“I cannot talk to you while you’re being so unreasonable.” Dad looks his nose down at me. “This conversation is over for now, but we will revisit it when you are in a better frame of mind. When you’re ready to be rational, let me know.” His eyes flicker up and down me. “Do not destroy my company over this. Do you hear me?”
As he storms out, doing the one thing that I wanted to do, there’s a thick tension in the air. I can almost sense everyone looking at one another, wondering what to do now. It’s awkward as fuck, but I’m about to make it a whole lot easier for them. I storm out too. They will all be gossiping all afternoon, and I don’t want to be here for that. Fuck them, let them talk, I have something else I need to do.
It might be time to start planning my future, being something else other than the manager of my father’s marketing company. It’s time to step out from his shadows and to finally be myself. Without a plan, I have nothing, but with something written down and started, at least it’s one step in the right direction.
A step towards a future where the apron strings are cut and I’m finally fucking free.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Lexi
“I’ve been sick for a while now,” I tell the doctor in a trembling tone. “It’s been so bad that I haven’t been able to go to work for a week or so, and with all my family history… well, I’m worried.”
I can’t express the depth of my worry, it’s almost crushed me completely. It’s taken every ounce of my strength to get here. I want to know, I need to know what’s wrong with me but it’s utterly terrifying at the same time. My heart races, my foot taps nervously on the floor, I don’t know how I’m managing to remain upright in this chair.
Why is he taking such a long time to react? Why isn’t he telling me? Does he already know that I’m doomed?
He nods and frowns, clearly worried too. This is what I’ve been dreading ever since I woke up and projectile vomited all over my room. I didn’t even have the strength to clean it up until it had gone hard and crusty. I haven’t felt like me ever since that moment and it hasn’t changed. I don’t know what the early signs were for Jane, but I keep thinking that it was like this. The disease is hereditary, and it’s made its way to me.
“I see,” he tells me in a gravelly tone. “Well, I will run blood tests while you’re here, to see what we can tell. I’ll immediately send the blood sample to the right department, but they can take a while to come back.”
“I will stay,” I insist. “I need to know what’s going on. I can’t put it off any longer.”
He nods and asks a nurse to come and run all the tests for me. The nurse talks to me while he’s sticking the needle in my arm, probably trying to make sure that I don’t scream, but I haven’t got anything in me to make any noise. I’m numb, swallowed up by thoughts of being sick as well.
I feel like I deserve this sickness more than Jane, but now when I am here, I hope that it is not the case.
Once the nurse is done, I am sent out into the waiting room to pass the time, while I wait for the results to come back. I could read, there are plenty of books and magazines littered around, or I could look through my phone, maybe reply to some of the messages that I’ve received over the past few days – although notably, I don’t have any from Jane who still won’t let me see her – but I don’t. I just stare at the wall, looking at nothing in particular, thinking about nothing in particular, waiting like a statue.
I probably should spend the time planning, thinking about what all of this means, guessing what I’m going to do next… but I can’t. It’s like I’m frozen in time, in limbo, until I know for sure.
Any minute now… are the only words to circle through my head. Soon, everything will change…
“P… pregnant?” I stammer, unable to drink that in. “What do you mean, pregnant? That isn’t…”
I can’t say that it isn’t possible because I’m perfectly aware that it is. Me and Isaac haven’t exactly been the most careful. When we get caught up in the heat of the moment, I don’t think either of us have thought about it. That was stupid. How freaking naïve. I did biology in high school, I know what lack of a condom leads too… yet I managed to lose my head anyway. I got so wrapped up in him that everything else blurred into the background.
Oh, but reality is back with f
ull force now! It’s got me good and it won’t let me go. How more real can it get than a baby growing in my stomach? One that’s half me and half a man that isn’t exactly known for commitment? I know that things have changed for us and it isn’t an arrangement anymore, but it isn’t serious either.
A girl like me is a fantasy, short term, sexy fling. Not a long term, baby momma sort of deal.
He’s wealthy, from a good family, has good prospects… and with all that stuff comes expectations. I’ve met his controlling father. I know what sort of woman he will be expected to marry, and it isn’t me. The girl covered in tattoos, with brassy red hair, and genes that don’t fit into the old money world.
Plus, in the office when it’s just me and him, it’s one thing, but I don’t know that we have enough in common to make it work in the real world. I have been narrow minded while falling for him, consumed by my tunnel vision, but this appointment has opened my eyes wide up and forced me to see the truth.
We don’t stand a chance. We never did, but now there is another life riding on that.
“Fuck.” I rake my fingers through my hair. “Fucking hell.”
“I take it this wasn’t planned then?” the doctor asks, bemused.
“You could say that,” I reply wryly. “Certainly not expected either. This is just… so is this the reason for my sickness?”
“Pregnancy is the only thing that has been making you sick, yes.”
This is good news… but also terrifying. I don’t know what to do. Instead of being on the brink of death myself, I’m about to bring a life into this world. That’s absolutely crazy.