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"Do you have a bug? You shouldn't go over there today. You don't want Danny to get sick."
I sink down into a chair at the table. "I was fired. Danny won't get sick." I don't like the sick taste of acid in my throat. I need to run the water so the vomit will go down the drain but I can't make myself.
"Go back to bed, buttercup," my dad says. "I'll clean up."
If my dad weren't here, I'd be crawling upstairs. But he is here, which means that I slowly and unsteadily make my way to the stairs and climb up them. They feel like they are a million miles long. I know that there are fewer than 2 dozen steps, but it doesn't feel like it at the moment. When I get upstairs, I go into my room and close the door. Then I throw myself facedown on the bed.
I wake up when someone turns the light in my room.
"You awake?"
"Yeah," I say, my voice a little bleary.
"I brought you some peppermint tea," my dad says. "That's what your grandmother used to give me."
My grandmother died in a car accident before I was ever born. I know that she was a terrifying lady but one with a heart of gold.
"Thanks, Dad," I say, sipping a little of the tea after taking the mug from him. It feels good. I realize that I didn't even rinse out my mouth after barfing.
"Do you want to see a doctor?"
"It's probably something dumb that'll disappear in a day or so," I tell my dad.
Famous last words.
Chapter 30
Hyperemesis Gravidarum
Elia
After a week of nonstop barfing when I wake up in the morning, I realize that I have to face the truth and leave the house. I'm not ready for a doctor to confirm my hunch, so I wait until Dad has gone to work before going out to the nearest pharmacy.
I buy an EPT and creep into the de
serted bathroom in the back. I pee on a stick and count the time in my head. After I've counted enough seconds, I look at the stick.
Positive.
Part of me wants to go out there and buy more tests. But the rational part of me knows that there's a chance that I need to talk to a doctor.
"You're pregnant."
I stare at the OBGYN that I looked up on the Internet. Not long ago, I was going to a pediatrician.
"I'm sorry, what?"
"You're pregnant," she says.
"I can't be pregnant," I say.
"Well, you better get ready for it. The baby is coming, whether you like it or not. Would you like an ultrasound?"
"I guess," I say.
"I have to warn you, it's going to be intravaginal. You aren't far enough along for us to do it externally," she warns me.
"Okay," I say.
