Beating For Two

Chapter 4

A few more days passed by and I was starting to notice a couple of side effects of being pregnant. One thing was that I was craving salty food and not just a little, but loads of it; fries, chips, peanuts, pretzels, salty licorice and everything else I could get my hands on. I was always eating and it made me feel fat, which again made me depressed and I wound up eating even more to comfort myself.

Another thing was that I was horny. Constantly. I felt like I was fourteen years old again, wanking at least two times a day; in the shower, in bed at night, in bed during day, basically anywhere suitable.

A third effect was that I was having a lot of crying attacks. For the most insignificant matters and at the most inconvenient times and places, I found myself tearing up and sometimes it led to full on sobbing. A particularly awkward situation had been when it happened in an English class. We were working on a text in our books that was just about the most stupid and braindead thing I'd ever read and before I even knew what was happening, tears were running down my cheeks and I was thinking to myself how sad it was that authors actually wrote texts that were so bad, and that if it went on like this, good literature would soon be an endangered species. That again filled me with the feeling of desperation that I'd gotten way too well acquainted with lately, which made me cry harder.

When I wasn't busy eating, wanking or crying, my thoughts strayed to Harry and to the ever-present question of whether or not to have an abortion. I hadn't even gotten him to believe that I was pregnant – not that I could blame him –, so to ask him if he thought I should keep it or not wasn't really an option. Not yet at least. He'd said that he would come with me to the doctor and I knew that everything now really depended on that one visit. Not that I expected him to be a father for his child – if I chose to keep the baby it was my own problem to deal with –, but I needed him to accept the fact that he had an unborn child before I could decide on whether to keep it or not.

Thursday, December 9th

Twelve weeks and three days

“Hey, doc, it's me, Louis, dunno if you remember me.”

“It's a little hard to forget the guy who comes into my office thinking he has a stomach bug and walks out thinking he's pregnant.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

I hadn't went to school that Thursday because of a particularly bad puking-scenario that morning, which was probably caused by the bag of chips I'd gotten up at four am to eat. So besides me, the house was empty since mum was at work and Owen was at school. I was sitting in the kitchen, on top of the counter with a box of Ritz-crackers next to me, and after a lot of hesitating, I'd finally picked up the phone, dialled the number to the doctor's office and gotten transferred to doctor Martin Wright. The only thing I would do was set up an appointment for an ultrasound that I could bring Harry to; I was not about to schedule anything related to an abortion.

“So I assume you've talked to... Harry, was it?”

“Yes, and yeah, I have.”

“What did he say?”

“Basically that he thought I was crazy. But he agreed to come to an appointment with me, so that's kinda why I'm calling.”

“To set up an appointment?”

“Yeah, for an... ultrasound or whatever else can help me get him to believe that it's real.”

“An ultrasound would probably be the best way to go. I'll set you up with an obstetrician as soon as possible then. When would you like it to be?”

“Oh. Whenever, I guess,” I said hesitantly.

“Would tomorrow work?”

“That soon? Sure, that's okay.”