LOSING YOU

Chapter 73- The Years That Passed

I look at him... He's frightened, baffled, furious, and alarmed. The day has finally arrived. I fist my hands to my sides as the past six years flash in front of my eyes. Incidents after incidents, which made me stronger, which made me braver, destroyed me slowly...

I get up, check the calendar and realize that I'm running late... My periods are late. No. Not so soon. I don't even know this man yet, at least not that much as to bear a child with him...

I go to the hospital alone because Vivaan isn't free. I fill in my form and wait in the lobby, the receptionist tells me to go in after some time. I get inside the room and a woman around forty greets me with a smile.

"Mrs. Mehra. Please sit." She says, signaling to the chair in front of her desk. I sit down and she asks me about how long I've been married and all that. Then she tells me to lie down on this bed kinda thing. She pulls up my shirt to expose my stomach and pours some aloe vera gel on my stomach. I flinch as the cold gel touches my skin.

"Sorry, I know it's cold." She smiles. I like her, polite and friendly. Then comes a transducer on my stomach. She spreads the gel using it and the screen on my right flashes something. My uterus. It's an ultrasound. I don't understand anything in there. She looks at the screen and her eyebrows shoot up. She looks at me.

"Siya, how long have you been married?" She asks.

"Three weeks, doctor." I already told her...

"But you are three weeks pregnant." What?

"Maybe, because on my wedding night..." How do I tell her that Vivaan didn't use a condom? I try to look for words and then I find them.

"We didn't use protection... I was about to get on the pill but..."

"Siya, it takes at least two to three weeks to conceive after sexual intercourse to get officially pregnant. Let's say that you got pregnant after your wedding night, then too, you should not be more than one week pregnant." She says. I think about what she says. I think hard, putting all my calculations and logic into play. This means that I was already pregnant on my wedding night. This means that it happened two or three weeks before my marriage and at that time I was with... Kabir. Oh, my holy fucking fate. I gulp and look at her.

"This is not Vivaan's baby then?" I ask her, as I feel the fear seeping into my veins, which were already gushing with hot blood.

"No, not if you two had sex before marriage, which you didn't, right? Now, you tell me whose baby this is." She says, cocking her head to her side, not a little bit of judgment visible on her perfect and slightly wrinkled face. I tell her the whole story and she listens to me amazed.

"You should inform him." She says, referring to Kabir.

"I can't, doctor." I sigh. I feel the lump growing in my throat, I haven't felt this lonely in my life as I'm feeling right now, I'm pregnant with my first child, and telling about it to anyone is the last thing on my list, I can't even call the man.

"Why?"

"If I call him, he'll come here, which is a threat to his life. My dad and my husband will kill him. Maybe, my father's men are still keeping an eye on him. I can't afford to lose him any further." I say as my dad's threat from the night of my engagement rings in my head.

"Then do you want to abort, Siya?" She says. I screw my eyes shut and pinch the bridge of my nose. I have two options, either I can begin from scratch and start a family with Vivaan, or I can raise Kabir's child, the only thing in my life which has some value, which gives me a reason to live, which gives me moments to cherish and memories to get nostalgic about, which is the only thing close to him that is left in my life.