Free Just Like Heaven by Clarissa Carlyle

again,” Arthur offered, before turning and touching his mother’s arm gently.
     
    “It’s just a tattoo Mom; I’m not getting married or anything. Stop worrying so much, please.”
     
    His mother looked in to his face and saw that her young boy had become a man right before her eyes, and it both scared and saddened her. She knew all too well the trappings of young love and hoped against hope that nothing would happen to stop her son from fulfilling his potential at Duke as so much already stood in his way.
     
    ####

“How have you been feeling?” Doctor Shapiro asked, his old eyes gazing at Demi kindly, as he shone a light down in to her ears.
     
    “Fine,” Demi shrugged. “I was sick a couple of times over the last few weeks, but apart from that I’m fine.”
     
    “Uh huh,” the doctor nodded as he continued with his examination. He listened to Demi’s heart, checked her temperature and regarded her with a slightly concerned look.
     
    “Do you mind if I check your tummy?” he asked.
     
    “Sure,” Demi replied casually.
     
    She went and lay on the bed made up in the room, and after calling a nurse in, Doctor Shapiro began to feel her stomach. It didn’t hurt and Demi wondered what the point of it was.
     
    “Demi, when was your last period?” he asked directly once she’d settled herself again on the chair opposite his desk.
     
    “Oh,” Demi felt herself blushing. “I’m not sure…a couple of weeks ago.”
     
    “Would you mind doing a urine test for me?” the doctor asked.
     
    “Umm, yeah, okay,” she answered hesitantly. “Is everything alright?”
     
    “Everything is fine. It’s just to check you aren’t pregnant.” The doctor explained.
     
    “Oh!” Demi gasped and then turned even redder at the thought that her family doctor, whom she’d been visiting since she was in diapers, was now aware that she was sexually active. It was almost as humiliating as her Dad finding out.
     
    Taking the small plastic tube, Demi dutifully went and did a sample before being told to sit in the waiting area until they called her in again in a few minutes.
     
    “Why do you have to go back in?” her Dad asked nervously.
     
    “I’m not sure,” Demi answered, not wanting to tell him about the pregnancy test, it would only cause him to worry further unnecessarily.
     
    “I hate being at the doctors, it always makes me think of…” he was going to say her mother but stopped himself. He had to remember that not everyone who came to the doctors feeling unwell died a few months later.
     
    Demi reached out and held her Dad’s hand, sensing his pain.
     
    “Everything will be alright,” she told him, feeling so confident that it would be.
     
    ####

“Pregnant?” Demi almost choked on the word as she repeated what Doctor Shapiro had just told her. She felt her heart rate rise in panic and she became teary.
     
    “It’s okay,” Doctor Shapiro knelt before her so that he could look her directly in the eye as he placed one hand gently over hers which lay clenched in her lap. Frantically Demi looked from the doctor to the nurse standing close behind him, each were eyeing her with a sad, poignant gaze.
     
    “This happens to more young women than you realize. Would you like to discuss your options?” the doctor’s voice was low and soothing but it did nothing to alleviate Demi’s distress.
     
    “I can’t be pregnant!” Demi declared, almost shaking with shock and emotion. “I’m going away to college in the fall; I’m going to be a nurse!” The nurse in the room smiled fondly at this.
     
    “There’s no need to panic right now,” Doctor Shapiro told her kindly.
     
    “I can’t be pregnant,” Demi spluttered again as she began to cry. The nurse handed her a tissue which quickly became soaked.
     
    “I’m… I’m on the honor roll and I’m going away to college,” she tried to make sense of what was happening but nothing seemed to be making any sense at