Chapter 132 - More Than My Life

"Now, tell me what's going on," Dr. Yee urged her to talk as she and Hayri sat opposite her in her wooden desk.

"I am into lots of stress lately, doc, and these deprived me of sleep."

"Go ahead," Dr. Yee nodded as she gazed at Allie intently.

"Lately, I have stomach discomfort which I self-medicated with antacids. Just this morning, after I woke up from a short sleep, I felt a sense of lightheadedness. I staggered when I walk but I just ignored it until the feeling worsened and I really felt dizzy that I threw up."

"Your lack of sleep can explain your lightheadedness but which symptom took place first? Your dizziness or your urge to throw up?"

Allie paused to think. Her vomiting did not follow after her dizziness and it was the smell of the food which triggered it.

"It was not closely connected, doc."

"What do you mean?"

"I was already feeling dizzy but the smell of food worsened it."

Dr. Yee nodded and a light smile broke into her face. "Have you experienced this before?"

"I have not," Allie answered, her brows knitted as she tried to recall an experience in the past.

"When is your LMP, I mean your last menstrual period?"

"Five weeks ago."

"So you're already missing your period. Are you having a regular or irregular monthly cycle?"

"Regular," she answered, her brows squinting already to the possible but unexpected diagnosis.

"Do you mean, doc, she could be pregnant?"

"Most likely and why not? You're both young and I am expecting you both to be sexually active."

Allie glanced up at Hayri and their eyes locked for a moment. Hayri reached out for her hand and held it, accentuating the racing heartbearts which heightened her discomfort.

"If you're not planning for a childbirth yet, when was the last time you felt you had an unsafe sex, if you don't mind?"

Allie fidgetted on her seat. The sex topic was so awkward on her part, knowing that she and Hayri never went further than kissing. Although Hayri was always unrestrained every time he was tempted to kiss her, he always stopped the moment he was turned on.

"Doc, we did..." Hayri was about to tell the doctor that they were not into sex yet but Allie interrupted him.

"That was, I think, almost two weeks after my last LMP."

Dr. Yee nodded again. "So that is a great possibility."

Dr. Yee looked down, pulled a sheet of prescription pad and write her orders for laboratory tests.

"Please see me once the result is in."

Allie prepared herself for the worst. Hayri would be very disappointed and she was afraid. She did not see him yet in this side of him, although his determination to kill her before as the traitor made her see what he was capable of.

"Let's go to the laboratory," he said, his expression never showed a slight sign of anger.

"Hayri..." she protested, she wanted him to confront her right away. Every second of waiting would be a great fatal emotional torture.

"Don't you want to talk to me?" she

said once they were out of the clinic.

"You know I always want to talk to you and be with you in all the days of my life," he answered as he kissed the top of her head and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

His answer was killing her. Though Ajie was her ex-husband but when she gave her commitment to marry him, they were already annuled.

She pulled him into a corner, away from any onlookers and pressed him on the wall.

"I'm sorry for not telling you. I just didn't want to trouble you. You already had much on your plate."

"What is it?" he replied while he reached out a hand to touch her chin.

"At that time when I tried to talk to Ajie about Chloe's custody, he refused to talk to me. I was forced to go to our old home to find him. He was drunk and wretched at that time and with the influence of alcohol, he succeeded on me..."

Hayri responded with a bitter smile and to wait for his reply, seemed like eternity. After a thoughtful stare at her which almost made her cry in guilt, he answered.

"Zheena, what made it different from the thought of you doing it with him everyday when you were together and doing it lately?"

"But I might be pregnant," she argued.

"Even Adrian would not suspect that it's not mine. Put this in your mind. It's our baby and I am the father."

Allie sighed. To Hayri it may appeared as a sigh of relief, but to her, it's a sigh of frustration. She still wanted to raise up the baby with the real father. However it was not easy for her to back out. How she wished he was angered and that he himself would be the one to drive her away. But Hayri was stubborn as a leech. Nothing could easily change his decision.

After her blood extraction, they were instructed to come back after three hours and that it would be Dr. Yee herself to explain the result to them.

To relieve themselves from the boredom of waiting, Hayri treated her to a movie in a theathre closed to the clinic.

As she scanned down the titles, she picked up in the end a family movie and Hayri agreed without a second thought. It was a beautiful story with moral lessons especially to the children. It ended just in time for them to come back to the clinic.

Just when they got out from the theatre, she saw Ajie and Chloe qeueing up in a popcorn stall. She was about to step away to avoid them but Chloe saw her as she turned her head. She just felt uncomfortable to be seen with Hayri. However, the child ran immediately towards her and she just couldn't drive her away.

Just this morning, Ajie promised to give her back her daughter but since he insisted that she should see a doctor, he decided to take her to a movie first. Ajie no longer offered to accompany her, knowing that it would be an act of disrespect to Hayri and herself.

"How's the check up?" Ajie asked as he followed to pick Chloe up from her.

"We're still going back to the clinic for the result," she answered with an awkward smile.

"I see," Ajie said as he took Chloe's hand in his. He glanced up to Hayri and nodded to acknowledge him before he asked permission to go ahead.

Allie followed them with her eyes and a lump formed in her throat. To distract herself, she pulled Hayri's arm and lead him to an opposite direction.

"Miss Allyza, congratulations! Your serum pregnancy test is positive. Your other tests are all normal, so your symptoms lately must be related to pregnancy."

Before she could speak out, she touched her lower abdomen and smiled. Hayri also stood up behind her and hugged her from the back like he was the real father. If it was only about his kindness to save her face in front of the doctor or his effort to start acknowledging the baby as her own, she was not comfortable at all.

"Doc, when can we hear the baby's heartbeat?" Hayri asked, while still hugging her from behind.

"Just please come back after a month. As for now, I will be giving her folic acid."

_____

"Dad, what shall I do?" Hayri said as he crouched on his bed, his back on the headboard.

It was already a week since that trip on the doctor and everyday he was haunted with the guilt in depriving the baby from the real father. Even if Allie was legally free, he couldn't set aside the fact that both Ajie and Allie still loved each other and that their family could still be saved. The pain and the fear of losing her was almost unbearable but the guilt of depriving the right of a child to his or her real father, was more disturbing.

"Son, how much do you love her?"

"More than my life."

Mr. Dioko chuckled, his pampered child few years ago had now grown up as a man and was now entangled in the web of complicated emotion.

"Son, a song goes this way, 'if you love someone, set her free'. Can you do that?"

_____

Mr. Dioko was already sitting down in the farthest corner of a VIP room in a certain five-star restaurant when Mary and Sam arrived. In the table, different kinds of steaming dishes were already spread out. Mr. Dioko stood up to welcome them and allowed them to settle comfortably in their seats across him.

"Let's have a dinner, first," he said as soon as they were seated but Mary and Sam were too nervous to have the appetite.

"This meeting concerns with the marriage of our children. As you see, it's very complicated," Mr. Dioko began while pausing momentarily to chew on his food.

Mary and Sam nodded while they quietly picked up some food into their plates as a respect.

"Mary, Sam, try on this one. This is the restaurant's specialty. I'm sure you'll like this also," Mr. Dioko tried to lighten up the tension by shifting his topic to the food. He cut a slice for both of them and placed it on their plates.

Yet, no matter how Mr.Dioko cheered them up, their gap in their social status was too great that they remained uncomfortable and intimidated.

"Mary, Sam, I'm calling both of you for this important matter. This world is so small after all. Who would ever think that I will be meeting Mary again."

Mary and Sam stole glances at each other and both their heartbeats accelerated.