USED & ABUSED [Daryl Dixon - Book 1]

Chapter 23

"Lorna White?" A young women called out, smiling brightly as she looked around the waiting room.

"Come on." Daryl said as he stood up, his hand firmly gripping Lorna's as she slowly rose from her seat.

"Right this way." The nurse said brightly.

Lorna and Daryl followed behind, both feeling as nervous as they looked.

"Just take a seat and the doctor will be in shortly." She smiled.

They teens stayed silent and watched as the women left the room, leaving them to their own thoughts.

Lorna sat down nervously and Daryl stood beside her protectively as they waited for the doctor to arrive.

Eventually a short, blonde haired women entered the room. She looked nervous, and unsure as she entered. She smiled and pushed her glasses up her nose.

"Hi, I'm Dr. Denise Cloyd, you must be Lorna...obviously." She muttered the last part more to herself.

Daryl and Lorna looked to each other skeptically as the Doctor took her seat.

She took a deep breath and smiled at the teens. "You'll have to bear with me. I'm fairly new to this."

"That's fine." Lorna said, trying to ease the doctors nerves.

The doctor smiled. "Now, I'm just going to ask you some questions and then I can examine you properly."

Lorna nodded her head, nervously.

"Now, do you know the rough date of your last period?"

Daryl cleared his throat, feeling slightly uncomfortable with the topic of conversation even though he had expected such questions.

"Sorry, there will be more like that." Dr Cloyd told Daryl.

He nodded slowly.

"Um..I don't really remember...I wasn't exactly regular."

The doctor nodded. "That's okay. When was the last time you had sexual intercourse?"

Lorna shifted nervously. "Four months ago, maybe." She said unsure of the exact date, the date and event she most definitely wanted to forget.

The doctor nodded. "At the time were you using any kind of birth control?"

"No." Lorna answered, looking down at the ground.

"Okay, well I'm going to do a blood test, did you do a urine test on your way in?" The doctor asked.

Lorna nodded.

"Good, I'll just set up for the blood test."

Five minutes later and the doctor was sending off the vials of blood.

"Now, Lorna if you could just lay down on the bed, I'm going to do a sonogram, check the baby's heartbeat and see how far along you are."

Lorna laid down on the bed and Daryl stood beside her, holding her hand tightly.

"You'll be okay." He whispered. Her hands were sweaty and she was shaking violently.

"Deep breath Lorna, there's nothing to be scared of." Doctor Cloyd said, trying to calm her down as she squeezed the warm jelly onto her stomach, just above where her leggings settled around her body.

Lorna looked away from the screen and kept her eyes fixed on Daryl, who couldn't take his eyes off the screen.

It took around five minutes before the doctor began speaking again. "There's your baby...growing nicely by the looks of it." She smiled, Lorna still made no effort to look. "And there's the heartbeat." She said happily as the thumping beat of the monitor echoed around the small, cold looking room.

"Lorna, are you going to look?" The doctor asked.

"Its definitely alive?" She asked in a small voice.

"Yes, that's you babies heartbeat.."

"Is it healthy?" Lorna asked, still keeping her eyes firmly fixed on Daryl's face, who was still gazing at the monitor.

"Yes, you're around fourteen weeks now, the baby looks very healthy and is the perfect size for the gestation."

Lorna nodded. "Okay."

"Are you going to look now?" The doctor asked.

"No." Lorna replied.

The doctor frowned and Daryl noticed.

"It's alright, Lorna. You can look. It's more of a blob with sticks." He said trying to make her laugh, but she didn't.

"I'm scared that if I look at it, I'll start to love it." She whispered.

Daryl nodded in understanding.

"Okay, let's get you cleaned up then." The doctor said as realisation hit.

"Let's get you home." Daryl said gently as he wrapped his arm around Lorna's shoulders.

Lorna was quite the entire way home. They should have been going back to school, but Daryl sense that it wasn't a place she wanted to be.

As soon as they arrived Lorna went straight up the stairs to bed, leaving Daryl on his own sat at the table, to do his own thinking.

Her words were constantly being repeated in him mind.

"I'm scared that if I look at it, I'll start to love it."

He understood what she meant by that, he really did, but that was her child, her flesh and blood and she was afraid to love it, that wasn't how it was meant to be, a child should be loved by its parents, but he understood where she was coming from. She didn't want to become attached.

He did wondered though if he had unknowingly influenced her decision to put the baby up for adoption.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the small black and white picture he had snagged before leaving the doctors.

To him it was just a blob with sticks, but it was more than that. It was a baby. He could see that now.

He knew he felt something when he watched the monitor as the doctor showed the baby on screen.

Then when he looked down at Lorna's face he knew that he had to do something to save her from anymore heartache, he had to protect her like he promised.

"Lorna, I'm going out. I'll be an hour or two, is that okay?" He shouted up the stairs.

"It's fine." He heard her broken reply. He could tell that she had been crying.

He felt bad for leaving, but there was something he needed to do.

He got into his truck and headed straight to the school in the hope of seeing Mrs Peletier, maybe a better understanding of what they wanted to do would ease Lorna's and his own mind.

He didn't realise how big of a mistake he was making by leaving Lorna alone.

•••

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