Sitting back on the bathroom floor, I grabbed some toilet paper and wiped my mouth off, then I put the phone back to my ear and closed my eyes. “Hey Becca,” I said. “I need you to do me a favor.”
“Anything.”
“I need you to bring me a pregnancy test. And hurry.”
* * *
After hanging up the phone with Becca, I called my doctor’s office back in London. It was five hours later in London, so the office was just about three minutes away from closing, but thankfully the receptionist picked up.
“Hello, Dr. Lipitz office, how may I help you?”
“Yes, hi,” I said. “My name is Katherine Stevens, I have been a patient of Dr. Lipitz for probably five years now, and I was just calling to double check that I am still on schedule with my appointments to receive my birth control shots. Usually, you guys call me by now to set up a time for me to come in for my next one.”
“Sure, let me just take a look at your file.” I heard the woman typing away on the computer and then a second later she made a clicking sound with her mouth. “It looks here like we have it on file that you moved back to the states.”
“Yeah. I did. But I don’t remember mentioning that.”
“Well, apparently you told someone, and they took note of it. We didn’t call you to make an appointment because we figured you were getting set up with a new doctor there.”
“So, in theory, whenwouldyou have called me if I was still in London?”
“Your next shot was scheduled for last week.”
My stomach dropped. “Last week?”
If the woman said anything else after that, I didn’t hear it. I couldn’t hear a thing. It was as if I was wearing earmuffs. My vision got blurry, and I had to sit down on the edge of the tub because I felt like I was going to faint. A short while later, there came a knock at the door. It was Jonah.
“Hey Kat, uh, Becca is here. She said you asked her to bring you something from home?”
I got up, slowly, and opened the door to the bathroom. Becca was there holding a plastic bag and looking nervous, and Jonah was eyeing me with confusion. “Tampons,” I said because I couldn’t think of anything else.
He nodded. “Ah. Okay. Well, carry on.” He walked away and Becca came inside the bathroom and handed me the box with the test in it.
“You ready?” she said.
I shook my head. “No. But I have to do this anyway.”
I ripped open the box and started to read the directions.
Chapter Eighteen
Jonah
Becca and Kat seemed to be in the bathroom for a long time, but I didn’t think it was my place to question it.
I assume Kat got her period and was embarrassed because she didn’t have anything on hand, so she called her friend who came to her rescue. If she had been comfortable enough to tell me, I could’ve checked in Victoria’s bathroom for her. I was, after all, a single dad to a high school girl, so I had already had my fair share of awkward period conversations and I was pretty much a master at this point.
Oh well, I thought. I figured the fact that Kat called Becca meant that Becca finally knew what was going on between us, and that was a comfort to me. I didn’t fear that Becca would tell Dean, and the idea that Kat felt the need to share our secret with someone important in her life, made me feel like she and I were actually in-sync.
I had worried, a little, after seeing the look on her face when I suggested that we spend the weekend together. I thought maybe I had mistaken the direction we were headed in, and for the whole time she’d been over at my house, I had this thought in the back of my head that she was hating every second of it. Like she was just itching to go back to her apartment, and I was the fool who thought we were having a grand, romantic time.
But I wasn’t a fool. She told Becca, and she wouldn’t have told Becca if she didn’t think this relationship of ours was going anywhere. What would be the point?
I smiled to myself, downstairs in the kitchen, and humored the idea of telling one of my own friends about this thing between us, when I heard the sound of footsteps coming down the hall. I looked up and saw Kat had her overnight bag in hand and was all bundled up to go outside. Becca was standing next to her, still holding the plastic bag she’d brought over.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Are you leaving?”
“I have to go,” Kat said. “I’m so sorry. I know this is all really sudden, but I just—I have to go.”