Submitting to My Best Friend's Dad by Scarlett Rossi
Chapter 89 -

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A day later and finally home, I made a point of making a doctor's appointment because no matter what I did, the nausea did not subside. I would be fine one minute, and then the next thing I knew, I was throwing up. Nothing I did made it better, and by this point, I was wondering if I was actually sick or if it could have been something else.

"No, Dad, I'm going to the doctor, I promise," I said through the phone, my father having called me twice to check on me already since I had been back. He worried I had picked up some unknown strain of virus in New York City. Not that you couldn't. Lord knows the subway system carries all kinds of germs.

"Well, I want you to let me know as soon as you get done at the doctor exactly what's going on," he replied.

"I will, I promise. Just go enjoy yourself with your girlfriend. She sounds really sweet. What was her name again?" I asked, trying to remember the woman's name my dad was now seeing. He hadn't been with someone in so long, but for the last few months, he had been dating her; he seemed happy.

"Her name's Kathy. She's a lovely, retired nurse. She isn't your mom, of course, but she makes me happy. I just want to make sure that you're okay with it."

"I am okay with it," I laughed through the phone. "You deserve to be happy. I'm tired of seeing you so sad all the time, and Mom wouldn't have wanted you to just live in misery forever. She would have wanted you to move on. She even told you that before she passed away."

"I know," he sighed. "It's just, I don't want you to think that I'm trying to replace your mother."

It was sweet how he constantly worried about this, but he didn't need to be. I wanted him to be happy, and I was an adult. He had to move on with his life, figure things out and make new memories.

"I'm not a little girl anymore, okay? Don't worry about upsetting me; I'm a grown woman. I'm going to accept whoever you choose to be with, as long as they're treating you well."

Saying our goodbyes, I hung up the phone and prepared myself to head to the doctor's office. A lot was running through my mind and my upcoming finals in a few weeks were one of them. It was going to be the last series of tests I had to take before I was allowed to start my internship.

I was definitely looking forward to my internship. I was excited about the idea of being able to leave this campus, go stay somewhere else, and work towards proving myself for placement after college.

Grabbing my car keys and my purse, I headed from the apartment downstairs to my car. The doctor's office, unfortunately, was a good thirty-minute drive from where I lived, but they were worth it.

I saw a woman named Dr. Carter, and she literally did everything in her office, from regular primary care all the way to gynecology.

It was a one stop shop, and even though it took a long time to get appointments with her, she was more than eager to get me in. Which kind of surprised me, honestly, because I wasn't due for an appointment with her for a few weeks. This was simply an emergency walk-in visit.

As soon as I got in my car, I felt the wave of nausea roll through me again. Taking deep breaths, I tried to push through it, but unfortunately, in the end, I had to open the car door and hurl up the contents of my breakfast all over the ground. Trying to gather a moment before I put the car in gear again, I took deep breaths.

I may have craved apple spice oatmeal, but my stomach said no thank you.

Forty-five minutes later, and with absolutely nothing in my stomach, I made it to the doctor's office with a smile on my face, hoping she could tell me what the hell was going on with me.

"Becca, how lovely to see you! I'm so glad that you could make it," Dr. Carter said from the receptionist desk as she picked up a few pieces of paper.

"It's good to be here. I'm actually kind of surprised I could get in with you so quickly. For a minute there, I thought I was going to go to a walk-in clinic."

She hushed me with her hand and a smile on her face before gesturing for me to follow her. "Don't be silly. I think I know what's wrong with you. But let's get you to the back and check. Janet, sign her in, and I'll take her with me."

Janet didn't bother to say anything to me. Instead, she nodded her head at Dr. Carter and typed away at her computer like a madwoman. The sound of her nails tapping the keyboard filled my ears until I disappeared behind the back doorway. I was confused by what the doctor meant. She said she knew what was going on with me, but I hadn't even properly explained to her what the issue was. Nevertheless, I followed her through the doors towards the back, where she had her different exam rooms.

Before stepping into the room, though, she grabbed something off a nearby cart and turned around to face me. "Urine sample, please."

"Why?" I asked with hesitation. She'd never done this before.

"Just following procedures. We'll do a complete check up on you just to make sure everything is okay."

Hesitating for a moment, I took the cup and nodded as I set my purse down inside the room and made my way to the bathroom. I didn't understand why she would need me to do a urine sample, but going ahead and doing what she asked, I finished my business and made my way back to the room with haste.

"Here you go," I replied, handing her the cup, which she took with a gloved hand and sat down on a metal tray.

"So why don't you tell me what you've been up to lately and also how long you've been feeling like this?"

“Well, I have been trying to make it through my last year of school, for one. Summer didn't exactly go as planned down in Miami. Lord knows, you know Tally. I know she sees you for her Depo shots, too. She's quite the character," I replied, going through the series of events of a milder form, of course, explaining to her the fun that we had and the places we went.

