TONY.
I was already dozing off in Luke’s office when he returned with a paper in his hands. He looked tired, from the expression I read on his face, but I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, so I said nothing. My phone rang and I picked it up, while Luke walked further inside his office and had his seat.
“Babe?” I said immediately after I picked up the call.
“Babe, where are you at? I’m done here,” she said from the other side of the call.
“Uh, you’re done?” I asked, unsure of what to say. I still needed more time to wait, so I could see the results of the test I had told Luke to perform for me. Now, she was ready to leave and I wasn’t. If I told her that I wasn’t ready to go home, she’d ask me why. And if she did, I wouldn’t know what to tell her, because I truly don’t have an actual reason to tell her.
“Yeah, I am. I just said that.” She said.
I let out a sigh while rubbing my forehead with my free hand. “Could you wait for me with the receptionist? I’m seeing someone at the moment, and it’s quite important.”
“More important than me? Luke?” She said.
“Just tell her to come here,” Luke, who had been silent since I started the call, said to me. I looked at him with raised eyebrows as if to ask him if he knew what he was talking about.
“Are you sure?” I mouthed to him and he nodded.
“Maybe you should tell the nurse or receptionist to take you to doctor Luke’s office. That’s where I am,” I said and she muttered okay before hanging up. Then I dropped my phone on Luke’s table and turned to face him. “Can we get this over with before she gets here?”
Luke sighed and sat upright on his chair. “The results are ready, man.” He said, looking at me with a serious expression on his face.
No one needed to tell me that something was wrong, with the look on his face, but I didn’t want to be too forward or imagine things that have not happened.
“Just tell me what it says. Is the baby mine or not?” I asked him, already giving up hope.
“The thing there is that-” He was saying when his door went ajar and his secretary walked in, followed by Lara. I sighed as I saw her, knowing Luke won’t be able to tell me the results again now.
“You have a visitor, sir. She said you told-”
“Yeah, thank you, Rachel.” He said to her with a smile and she nodded before walking out of his office, closing the door behind her.
“Babe,” I called as she walked to meet me and we hugged lightly. “How did it go?” I asked her.
“It went well, as usual. I’m just a little bit tired.” She said and dragged a chair forward, then she sat on it. She then faced Luke, who was seated in his seat staring at both of us. “Hello. I’m Lara, Tony’s fiancé, oh and yeah, the mother of his baby.” She said to him with a warm smile on her face.
Luke returned the introduction with a warm smile too. “Nice meeting you, Lara. Tony has told me so much about you.” He said and they shook hands with each other, while I just stared at them.
“Oh? What did he tell you about me, uh?” She asked as soon as she released her hands from the shake.
“Just this and that,” he replied and immediately changed the topic. “How’re you coping with the baby and all of that?”
“Oh, it’s going fine. The baby is fine too,” she said, flashing him a smile. Suddenly, her phone rang. She looked at the screen of the phone and I could tell that the expression on her face showed a frightened one. She cleared her throat and stood up with her phone in her hand. “I… Uhm, I need to do something.” I simply nodded and she left the office immediately, closing the door behind her.
I found that suspicious, but that was the least of my problems at the moment. Immediately after she left, I sat upright and faced Luke. “Tell me the outcome of the results before she returns, please. My mind has not been settled since. I’ve been thinking of something else.”
“That simply means you already know what is in this paper.” He said and sighed. He then pushed the paper in his hand forward to me on the table. With shaky hands, I picked up the paper from the table and unfolded it slowly, and then I read it.
Just as I glanced through the paper, my eyes got stuck at the end of the paper. My heart began to beat fast as I read it over and over again. It showed a 99% report that the child wasn’t mine.
I knew it would turn out that way already, but I just didn’t want to accept what my head had already told me. I sighed as I read it over and over again, feeling a sharp pain in my heart.
“Are you okay, Tony?” I heard Luke ask me, but telling him I was okay would be a lie, so there was no point lying about it.
“How can I be? Who would see something like this and be happy about it?” I asked, my voice going up a bit. Then, I remembered that I needed to keep my cool because he wasn’t the one that caused my problems for me. I needed to face Lara, and that was it. Now I understood what the message from the unknown number from the other day meant.
“Just calm down for now. Do you want her to notice something is wrong with you?” Luke asked me, a look of concern on his face. “What I need you to do now is that…”
I zoned out as my mind went to Beth. Something about her made me feel like she was truly carrying my child. I knew the right thing I needed to do at the moment was to do a test on the baby too, but it remained how she was going to allow me to do that. Moreover, she must have known about Lara’s escapades without bothering to let me know. I needed to confront her about that first, before even asking to do the test on the baby.
“Dude, are you even listening to me?” Luke asked, banging his hand on the table.
“Oh, sorry man,” I said as I returned to reality. “Here,” I returned the test result to him and sat upright. “When she’s here, we’ll be taking our leave. I just need to calm my head before figuring out what to do next.”
“Just take care of yourself, man,” Luke replied, staring at me with concern, while I placed my head on his office table, as I felt a headache seep through the right side of my head.