by Adams, S. C.
Yet, I gave it all up. Why? Out of habit, more than anything. And now, I felt hollow and empty. I missed her goodness, her sweetness, and the loving curves of her body. Don’t get me started on our sex life. The physical connection between the two of us was more intense than I’d ever felt with any woman in my life. Up until Abby, sex had almost felt like a chore for me. An enjoyable chore once I got started, but a chore nonetheless because there was no emotion behind the movements. It was purely physical with the other women.
Not with Abby though. It wasn’t just her body, it was everything about her: the way she moved, the way she breathed, and the way she moaned. She was so giving and willing in the bedroom. She wanted to learn my body, and what I liked so that she could satisfy me. And in return, I was obsessed with figuring out how to give her as much pleasure as I possibly could. I yearned to stroke her plush curves once more. To taste her lips, both top side and bottom, and to feel her shaking against me when she reached ecstasy. The reality of it was, she was so open and honest and ready for me because she trusted me. Yet I took that trust, packed it in my suitcase, and then left.
“Here’s your first patient’s file,” Helena softly said to me this time. “Her name is Abigail Turner, forty-five years old, complaining of abdominal cramping and sudden weight loss. Her blood results are in the file.”
I shook my head, still a little distracted. Helena looked at me strangely and then walked away. Clearly, I had to pull it together. First, because I was going to scare the hell out of the nurse practitioners and everyone else here. Second, because I took a vow a long time ago that I wasn’t going to form any type of serious connection with a woman.
I took the job as a traveling doctor for myself, to get out there and see the world. I wanted to learn, not just about medicine but about who I was. I wanted to sow my wild oats, and to ride off into the sunset whenever I was ready. Eventually I might settle down somewhere, but eventually to me was another ten years away, or maybe even more.
Plus, I loved this job. I loved moving from place to place and starting fresh every time I went. I loved meeting new people, not just women, but people in general. I’ve made so many contacts in so little time that even when I do decide to stop, the career options are endless for me.
But now something’s changed. I found myself in Winchester, Iowa, not wanting to be here, and hating my life. The sad thing was, I thought this was what I wanted. How could things change so quickly?
I stood there absolutely miserable. I wondered what Abby was doing in that moment. I wondered if she was smiling and happy, or sad and down like me. But what did it really matter? I was gone. I made the decision and I’m the one who left.
With a deep sigh, I opened up my next patient’s file and glanced over the information with unseeing eyes. This would never do, so I opened the exam door and plastered a fake smile across my lips. I had a job to get done, and the job was everything to me. Or at least, that’s what I thought.
20
Abby
It’s been two months. Two very long, painful months. I wish I could say that I had gotten over Ryder, moved on, and become cheery and happy again. But that would be a lie and I’ve had just about enough lies over the last couple months to last me the rest of my life. Of course, according to Mary, dating and lies seem to go hand-in-hand. That was exactly the kind of thing I did not need to hear while I wondered if I would continue to be single forever.
It’s sad, really. At first, when this all went down, I was in denial. I tried calling Doctor McNamara’s office, hoping that they would give me Ryder’s new contact info. Of course, that was silly because they couldn’t legally give me that information even if they wanted to. I sounded like a stalker too. After all, what was I going to do? Get my car in drive to another state just to confront him? Actually, I probably would have done that if I knew where he was. But no, they told me that Doctor Rivington was gone, and that they couldn’t forward his contact information to me.
Instead, they offered to let me see Doctor McNamara for treatment. But I declined because what was I going to sit there and talk to her about? How I fell in love with her replacement, had sex on the table in her office, and then ended up being jilted and ghosted by the very same man? They would have his license, and I would become some poor, broken “victim” in the headlines. I didn’t want that, not with the #MeToo movement raging.
Nor did I want to call unnecessary attention to myself because lately, I’ve been feeling sick. It’s been two months since Ryder left without a word, and now, I feel queasy. I stood in my bathroom, barefoot, sweat on my forehead, and with the taste of vomit in the back of my throat. When I first started feeling nauseous a few days before, I thought maybe I caught the flu. The lady behind me at work was constantly coughing, and had also complained about an upset stomach for two weeks. I had battened down the hatches, and gotten my blankets and my tea, ready to wait it out.
However, the third time I made a mad dash for the bathroom, something caught my eye as I hovered over the portal to porcelain hell. It was unusually innocuous, a box sitting on my shelf, minding its own business. But this time around, when I saw that box of Tampax, my sweat covered hair flew back and I grabbed it, shaking it wildly in front of me as the unopened plastic tubes bounced all over the floor. I’m pretty sure in that moment there were sounds of agony reverberating through the entire apartment.
It had been two months since Ryder left, and exactly two months since I had had a period. I counted the days on my calendar ten or eleven times before I realized that no matter how many times I counted them, I was still going to come up with the same number. And as that crumpled paper calendar fell from my hands onto the floor, I instantly lost all ability to use my brain. The only thing I was able to do was call Mary.
