Forgetting Austin

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Ava

We pull up to the hospital and just kind of sit there in the car for a minute. I look at Sean, thank god for Sean's huge unconditional loving heart. I'm so confused in life I don't know what to do. Although Sean is probably one of the best things that's ever happened to me, we haven't talked about what happened the other day. Does he like me, want to be more than friends, could he actually...love me? And I mean like not just friend love, I mean IN love. Why the hell would he love someone whose about to have his best friends baby? Austin. What about Austin? What the hell was I thinking I should've never leaned into Sean! How could I be so...reckless? "You ready?" Sean patiently asked jerking me out of my thoughts. "Y-yeah let's go."

We sit in the waiting room, I'm actually terrified for them to call my name. Does everyone feel like this their first time? I grip Sean's hand so hard when some nurse says Ava York he looks at me like I just broke his fingers. "Sorry" I whisper. I stand and walk over to the nurse wanting so badly to ask Sean to come with me but I think that'd probably just make him even more uncomfortable, and they probably wouldn't allow it anyway. She leads me to a pale green room and instructs me to take a seat. I've never been so nervous to see a doctor in my life. After about 5 minutes the doctor walks in startling me. She's a small petite lady, only about 5'1 with shoulder length caramel hair, a mole in the exact same place as Marilyn Monroe, unnatural grey eyes, and a smile so welcoming and honest you feel the need to reciprocate it.

"Hi I'm doctor, Wylie. And according to my chart, you must me Ava." "Yep that's me." I say in a shaky voice hoping she didn't notice. "It's okay to be nervous, you should've seen me with my first patient, I stuttered so bad I was afraid she couldn't even understand me." That made me laugh and feel a bit more comfortable. "Okay so let's get on down to business, when did you find out you were pregnant?" "Last week, with a home pregnancy test." "Okay so how long were you having symptoms like nausea, increased appetite, etc. before you realized you were pregnant?" "About two weeks." "Great, so are you a smoker or drug user and if so have you used anything of this sort in the past month?" "No I've never taken any drugs other that Advil." "Alright nice, so how about we give you an ultrasound to make sure that everything checks out, I'm gonna call in my nurse and she'll get you all set up in the other room." I just nod my head.

After Dr. Wylie leaves the room I take a sigh of relief only to have the nurse walk in and ask me if I'm ready. She takes me down the hall into a room with one of those machines that you always see on tv and in movies. Panicky I ask "do I have to take my shirt off?" She laughs lightly "no all you have to do is pull it up and lay down on the table." I do what she says and I feel extremely uncomfortable. "Okay so I'm gonna put this this gel on your stomach so we can get started, and just to warn you it is cold." "Okay." She spreads that stuff on my stomach, turns on the machine and we watch the screen as she glides the little handle thing over me. I don't really know what to look for so I just decide upon closing my eyes. "Sometimes the baby can be hard to spot." I open my eyes up and look at the screen and then at her, worry etched on her face. She gets up "I'll be right back" Okay well that was kinda weird.

When she returns she brings Dr. Wylie who gives me a quick smile and gets right to examining me. "You're a hundred percent sure that your pregnancy test said positive right?" She asks calmly "yeah, I still have it in my purse." She continues so move the thingy around and then she stops and looks at me. "I-I don't know how to tell you this but we can't seem to find your baby. Sometimes home pregnancy tests can...be wrong. I'm so sorry." The nurse wipes the gel off of my stomach so I can get up and pull my shirt down and get up. "But I had the symptoms a-and" "I know, these things are tricky. This actually happens a lot. Here's a pamphlet that'll explain everything to you." She hands me the small folded paper and I grab my stuff. "It was nice to meet you Miss York." She says as I walk out of the door, completely dumbstruck.

Sean

Damn I've been in here for a while. I wish I wouldn't have forgotten my phone in the car! I would go and get it but I don't want Ava to come out and see that I'm gone so I guess I'll just wait. Finally I see her walking down the hallway, but something's not right. She looks completely wiped out and shocked. I rush to go see what happened. "Ava! Are you okay? What ha-" "I'm not pregnant." She says before I can finish my sentence. "Huh?" I ask confused.