PREGNANT FOR THE FOOTBALL KING

Untitled Episode

It was Monday morning, and Ava was already at the clinic by 7 a.m. By 7:15, she had almost succeeded in convincing herself that the entire evening had been a figment of her imagination.

That is, a figment fueled by cheap wine. She had danced the night away and then found a note telling her to lock the door and not let anyone in, unless, of course, they were the doorman.

As she recalled the events of the previous night, they seemed to be taking place in a haze. Had it all been real or was she still dreaming? Ava was still trying to decide which it was.

Priya was standing in the doorway of exam room two, holding two cups of coffee, and looking quite insistent. "You're doing it again," she said, eyeing the figure in the room.

"What's that?"

"The thing where you pretend something didn't happen by working through your lunch break and answering every question with a symptom report." Priya set one of the coffee mugs down on the counter, uninvited.

"It's been three days, Ava. You disappeared into a penthouse with Lucas King and returned home as if you'd seen a ghost. I've given you zero leeway and received zero information, so this ends now."

Ava looked down the hall, already lowering her voice, despite the fact that it was still several minutes before the clinic opened. "There's nothing to it," she whispered.

There is something to it. You mentioned a woman in a bright blue dress who has been following you both, right? That's the beginning of a mystery novel, not an inconsequential evening. It has to be, Ava. There's just no other explanation.

He had to leave suddenly, something about a team emergency. I didn't get to see him before he went, he was already gone when I woke up. She busied herself by rearranging the resistance bands, although there was little need for it, focusing on the task at hand instead of the thoughts consuming her.

She told herself that the woman was a nobody, maybe a fan who had become obsessed, or perhaps a date who had been disappointed. Her imagination had run wild since Saturday, and she knew it, but the thought that there was something else, something more, was difficult to swallow.

"Do you believe that?"

Ava did not answer immediately, and the pause said enough. It said that there was something, and that she knew it.

"Left me a note saying to lock the door," she said finally. It was not something that a jealous fan would say. It was too personal, too strange, as if the author knew her well.

"That's not something you write for a jealous fan," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

"So you don't believe it."

I'm really confused, Priya. I don't have his number, so I'm completely in the dark here - there's no way for me to get in touch with him and clear things up.

Priya's teasing demeanor faded as she regarded Ava's expression. "Oh, Ava," she said more gently.

"It's fine."

You look so miserable, as if there's something terribly wrong, and your expression is as if you are being stalked by a ghost in designer clothes. I can see it in your eyes, Ava.

This is not some inconsequential one-night stand that haunts you. It is more important to you than you let on.

Ava tried to laugh it off, but the sound was not sincere. "No one is tailing us, okay? I haven't seen her since... you know." She shoved the last resistance band into the container, the sound echoing in the room.

"Look, I have patients in ten minutes, can we please talk about something else?" Her eyes flicked toward the clock, already trying to move on to other, more important things, but the sound of her voice gave her away.

Priya studied her for a long moment, weighing her options. Finally, she relented. "Okay, fine," she said, but as she turned to leave, she paused. "This conversation is not over." She gave Ava's shoulder a squeeze as she passed. "Just know that you do not seem like a woman who had a one-night stand and subsequently forgot about it." She paused again, as if considering her next words. "You seem like a woman who fell in love and is now terribly frightened."

Ava said nothing, as she could think of nothing to say.

She threw herself into her work, finding comfort in the familiar silence. Her job did not pry, it did not demand answers, and it did not force her to confront things that she was not yet ready to face. Her morning was busy, as mornings tended to be, with six patients before her lunch break.

There was the man with the torn rotator cuff, two knee-replacement surgeries, and a teenage soccer player who was distraught over a hairline fracture. She listened to the last one prattle on, letting his words lull her as he spoke.

By Wednesday, she was certain that she could finally stop checking the street outside her apartment every time she left for work.

By Thursday, she was tired in a way that she had not been in a long time, as if her body had been running on fumes and had finally caught up to the fact that it was low on fuel. It was a tiredness that made her movements sluggish, like wading through thick syrup, with the added bonus of making her eyes feel heavy and her thoughts muddled.

By Friday, she was gripping the edge of the break room sink at ten in the morning, willing herself not to be sick, her palms damp with sweat while the scent of someone's microwaved lunch in the next room made her physically ill.

"Are you alright?" another therapist asked, peering into the room.

"Ava muttered under her breath, staring at the sink.

"I'm fine, just tired, it's been a long week." "You've said that every day this week."

"This week has really dragged on, it feels like every day has been a struggle to get through." The other woman laughed and left, and Ava remained exactly where she was, hands pressed to the cool porcelain, taking slow, measured breaths until the wave of nausea passed enough for her to trust herself not to kneel on the floor.

She told herself that it was stress, that the gala had been horrible and that she was still reeling from the humiliation.

The woman, whose face she could barely recall, was a source of stress as well, as was the fact that she had spent the last week waiting for a phone call from a number she did not even have saved. It was ridiculous, she knew, but stress could manifest itself in strange ways.

She had seen it happen to her patients, and she was certain that it was happening to her now. It could make people anxious or tired, or even physically ill, but it was stress nonetheless. This was all it was, nothing more.

That was all this was. It had to be. This was all stress. Ava lay in bed that night, staring at the ceiling, her stomach twisting. It was the fifth night in a row that she had been unable to sleep, and her mind was wandering.

It was wandering where it did not want to go, counting days instead of sheep, trying to figure out how many weeks it had been since that night she wanted to forget. The numbers did not add up the way she wanted them to.

She was very still, lying in the dark, her hand pressed to her stomach. A cold feeling had bloomed in her chest, one that was unfamiliar and far more frightening than the unease that had plagued her since Monday.

It was a feeling that had been building, growing, and it was no longer something she could ignore. It was stress, she told herself, for the hundredth time that week, and it had to be stress.

Her heart was pounding in her ears, but she did not move. Her other hand was curled into a fist, her nails digging into her palm, but she did not make a sound. It had to be stress, that was all it was.

Her rational mind, the part that was always analytical and calculating, was already working through a different set of symptoms, much like the way she would assess a patient in the clinic.

It was not until Saturday morning, when she woke up feeling physically ill, that she stopped fighting it and decided to finally find out what was wrong.