little before she piled lube up on the wand at an alarming rate.

“It may be slightly uncomfortable at first, but I promise it gets better, and it won't take long.”

I snorted, that should be the warning label made for some men.

She counted down from three and slowly pushed the device into my body. The screen crackled white and black static for a few seconds while I felt like she played peek-a-boo with the baby.

Baby.

The moment I thought of it, she was pointing at the screen where I could clearly see what a little human looked like in my body. She talked some more about size and weeks, but it all sounded like static to me. I still couldn’t believe this was possible.

Could I even carry a baby full-term?

“....six weeks along.”

I tried to wrangle my thoughts back into the present, the questions could wait, maybe I could make a list and tackle them one by one…my thoughts stopped at the sound coming out of the machine.

th-wap th-wap th-wap

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