Taming Damian(7)

"Thank you." I rubbed my hands together nervously as I went into the  room. My body was tense with anxiety and fear as I sat down and waited  for my doctor. I had been feeling sick to my stomach all day and prayed  that the news was going to be good.

"Good afternoon, Alexis," came a male voice from the doorway.

I looked up and saw Dr. Stevens enter the room with his chart.

"Hi, Dr. Stevens. How are you?"

"Doing pretty well. How are you feeling?" He put on his thin oval reading glasses and flipped through the chart in front of him.

"To be honest, pretty nervous." I took a deep breath and searched his  face for clues of what kind of news he was going to tell me.

"That's understandable. Well, we got all the tests results back."

"Okay." I felt my hands tighten into fists as my nails dig into my clammy palms.

"Alexis, the pregnancy test came out positive. You're going to have a  baby." He looked at me tentatively, waiting for me to respond to the  news. I knew what he was thinking. From my chart, he knew that I wasn't  married. He was probably curious if this was good or bad news.

I felt my heart racing inside my chest and was unable to speak. I drew  in a deep, ragged breath to calm myself down. A million thoughts whirled  inside my head, yet I couldn't seem to focus on a single one.

"You're two months pregnant, and at this point, you still have some time  to decide what you want to do about this pregnancy … " Dr. Stevens's  voice trailed off as he watched my reaction.

I frowned at him and was taken aback by what he was trying to say. "I'm  keeping this baby, Dr. Stevens. That's not even a consideration for me."

"Okay. I just wanted to raise that issue now before we talk about your  other test result. You should know that the further along you are in  your pregnancy, the more complicated it would be for you to change your  mind-"

"I appreciate your concern," I interrupted him, "but an abortion is just out of the question."

"Okay, here are the results to the other test we had done."

He handed me the document, and before he began to speak again, my eyes  zoned in on the word I feared the most-the one word I didn't want to see  today.

Oh my God, I'm pregnant with his baby …

The gravity of the news blindsided me, and I found it hard to breathe.  I'd known the tests could all come out this way. I'd known it was a big  possibility. I'd thought I'd been prepared for this. I'd thought I had  mentally braced myself for the one thing I didn't want to become a  reality.

But I'd been wrong.

The test results left me speechless and in shock, and I felt my mind and body violently rejecting what this all meant.

Am I strong enough to get through this? Can I face this alone if Damian  abandons me when he finds out? I feared the moment that I had to tell  Damian that I was pregnant, but what I feared even more than that was  having to tell him everything. I knew deep down that he would probably  leave me the minute he found out.

I stared blankly at Dr. Stevens. I watched his mouth move, but I  couldn't hear a word he was saying. The only thing I heard was a loud  buzzing that rang in my ears as the shock of the news hit me hard. My  mouth opened and I wanted to tell him that I didn't believe him, that  this wasn't really happening to me, but somehow I couldn't seem to make a  sound or move. The room began to spin around me as a dark, heavy fog  fell over me and I watched as Dr. Stevens and the room disappeared into  the blackness.

***

I walked home in a daze, unable to process or accept the test results from today.

Maybe the lab made a mistake? Maybe there was a hiccup somewhere and the  tests came out wrong? Maybe this is all just a bad dream and I'll wake  up any minute now?

But deep down, I knew that the test results were accurate and I wasn't  in some nightmare. Dr. Stevens had warned me that this was a strong  possibility and that we had to plan for it. But when I'd found out that  the "strong possibility" turned out to be the reality, I couldn't seem  to accept it. In fact, my body hadn't accepted it and I had fainted. I  had woken up fifteen minutes later to Dr. Stevens's and a nurse's  concerned faces looking down at me. Dr. Stevens had scheduled me in to  see him again so we could plan out my pregnancy when I was feeling a  little better. But really, would I ever feel better about these results?

My mind was still in a fog-like state when I arrived home. When my tired  body collapsed onto my bed, the gravity of today's events overcame me  and I broke down and began to sob uncontrollably. As the streams of  tears flowed down my cheeks, I wept for everything that had happened  today, for everything I knew was about to happen to me, for everything I  knew I was about to lose. I felt all the stress and worry I'd had from  today's results wash over my body like a dense blanket, sinking me  deeper into the bed.                       
       
           



       

Hours must have passed me by as I lay in completely stillness on my bed,  staring up at the ceiling in a wide-awake comatose state. When my phone  beeped and brought me out of my trance, I looked around and noticed  that it was already dark out.

I looked over the alarm clock on my bedside table. 6:43 p.m. Have I been staring at the ceiling for the last two hours?

I grabbed my phone and my breath caught in my throat when I saw that it was a text from Damian.



What are you up to? Beth told me she saw you walk past the bar early this afternoon. Did you get off work early?



I felt my body stiffen when I read the text. I had never thought living  in the apartment complex above Damian's bar would be a negative thing  until now. I knew I couldn't avoid him, not when we lived in the same  building. And I knew I didn't want to avoid him. So I texted him back:



Yes, I'm home early today.



As soon as I sent my text, he texted back:



Something wrong?



I froze at the sight of his question. Can he tell that something is  wrong? I glanced nervously at my phone and then around my apartment-as  if he were around to see my reaction.



No, nothing's wrong. Just feeling under the weather.



I winced when I sent the text, knowing how much of a lie that was. A few seconds later, he responded:



Come down to the bar and hang out with me. It's slow right now.



A part of me wanted to crawl under my duvet and avoid reality-avoid  Damian. And yet another part of me wanted to talk to him, to be close to  him, to see him, even if it meant that I had to lie to him until I was  ready to tell him the truth. And it was that part of me that won over. I  realized that more than anything else right now, I needed Damian. I  needed the Damian I'd fallen in love with-now more than ever.

So I texted him back and told him I'd see him soon. I went to my bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror.

I look like shit. I groaned as I pressed my fingers against my puffy  eyes. I turned on the faucet and splashed some cold water onto my face.  Maybe he's not going to notice.

I applied some makeup and looked at my reflection.

"Everything will be okay. Everything will be okay. Everything will be  okay," I repeated over and over again, hoping that the more I said those  words, the more they'd become a reality.

But as soon as I thought I was calm enough to face him, my composure  cracked and I started crying again. "Why?" I cried out as tears streamed  down my face. "Why did this have to happen?" My thoughts went to  Damian, and my heart ached at the thought of losing him. "Don't I  deserve happiness?"

I felt myself spiral down into a state of hopelessness as I saw the  fairytale happiness I'd envisioned for me and Damian crumbling in front  of me. Just like I had lost my parents ten years ago, I was going to  lose Damian.

My hands moved to my stomach and I shut my eyes, trying to fight back  the tears. "Look on the bright side, Alexis. You're pregnant with a  baby. Maybe it isn't the best of circumstances, but that's something to  be thankful for, right?" My words felt empty as I tried to convince  myself that things would work out.

Maybe things won't be so bad. Maybe Damian will stay. Maybe his love for me is strong enough for this.

I laughed out loud at the thought, but they came out as sobs. I knew I  was only kidding myself to think that Damian would stay in this  relationship. I could tell something was wrong between us. He had seemed  distant the entire week in Italy, which had scared me because that  could only mean one thing: he was getting cold feet about being in a  relationship. I knew that I was the first woman he'd ever been in a real  relationship with. First I'd thought I was just being paranoid, but  during our last day in Italy, I had told Damian that I loved him and he  hadn't said that he loved me in return. If he is having regrets about  telling me he loves me, how will he handle this news about my being  pregnant with-

My thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of my phone.

Damian! I immediately thought, and my heart skipped a beat.