“I think this is the second time that I’m going to say this in the last couple months but you really need to calm down because I can’t understand anything you’re saying,” Mary said listening to me sobbing on the other end of the phone. “All I got was something about your heart; something about a crushed box of tampons; and somewhere in there was the lovely sound of you heaving into the toilet. Either you’ve decided to commit some sort of strange form of seppuku, or something tragic has happened.”
Taking in a long deep breath, I calmed myself down and leaned against the counter, feeling the nausea hitting me again. “I thought I had the flu. Maybe I still have the flu. But I haven’t had a period in two months and now I’m puking my brains out.” For the first time in our friendship, Mary was oddly silent. “Mary? Did you hear me?”
She started to breathe again. “Sorry, had to collect myself since I seem to be the only rational person in our friendship these days. Okay, this is what I want you to do. You know how you cleaned me out a drawer in the bathroom on the left-hand side for when I spend the night?”
My eyes shifted over to her drawer which she had covered in sparkly unicorn stickers. “Uh-huh.”
“Good,” she replied sternly. “Go in the drawer, and underneath my makeup case is a pregnancy test. And before you ask, yes, I keep one in the drawer because you never know when you might just need one. Case in point, today.”
I walked over to the drawer and pulled it open, lifting up a makeup bag to find just that, a pregnancy test. I held the box in my shaking hands, my heart beating wildly. “So I just take off the cap, pee on the stick, and then wait?”
“You need me to come over there?”
I shook my head sniffling. “No. I got this. I’m going to take it and then I’ll call you back when I know something.”
“All right, good luck,” Mary replied cheerfully.
I was pretty sure I could hear a tremor in her voice. She was finding my ventures into the dating world to be slightly comedic, yet also horrifying. Maybe it was because she’s been through it all. It was a good thing for me though, as now I had a tour guide to walk me through it.
Tearing open the package I pulled out the stick and the instructions. I unfolde
d the pamphlet and looked at the pictures about how to pee on the stick and how long to wait. I wrote down the time and then shoved the pamphlet back in the box. I knew enough about pregnancy tests to know that a plus sign meant yes and a negative sign meant no.
I took the cap off and hovered over the toilet, attempting not to pee on myself. I counted out loud trying to get the perfect amount on the absorbent tip, put the cap on it, and carefully placed it on the small shelf next to me. After cleaning myself up, I turned away from the counter, not wanting to see it until it was absolutely, positively done.
My brain was screaming at me at that point. I should have realized the possibility that I was pregnant. I was so used to being a virgin though, and missing a period didn’t seem strange to me at all. I wasn’t a girl who got her period every twenty-eight days. I was the girl that had a visit from Aunt Flo every thirty days, sometimes every forty-five days, and sometimes twice a month. It really just depended. So when my time of the month didn’t happen, I honestly didn’t even notice. It wasn’t until I saw that box of tampons that I realized it had been a little over two months, which spelled trouble.
It was a harsh realization. It definitely was nothing like the commercials on TV where a woman jumps up and down with joy upon seeing her pregnancy test while her husband waits outside. There was certainly no man in the picture for me. It was just another depressing story in my life.
Plus, it was strange being the one waiting for the test results. With Mary, I had been on the other end of things multiple times. Mary was a bit of a hypochondriac when it came to pregnancy. If she was even an hour late for her period, she was peeing on a stick and freaking out. They always came back negative because she’s been on birth control since middle school. Her mother saw the wild child in her before she was a wild child. Smart woman.
But there I was, pacing back and forth in front of my mirror, halfway talking to myself, and trying to keep my mind off the pink and blue stick sitting on the shelf. It was amazing how such a small item struck fear into the bravest of women’s hearts. Honestly, I really wasn’t that afraid. No, the rapid beating of my heart in my chest, and the wild butterfly feeling in the pit of my stomach was more anxiety than it was fear. I was trying my best not to allow my brain to start rolling down avenues of the unforeseen. I wanted to know what that test said before I started thinking about potential ramifications.
After all, there were two sides to everything. On one hand, I was elated. I had fallen in love with Ryder, and that was no secret. From our first steamy meeting at the gynecologist’s office, to our warm days on the beach and hot nights in the hotel on vacation, I was head over heels for him. Not only was he my first, but we connected on a level that I didn’t think was possible between men and women. At least not from what I had seen in terrible chick flicks.
Plus, the sex was absolutely amazing. Every single time we made love, it was full of passion. Even on vacation when we made love multiple times, the passion was always there. It surged through me every time he put his hands on me, and even now, standing in the bathroom, I could feel that intensity again, hitting me low in the belly.
As a result, I knew that our baby was conceived with love. And while not planned, he or she was not a mistake either. We were two consenting adults that chose not to use protection, and with Ryder’s child, I would have a wonderful reminder of this gorgeous man. Call me childish or naïve but that’s just how I felt in the pit of my stomach.
On the other hand, what the hell was I thinking? I’m an underemployed high school graduate who lives in the apartment above her mother’s garage. How in the world would I support a baby? I’m barely even getting by right now. I have no career prospects, and no hope of furthering my education either. So how would the child and I scrape by?
At that moment, the phone buzzed on the counter and I picked it up, putting it to my ear. As expected, Mary was on the other side.