"Oh, dear. She will grow out of it, eventually. I heard that she's expecting, though. That sounds like fun," Dr. Carter replied with a hint of a grin on her lips as she turned to type something into her computer.

"Yeah, she is, and she's handling it rather well, which is unexpected, but I mean, she has to do something. She has another life she is going to have to take care of."

Dr. Carter said nothing about my comment, but she nodded her head slowly before her eyes glanced from the computer back towards me. "So, how long have you been feeling like this?"

"Um, it started maybe about five days ago. It was really unexpected. Honestly, I figured maybe I'd gotten food poisoning because I'd been staying with a friend of mine in New York, but he had eaten the same foods that I did, so there was no way it was food poisoning."

"Oh, have you been seeing him long?" she asked in a singsong voice as her eyes widened and her smile got brighter.

"No, we've only been dating each other for maybe a week. We were friends before."

That didn't seem to be the answer she was looking for, and now thoughts were running through my mind about what she thought was wrong with me. There was no way in hell I was pregnant.

If that's what she thought was going on, she was sadly mistaken.

"Was there nobody else that you've been seeing then?" she hummed, pulling out a pregnancy test from a drawer, setting it next to the urine in the cup.

"Dr. Carter, I am not pregnant. I get my Depo shot on time, all the time. I'm careful. I always have been... you know this."

Hesitating for a moment, her brows furrowed, and she looked off to the side, as if pondering something, flipped through my chart, checked, and then looked back at me again.

"Becca, you have indeed been very consistent with your Depo shots, however...you were supposed to have gotten your shot again two months ago." Her words made it seem like time had frozen for me. What the f*ck did she mean two months ago?!

"No, that's not possible. I literally got it before I came down on vacation to Miami-"

Hearing myself say that, I froze.

I literally got it before I went down to Miami.

That was back in June.... Oh, my God... I'd missed my shot when I came back!

"Becca... I hate to break it to you, but your roommate was supposed to have gotten it next month, not you," Dr. Carter replied, placing a hand on my knee as she tried to comfort me.

My appointment card had gotten messed up with Tally's, and I had been so busy with everything that had happened through the summer, I didn't realize my three months had ended at the end of August. Even then, that meant Tally hadn't gone to her last two shots either, considering how far along she was. "Tally missed as well," I whispered, shaking my head.

"Tally hasn't been here in almost a year. We just kept sending reminders to her. That must've been what you thought was yours."

My eyes shot up to hers with shock. "What the hell-you know what? I don't wanna know why she stopped her birth control."

The doctor laughed for a moment, shaking her head as she held up the test. "Want to replace out."

"Just do the test," I said in a ghastly voice as my eyes watched. Dr. Carter nodded slowly before taking the pregnancy test and dipping it into the urine.

Those three minutes were the longest three minutes of my life.

I waited t for the dye on the tests to process, only to show me the answer I already knew. There on the test were two bright pink lines, and a confirmation that shattered my heart.

I was f*cking pregnant.

Tears burned my eyes as I stared down at the test sitting on the tray. How in the hell did I, of all people, allow this to happen? There was no way. Absolutely no way.

"Is there a way for us to tell how far along I am?" I asked as I tried not to break into a sobbing mess.

"Oh, sweetie, it isn't that bad, and you're almost done with school, aren't you? So by the time the baby is due, you will have made it through graduation."

"Doctor, please," I sobbed as I wiped my tears from my face. "Can we determine how far along I am?"

"Of course, we can. Follow me into this next room. I'll do an ultrasound and see if we can't see something. You might feel a bit of pressure though because we're going to have to do a vaginal ultrasound, but I think you're probably around six weeks from the sounds of it."

I wasn't sure at all how she would even know that, but I was eager to see what exactly was growing inside of me. Of course, one day I wanted to have children. I just never imagined it would be like this.

I never imagined I would get pregnant while in school. I wanted to graduate, start my career, build a savings account, and then look at getting married and having children.

With me laying upon the small silver table, she turned off the lights and turned on the ultrasound machine. After a few uncomfortable moments of her probing inside me, trying to replace the right position, she brought up the picture of a small jelly bean on the screen.

"So I stand corrected," she said in a very humorous tone. "You are almost eight weeks along."

I was stunned. I should have gotten my shot back in August, but it was now almost November, and I was eight weeks pregnant.

"I thought it could take months after being on the Depo for so long for someone to conceive. How is this even possible? Was the shot defective?" I asked her as she removed the wand and cleaned me up.

"No, that is typically true, but every woman is different. Becca, you're about seven weeks pregnant. Just over actually, and your baby looks healthy and is growing. I will set up some lab work to get everything taken care of, just to make sure." As she went over the list of things I needed to do and what she would do for me, my mind went blank. The only thing I could think of was how Neal was going to handle this.

The baby wasn't his, obviously....

No, in fact the baby belonged to James.