Her Dad’s Best Friend novel Chapter 107

"Do you have a bug? You shouldn't go over there today. You don't want Danny to get sick."

I sink down into a chair at the table. "I was fired. Danny won't get sick." I don't like the sick taste of acid in my throat. I need to run the water so the vomit will go down the drain but I can't make myself.

"Go back to bed, buttercup," my dad says. "I'll clean up."

If my dad weren't here, I'd be crawling upstairs. But he is here, which means that I slowly and unsteadily make my way to the stairs and climb up them. They feel like they are a million miles long. I know that there are fewer than 2 dozen steps, but it doesn't feel like it at the moment. When I get upstairs, I go into my room and close the door. Then I throw myself facedown on the bed.

I wake up when someone turns the light in my room.

"You awake?"

"Yeah," I say, my voice a little bleary.

"I brought you some peppermint tea," my dad says. "That's what your grandmother used to give me."

My grandmother died in a car accident before I was ever born. I know that she was a terrifying lady but one with a heart of gold.

"Thanks, Dad," I say, sipping a little of the tea after taking the mug from him. It feels good. I realize that I didn't even rinse out my mouth after barfing.

"Do you want to see a doctor?"

"It's probably something dumb that'll disappear in a day or so," I tell my dad.

Famous last words.

Chapter 30

Hyperemesis Gravidarum

Elia

After a week of nonstop barfing when I wake up in the morning, I realize that I have to face the truth and leave the house. I'm not ready for a doctor to confirm my hunch, so I wait until Dad has gone to work before going out to the nearest pharmacy.

I buy an EPT and creep into the de

serted bathroom in the back. I pee on a stick and count the time in my head. After I've counted enough seconds, I look at the stick.

Positive.

Part of me wants to go out there and buy more tests. But the rational part of me knows that there's a chance that I need to talk to a doctor.

"You're pregnant."

I stare at the OBGYN that I looked up on the Internet. Not long ago, I was going to a pediatrician.