“So are you carrying the doctor’s illegitimate child? Is this another Days of Our Lives? I feel like you could be part of a soap opera except you aren’t rich and you haven’t had an affair with a hot shirtless Spanish man named Rico who speaks zero English.”
A soft chuckle came from my chest, cutting through the hurt and pain I was feeling.
“I’m still waiting on it to be done. I was just thinking about everything. How I tried to contact Ryder after he left. How I still wonder if he actually thinks about me.”
Mary breathed deeply into the phone, and I knew she was about to give me some cold, hard truth.
“Listen to me, Snickers. This is hard to swallow, but Ryder Rivington’s gone. He purposely left without leaving his contact information. In fact, he hasn’t reached out to you once in the two months since. He’s not coming back, no matter what the test says. I love you, but the sooner you get over this, the sooner you can move on with your life and do what’s right.”
I didn’t want to believe her, but I knew that Mary was only saying what I already knew in my heart. Ryder was gone, and he didn’t care about me anymore.
21
Abby
“I don’t need you to tell me that,” I replied. “I might have all of these thoughts, and all of these hopes and dreams for the return of my sexy doctor, but I’m fully aware that the chances of him coming back are below one percent. If I’m pregnant, I’ll be doing this on my own.”
“I’m sorry Abby,” Mary said in a low tone, her voice genuinely apologetic. “I know that I’ve been tough on you but I want you to know that it kills me to see you hurting so badly. I never wanted you to go through this. I always wanted you to be that one friend that ends up with the perfect guy, whom she dates for the perfect amount of time, and has the perfect marriage. A marriage where the only fight that you ever got in with him was over the fact that he didn’t put his dirty socks in the clothes hamper. You deserve to be that girl.”
“I wish I had been that person,” I replied, a little sad. “But after I realized that Ryder had changed his number, I knew it was all over. He’s gone. When I think about it, I feel like he never even existed sometimes, like he was a figment of my imagination. The only way that I can prove that he was even here was through the doctor’s office.”
Mary was being very supportive, listening to everything that I had to say. She knew this wasn’t a time for jokes or for cutting in. She knew I needed to talk about it and get it out of my system. I sighed again.
“Do you know how many times I’ve asked myself if he was just merely a figment of my imagination? I felt like I needed to check myself into a psych ward because maybe I’d imagined an entire weekend vacation with some dream guy in my own head. I’m sorry, I’m going insane.”
“No, you’re fine,” Mary said with a sigh. “You’re going to be okay, Snickers. Hang up with me, check that test, and then we can move forward from there. Whatever the test says, we’ll move forward anyway, and I’ll be by your side. I want you to look at this as an exciting new future ahead of you. Think of it as a second chance at life. You can literally make it into anything that you want to, and you don’t have to worry about offending someone else or mashing together ideas. You can let your own genius run free.”
I gave a half smile, grateful that my best friend had my back like that. “Thanks, Mary. I’ll call you back soon.”
Hanging up the phone, I sat it gently on the counter, my eyes going to the pregnancy test sitting on the shelf. I slowly walked toward it, wishing I could just stay in this limbo forever. Because as soon as I looked at that test, no matter what it read, everything was going to change for me. If it was positive, well then I had some big decisions to make. If it said negative, then it the end of my time with Ryder. I needed to let him go and move on with my life.
I closed my eyes for a moment as I reached up and gripped the stick. I brought it down in front of me and slowly opened my eyes. My head immediately tilted to the side and my mouth fell slightly open. I’m not sure why I wasn’t prepared to see the plus sign on the pregnancy test, bu
t it took me by complete surprise. I slowly backed up and flipped the toilet seat lid down, sitting and just staring at the plastic indicator.
Holy shit, I was pregnant. I was going to have Ryder’s baby. My heart was beating a hundred miles an hour, and my emotions were twisting and turning like a roller coaster inside of me. I was extremely excited, and then suddenly very sad, and then back up to extremely excited again. I was actually pregnant.
I looked down at my stomach and then shook my head ruefully. It wasn’t like you got a positive pregnancy test and then suddenly you have an eight-month round baby belly. But I was still in awe. There was a child inside of me right now. There was a child who was made with passion and love, with a world of potential before him or her.
I sat there quietly, just staring into space. Everything about me felt like it was changing all at once. I was no longer alone, not even inside my body. I had a future that, in an instant, had been completely rewritten. I would have to rethink everything.
“A baby,” I whispered. “Ryder’s baby.”
Walking over to the mirror, I stood there and stared at my own reflection. I was no longer looking at a naïve girl who was afraid of speculums and lubrication. I could see a mother in my own face. A mature woman who would soon bring another life into this world. I was overwhelmed by the idea that I was actually going to create another human being and then raise them to be an adult. I felt like whoever was responsible for handing out the pregnancies gave me this pregnancy for a reason.
Suddenly, resolve filled me. The child growing inside of me was most likely going to be my only link to Ryder. It was going to be the only keepsake from the happiest time that I had experienced up to that point in my life. The child was going to be a reminder of the pain that he put me through, but it was also going to be a reminder of love. That love was possible. That I am no longer destined to die the old cat lady. That realization alone was worth its weight in gold.
