Eleven Weeks by Lauren K. McKellar Page A

bed is empty, the quilt pulled up, and the sheets tucked in, as if he had never even been there in the first place.
    On his pillow lies a note, man-scrawl scratched across its surface in blue hotel-room pen.
     
    I’ll keep your secrets.
    I just won’t be one.
     
    Ouch.

December 17
     
    N OTHING SAYS I’m a glamorous eighteen-year-old who has just finished school quite like lining up at the doctor’s for the second time in a month. Because the pap smear wasn’t enough. Ugh.
    I take my phone from my handbag and click the screen on. Nope. Nothing. No new messages.
    I don’t know why I think there will be. I’ve been waiting for a text from Michael all week, but since I was the one who pushed him out the door, who made him think I was embarrassed of him? I guess it was really no wonder.
    He’s not good for me. I have bigger things to worry about.
     
    Me: Why did the calf cross the road?
     
    I hit send before I can stop myself. What am I doing? I’ve made it perfectly clear to Michael that I’m not interested, meaning I have him right where I want him.
    So why am I sending him a text message?
    Sometimes, you do something even when you know it’s bad for you. You break the rules; you indulge when it’s forbidden. And as you do it you think, screw it, damn the man, I’ve got this—I deserve this. I get this one small thing as a reward for all my times of good and hard work. Then you remember you don’t deserve shit. Because if you did, you wouldn’t be paying for your rebellion right now.
    At times like this, it’s easy to become addicted to pain. Especially when it’s self-inflicted.
    I glance around at the six other people in the waiting room. There is an elderly couple; the woman clutches the man’s arm as if she is afraid his skin will wrinkle up and drop to the floor. Well, more so than it has already.
    Then there is a guy a little younger than me—sixteen, maybe?—and a woman who looks to be mid-thirties. This is a sexual health clinic, a free doctor service that deals with all things between the sheets—what problems do they have that call for a visit to the sexy doctors’?
    I busy myself with imagining their problems while I wait my turn. Maybe mid-thirties lady is a porn star. And sixteen-year-old has a weird fetish for cotton wool, and wants to know if it is normal to wrap his penis—
    My phone vibrates on my lap. I look down and smile. Michael.
     
    Michael: To get to the udder side. You’re gonna have to do better than that, Allison …
     
    I smirk. I guess that means he doesn’t hate me, at least?
    “Stacey Allison.” A middle-aged man walks out into the waiting room from a poorly lit corridor behind him. At least it isn’t the same guy who gave me the pap smear. Must have rotating rosters.
    I stand up and sling my handbag over my arm, then follow the doctor down the hall into a small office. It is just like every other doctor’s office I’ve ever been to: clean, full of medical equipment, the good ol’ height-to-weight chart on the wall, and a model of a vagina. Well, okay, so maybe that wasn’t in every doctor’s office.
    “Hi, I’m Dr Simpson.” The doctor sits down in a chair next to his desk and gestures for me to take a seat on the one behind me. I oblige.
    “I’m Stacey.” I smile, then cringe. “Sorry, you already know that …”
    Dr Simpson doesn’t let my awkwardness fluster him. “So, what can I do for you today?” He smiles a thoroughly pleasant smile, the kind that makes me feel completely non-intimidated. I hope cotton wool ball guy gets this doc, too.
    “Well, so …” I swallow. Oh yeah. This isn’t a social call. “I think I’m pregnant. I mean, I am. Well, I did a test, and it said I was, so I kind of presume that it’s most likely a foetus growing inside me.”
    The seconds tick on into what feels like hours as the doctor licks his lips, takes a deep breath—ew! He’s a mouth breather—and then tilts his head to the side, studying me.
    “And