Chapter 1
Chapter One
“You will have to speak up ma’am I can barely hear you.”
Felicitas slipped into her closet and closed the door behind her. The last thing she wanted was for someone to overhear her phone conversation, especially her father, who was in the next room.
“Is it possible to get a false positive on a pregnancy test?” There, she’d asked it; hopefully, the woman on the other end heard this time and would not ask her to repeat it again.
“Well, anything is possible, but it’s not likely.” The woman’s voice cracked when she spoke. “Positive results are usually pretty accurate. Now I’ve heard of a false negative but never a false positive.”
Felicitas twisted her auburn hair in frustration, wrapping the locks around her finger. Dissatisfied with the woman’s answer, she tried again. “Well… I take over the counter prenatal vitamins to make my hair grow, would that alter the results?” She regretted asking the question as soon as it slipped from her lips. The woman was sure to think she was insane, but she was desperate.
“No, those are just vitamins, hon. They have no bearing on the test result. You’re welcome to come into the clinic for a blood test, just to make sure.”
“Do I need an appointment?”
“No, you can walk in. We are open until six.”
Felicitas ended the call and sighed, all the while staring at the chic wardrobe hanging in her closet. The small room resembled a fashionable boutique, with rows of clothing in various colors and print, all with matching handbags, shoes, and jewelry, of which most still had the price tags attached. Her mother was devoted to shopping; arriving home every evening carrying boxes tied with silk ribbons and colorful paper bags from the most elite boutiques in town. Felicitas doubted she would live long enough to wear everything her mother purchased for her.
She ran her fingers across the soft suede of a cute little skirt she had yet to wear and wondered how long it would fit if indeed she was pregnant. She stood from the plush divan and wrapped the test stick, boasting a bright pink positive symbol, in a paper towel and then shoved it into her purse. She must be discreet and dispose of it at the clinic, not at home. She couldn’t take a chance of someone finding it in the trash. An item such as a used pregnancy test had no place in the home of Melvin Rebold, the towns’ most respected minister.
Within minutes she pulled into a parking spot in front of Gourmet Mudd, the local coffee shop, where she would be meeting Ian an hour from now. She dared not park at the clinic, someone could easily spot her convertible. True she wasn’t the only person in town with a white mustang, but she was definitely the only person in town with the customized license plates PURITY. She would have more than enough time to walk two blocks to the clinic, have her blood drawn, and hike back. Besides, Ian was always late.
Pushing open the heavy glass door, she entered the world of sterile needles, cold examining tables and stethoscopes. Her stomach churned, and she wanted to vomit. She hoped it was because of nerves and not the dreaded morning sickness.
“Felicitas Rebold.” A woman called her name even though she was the only person in the waiting room. Few people frequented this particular clinic since the newer medical offices had opened across town.
She tossed the worn magazine back upon the stack of faded periodicals and followed an elderly nurse, with varicose veins poking through her white stockings into a low-lit examining room. The nurse flipped on the switch and mumbled something about the fluorescent lights needing to be replaced, and then left.
Felicitas crumbled the stiff paper as she took a seat on the examining table and shivered. The frigid temperature in the room, combined with a premonition of impending doom, caused her to tremble uncontrollably. She despised getting her blood drawn and had a deep hatred of needles, but she knew her fear today was not the dreaded stabbing into her veins, but the fact that she had taken four varied brands of pregnancy test, and all four had come back positive.
Being the founder and president of her high school’s Pure Until Marriage club and finding out you are pregnant still wasn’t what frightened her. It was the fact that she had never had sex, nor had she ever come close, yet all her tests were positive, and she was experiencing all the early symptoms of pregnancy. That could only mean the event she entered in her journal, in the early morning hours of August 27th, had actually taken place, and that is what terrified her. The memories of that night continued to haunt her. Not a single day passed without her thinking of it. She harbored these thoughts inside of her because really, who could she tell?
“You the young lady who called earlier?” The nurse asked as she tied the rubber band above Felicitas's elbow. Felicitas nodded and read the name, Betty, printed on the ID, hanging around the elderly nurse’s gooseneck. She couldn’t watch, and if she did, she would vomit. Her nausea was elevating by the second. A quick stabbing, pain, then dizziness. Her body began to sway.
“Are you feeling, ok?” Betty’s voice seemed very far away. The flickering yellow lights grew dim. Felicitas felt cold hands push her back on the table.
“I got a fainter,” was the last thing she heard before she blacked out.
