THIRTY.

CHAPTER THIRTY - Reese .


I hated hospitals, seeing thousands of sick people who came in for either checkups or needed treatment had me feeling anxious. I disliked the smell of medicine that jabbed my nostrils each time I entered, it made me feel sick to my stomach too. My phobia for medicines and injections had caused me to despise visiting the hospital when I was ill as a kid—I had dreaded getting vaccines or illnesses that requested needles piercing deep into my skin. I cried and threw tantrums when this happened. My cry was the loudest whenever I had to take an injection. Coming to the hospital brought back memories.

I decided to come in for a check-up as I haven't been feeling too well. I was either fatigued or fragile to get anything done. I was led to the waiting room where I waited for my name to be called, my eyes roamed at the charts they plastered to the wall—one had the anatomy of the human body, the other had the anatomy of pregnancy. I cringed just by seeing that. I shook the thought away from my head as I knew it wasn't possible. The last time I saw my period was two weeks ago so I didn't think I couldn't have gotten pregnant. Additionally, I made sure I was on my birth control pills, due to the fact that I could not be pregnant.

The wailing from a toddler had caught my attention in the waiting room. The mother had a worried face when she heard her child cry out with his hands hanging up in the air. She patted her child's back gently as she sang nursery rhymes to the child. Soon, I heard the child giggling at the funny face the mother made in order to stop her child from crying. Their moments together felt so wholesome as the baby had reached its hands into its mother's breast. The mother had brought out one of her breasts, her baby latched on her breast.

My mind went back to the first child my mother had told me she birthed. This must have been the joy my mother felt when she had April. It made me wonder what April looked like? Aside from that my mother told me she looked exactly like me, I still wished she was alive. Maybe if April was alive, we would have the strong sister bonding, there were going to be a lot of fights but that was what siblings were made for—to be annoying. Maybe we could have gone shopping. In some way, I yearned for her presence.

“Miss Quinn?” I heard the nurse call. I rose from the couch at the very time that she ordered me to come along with her. She led me into a room that I guessed was the doctor's consulting office. “Mr. Fredrick will be here in a few minutes, do keep patient.” The nurse gave me an assuring smile and then left.

It took about seven minutes before the doctor could come. A man in a white coat who looked to be in his mid-forties came into his office with a delighted smile on his face.

“Pleased to meet you, Miss Quinn.” He greeted me.

“Thank you, Doctor,” I replied.

“So. . . you came in for checkups because you noticed you are having fatigue, am I right?”

“Exactly.”

He listened attentively, scribbling down what I had told him into his jotter pad. “Right, what other symptoms did you notice?”

“High body temperature , aside from that too, I feel so fragile. I get dizzy too which has made me slow in carrying out simple tasks.”

“Hm. . . any feeling of nausea or a strange taste in the mouth, like some sort of metallic taste?” He inquired.

“Yes, I have also noticed some changes in the taste in my mouth. It's absurd.” I stated. He nodded his head in agreement and then continued writing on his jotter pad again.

“Any sign of headache? Bad Migraine?”

“That started yesterday.”

“I will take that as a yes. Any sign of heartburn?”

“No.”

“Noticed odd pains and sensations around the abdomen?”

“Not at all.”

“Alright. We will have to run some tests for you before you go, to find the underlying cause of these symptoms. A nurse will get that prepared for you.” He smiled again and we both left the consulting room.

About thirty-five minutes later, a test was carried out. In a way, those tests they carried out seemed tiring to me as I was already fed up. All the symptoms the doctor had asked me for were similar to the symptoms most women had when pregnant but I couldn't be pregnant. I refused to believe that I was. I was asked to wait in the waiting room to get back my results. It was a long wait and this had made me unsettled. I was beginning to get angst, if this truly meant that I was pregnant then I was done for.

“Reese Quinn?” A voice pulled me out of the trance of my thoughts. I gazed up to look at who it was. I stood from the couch and she had to lead me to the same consulting room I was, earlier minutes ago. The nurse gestured for me to have as

I found the doctor already sitting in his office chair with his eyes glued to the computer system as he typed on the keyboard before turning to me.

“Welcome back, Miss Quinn. According to the tests we carried out,” he took a look at the results. “It shows that you are two weeks pregnant.” The moment he said that my ears were ringing and burning from what he had told me.

“Pregnant? How? I was on my menstruation two weeks ago, and I. . . there must be a mix-up.” I tried to keep calm.

The doctor handed over the test result to me to clarify things for myself. I checked to see if they had the wrong name but I was wrong. There was my name, written boldly on the test result.

“Yes Miss Quinn, there's a high possibility that the menstruation you saw isn't menstruation. It is called an implantation bleed, your fertilized egg that embedded itself in the lining of your womb. This bleeding is often mistaken for a period and it may occur during the time your period is due.” He explained.

“So all this while when I thought I was having my period, I was bleeding?”

“Yes, Miss Quinn.”

“But I was on birth control too,” I claimed.

“The birth control pill is ineffective, you can get pregnant if you miss using your pills.”

It occurred to me, that the night Luther had sex with me, I forgot to use any of my pills as we were both engrossed that very night. Where do I go from here? My life was doomed. I didn't want to have a baby, this wasn't what I planned for myself. How could I have been so stupid and foolish? This was a mistake, a huge one at that. I didn't know what Luther was also going to say, was he also ready to raise a child?

I thanked the doctor and walked out of the hospital with a gloomy look on my face. I had instructed one of Luther's drivers to take me to the hospital without telling him a word to Luther. I still needed time to think. Whilst walking, my phone chimed signaling that I got a message from someone. It must have probably been Regina, I unlocked my phone to check what the message said. It was an SMS instead, a recorder from unknown contact.

I looked confused and clueless, I tapped on the play icon that showed on it and it began to play. It was a record of Luther, moaning and growling and confessing to Petra how he loved her and wouldn't let her out of his sight for a second. This was a voice record of Luther and Petra having sex. Out of all days, this person chose to send the voice recorder on the shittiest day of my life.

That was it! I was leaving Washington and C&O limited, for good!


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