The John Hughes Club

Chapter Fifty Eight

Feeling like I'm having an out-of-body experience, I emerge from the A&E side room, disconnected from everything and everyone around me. I know that my feet are working, it's just they're not really feeling like my own right now.

"Mindy?" Rising quickly out of his seat in the echoey corridor, dad rushes to my numb side. The worry that was etched on his face when he had to leave me alone with the nurse in that stuffy salmon-coloured room, has now merged into manic-like confusion upon seeing my robot-like appearance. "What did the nurse say?" he pleads, wanting to understand why I am moving like a lost and disoriented ghost who can't seem to find her way back home.

"Can we please just go?" I bewilderedly beg. I've been in this place for far too long already, the entire building feels like its sterile walls are now closing in on me. "I need to get out of here," quiveringly then exits my throat.

Holding me tighter, dad despairingly looks around, not understanding why we are leaving when I'm clearly not okay. "You're starting to scare me, Mindy. What did the nurse say?"

"Please, Dad?" Using only my eyes, they gloomily plead with him to just get me out of this suffocating hospital.

Switching to Papa Bear mode, dad protectively ushers me past all the poor people who are still waiting to be seen by someone. As we hurry on past them, relief momentarily rushes through my entire body, only for the anaesthetising sombreness to return the moment that we get outside. Filling my lungs with the icy December air, I try gathering all of my frozen thoughts. I didn't even want to come here, but when dad found out that I'd also fainted in netball the other day, he didn't give me a choice. Scared and insistent, he made sure I was soon on my way to A&E. For what felt like a lifetime, we waited to be seen. When I was eventually seen, I was asked a whole bunch of questions about my life and my health. Using her professional persuasion, the nurse warmly requested for dad to leave the room in order for her to check me over. Once alone, she took my temperature and my blood pressure. Casually, she began asking about the cycles of my periods, whether I was sexually active, and about the contraception I was using. Question after question, I nervously answered as best as I could. With a trusting tone and a kind smile, the nurse listened. Eventually, she asked me to provide her with a urine sample, stating that she wanted to rule out a UTI or the possibility of a pregnancy. Not really grasping the gravity of the situation, I had wandered out of that side room, mumbling to dad that I needed to provide a wee sample. Concerned, I could feel his eyes straining on me as I awkwardly took myself to the toilet. Those fatherly eyes, were once again back on me as I returned with my sample to that room. Embarrassed, I had handed my pot of warm urine to the nurse, still not fully grasping the gravity of my situation.

"Dad, I need to tell you something," I croakily begin to explain, suddenly immobilised because I do have to explain.

"You're pregnant, aren't you?" Dad's sad blue eyes lock onto mine, observing every bit of my sadness and my shame.

Overcome with that sadness and shame, my head heavily drops. "I'm so sorry!" With my chin stuck to my chest, sobs flee from me, strangling all of my unintelligible apologies. I want to say so much to my dad, but now it's all lost amongst his quiet disappointment emanating from every one of his parental pores. I can't see him through my blinding tears, but his silence tells me what he's just too stunned to say. "We didn't mean for this to happen...I don't understand any of this...We were careful...This can't be happening." Hugging myself, for dad's arms seem to have removed themselves from around me, I tearfully ramble down to the ground about the despair I numbly find myself in. Hot tears sear my cheeks, leaving trails of their stinging despair across my skin. I thought the tunnels of darkness were in my past, yet here I am, in yet another tunnel of darkness. "I'm so sorry, Dad. I really am sorry." Exhausted, I heave out a sigh of that exhaustion. As the tears continue to come, I have nothing more to say. What more can be said? I'm pregnant. Sixteen and pregnant. I'm no longer my father's pride and joy. I'm now a living and breathing stain on his parental portfolio.

With the heaviness of devastation in my heart and feet, I walk away from my dazed dad. I can't be near his disappointment, it's just unbearable to be this close to.

"I'll call your mum," Dad mumbles from somewhere behind me.

Crushed by literally every aspect of my life, I don't object. "Okay," comes out as an agreeable whisper while a disagreeable war is just beginning inside of me. My mum will be yet another person I'll have disappointed. Rob too, will also hop onto that long train of disappointment. And Chas...what will he think? Thumpingly drops itself into my overcrowded and hurting thoughts. Chas, my Chas.

Just like I can't bear to be near my dad and his suppressed disgust, I can't bear to be thinking of Chas viewing me as the person who has ruined both of our lives. Chas only stopped using condoms because I assured him the pill would be enough. Well, it wasn't. Accepting the full weight of responsibility that this mess is entirely my fault, when I reach dad's car, I disintegrate to the ground.

"Megan, I'll have to call you back!" Without waiting for a reply from mum, dad hangs up to drop to his knees to be by my inconsolable side. "Sshhhhh!" a tremulous whisper of comfort starts filling my ears as his strong arms envelope me against his fatherly self. "It's going to be okay, we'll work this out," Dad softly states, holding and gently rocking me.

Burying my face into his warmth and into his comfort, I try piecing together a sentence between my shaky sobs, "I don't even know where to begin? This is such a mess! Everything is ruined!"

Steadying his own emotions, dad then tries to steady mine. "It's a lot to take in right now, but together, we'll get you through this. Life throws tests at you, Mindy. You have already faced some...you'll face this one just the same." Blinking with swollen eyelids, there's the love that dad has always graced me with, there's his unwavering belief in me. Seeing it and feeling it, the coldness of my shame shudders through the entirety of me. "I'm so sorry, Dad. I'm so sorry that I've let you down."

Determined protectiveness bluely glints in dad's narrowed eyes, glinting brightly as he lifts my chin with a rigid finger. "Don't ever say that, Mindy! Nothing you do will ever let me down. Of course, this isn't something any father would want for their daughter, yet here we are. You being pregnant is an unexpected turn of events, but you're going to deal with this using the guts and the strength that I know you have inside of you." Tightly, he then holds me again. Tightly, his arms assure me that I will get through this.

The truth is, I don't know if I actually do possess that strength. Truth is, I don't actually know whether I will get through this. Here I am, crumpled down by a car wheel, being cradled by my dad because I can't get myself up off the ground.
Breathing feels too hard to do.
Thinking, that's even harder.

At some point, I will have to stop clinging to my father and eventually stand on my own two feet. Standing, and allowing the fact that I really am pregnant, to sink in. Yeah, that terrifies me. I think I'll just stay here for a little while longer, cocooned within my denial and my father's forgiving arms. Denial is less terrifying. Denial is my way of inwardly running away from all that I must face. I'm not ready to accept this pregnancy. I really can't. There's no way in hell that I'm equipped enough to deal with its truth...my inescapable truth.