Kindred Spirits | Juan Toscano-Anderson

26 x The P Word

"What's the question?" She shifted in his lap, suddenly becoming nervous.

"I've been thinking about this for awhile.  And I don't want you to get upset about it. Cause it's not a bad thing. It's more of a suggestion."

"Just say it." She knew he wasn't asking her to be his girlfriend so it had to be the other thing.

"I think you should take a pregnancy test." He blurted.

Cynatra quickly asked, "Why?"

It was obvious this was the direction the conversation was going, there's no way she couldn't see or know. The assumption wasn't far fetched at all.

"You don't think everything going on isn't a sign of that ? The food, the sleeping, the emotions?"

She shrugged, not interested in discussing it further. He was right, it was upsetting her.

"C'mon Cynatra, I'm being serious. Why are you acting like this isn't important to know?"

Moving from his lap, she sat next to him. "Juan, I'm not pregnant okay. Probably just a stomach bug. I'll schedule a doctor's appointment to get checked out."

"So you don't want to go to the store right now and take a few tests?"

"No, I don't."

Juan was annoyed, he didn't understand her reluctance to know for sure or not. It was better to know than to not.

The next few days, Cynatra would do her best not to require any extra assistance from him. She didn't eat much around him, not wanting to be asked if the food was making her sick or not. It was, she was extremely sick.

Cynatra was home alone with her head in the toilet, throwing up the last two meals she forced herself to have. She hadn't answered her phone in sometime and she had a meeting with Ricki.

"What the hell Cyn? Is this why you weren't answering the phone?" Ricki asked bending down next to her.

"Yeah, I've been in here for thirty minutes. I've got the stomach bug."

"Yeah, okay. Well let's get you up. And we're gonna go to urgent care."

Cynatra shook her head, "No, I can wait for my appointment."

"No you can't. We're going."

Ricki wanted to call Juan but she much rather whatever is going on, be shared by Cynatra.

"How long you been throwing up like this?"
"Only today, but I've been vomiting on and off for the last three weeks."

"So the stomach bug? For almost a month? And you didn't think you needed to get check out?" Ricki eyed Cynatra while sitting next to her in the waiting room.

"Thought it would go away, I don't know I've been working through it until this past week."

If Ricki didn't know any better she would say what everyone else thought:

Cynatra's pregnant.

"That's a little strange don't you think? But good thing the doctor's are gonna tell you exactly what's wrong."

Cynatra and Ricki sat in the waiting room of the nearest urgent care. The amount of fear in Cynatra's heart was evident. Because if by the Grace of God she was pregnant, it would be a long and hard journey.

This would be her first pregnancy, her doctor warned her two years ago that she had a slim chance of conceiving and a slimmer chance to carry to term.

She'd rather be sick than pregnant, the heart break of potentially losing a child would be her final straw.