“Take a seat and the doctor will be with you shortly.”

Right, as if it’s going to be as easy as just taking a seat. Nothing in Lana’s world was ever going to be as simple as just taking a seat again.

She looked around the sterile yet inviting waiting room with its pale pink walls and tasteful floral arrangements in each corner and saw women, just like herself, at various life stages, sitting quietly, reading the office-provided magazines or endlessly scrolling through anything on their phones that could pass the time. They seemed so calm, so relaxed. She didn’t feel right bringing her frenzied and anxious emotions into this serene atmosphere. She didn’t feel comfortable taking a seat between two very pregnant women who were no doubt thoroughly rooted in their nesting phases.

She didn’t feel old enough to be in this place. She didn’t feel responsible enough to be in this place, but as a twenty-five-year-old sexually active woman, this was just the place she needed to be.

Lana had made a drastic decision when she turned twenty-four; sometimes she wonders if she was a little hasty in making that decision. She definitely wondered that as she scanned the waiting room for an available and appropriate seat. She and Alex had had a good thing going for over seven years, but as she neared her birthday, a small voice in her head grew louder and louder. And she started to notice things. When Alex ignored her efforts at wowing him with a slinky little dress, that voice piped up, asking if that’s how all boyfriends reacted after the years of being together outnumbered the years of newness. When he repeatedly resisted her advances, that voice questioned if maybe there was something wrong with her body. When he stopped touching her entirely, the voice screamed that they weren’t just friends. When he stopped trying, that voice very bluntly told her that she was too young for this shit.

And that voice was right. Lana thought hard over it and sought the comfort and advice of friends before destroying everything they had built over the years. Her friends were largely supportive. They had said that while they liked Alex as a person, he was an inattentive boyfriend and that he didn’t appreciate her. One friend in particular, Tyler, had a lot to say on the subject.

They had been friends since college and Lana felt confident in their friendship. They had never shown an interest in one another that she could remember and assumed it was strictly platonic. They spent a lot of their workdays G-chatting about ridiculous things, their families, their friends, and Tyler’s sexual escapades. Lana always thought his experiences were, while vivid, far removed from herself. When they did discuss serious things, she always brought up her unhappiness with Alex and begged for his opinion, saying she needed to hear the male perspective.

And then it happened. Tyler sent Lana a drunk flirty text one night, complete with a photo of his abs. it excited and unnerved her and she chose not to answer him; after all, they both had significant others.

But then he did it again the next day. And she took the bait.

After pacing around the waiting room, Lana finally sat down in an old leather chair that seemed out of place in the cheery and feminine room. It stood alone by the door, across the room from the official waiting area, and it seemed the right place to sit, feeling like an intruder herself. She sat down and folded her hands in her lap as she closed her eyes and pointed her nose toward the ceiling, resting the crown of her head on the wall. She thought.

She thought she understood Tyler now, in retrospect. She understood that his motivations were driven by his sexual impulses and that he had preyed on her insecurities, exploited them even, in pursuit of his end goal. And she had played along.

For months, their relationship had progressed from flirty texts to overtly sexual texts and explicit picture messages. Perhaps she went along with it because Tyler was giving her everything that Alex was failing to, but that still didn’t make it right. She knew he didn’t deserve what she was doing. She broke it off with Alex. She dove into whatever it was with Tyler. He set rules. No messages while he was with his girlfriend. No getting attached. No love. But for a vulnerable young woman whose most recent relationship had just ended, she couldn’t help it.

She thought about him. And thought about him. And texted him. And sexted him. And Skyped with him. It felt like a real thing, but then again, she hadn’t lived as a single woman at all in her adult life. Her friends warned her to be careful while encouraging her to get out there and meet new guys. Guys who didn’t have girlfriends. Guys who lived in the same city as her. Not Tyler. But she just thought that they didn’t get it. She just thought that if they could spend one night together, he would see.

The last weekend before his girlfriend was to go from being long-distance to live-in, she drove eight hours through the rain to his empty apartment in Rochester. They had sex three times. Unprotected. She spent the night. He never offered her anything to eat or drink. He tried to make her get a hotel room, or worse, drive the eight hours back home because he didn’t want her there that badly. She stayed anyway. He was outright mean when she tried to lay close to him in bed and even meaner when she tried to hug him the next day. It became abundantly clear to her that she was just another conquest for him and with that knowledge came the hurt that she had been pushing down into some unconscious part of her for quite some time.

So here she was. Her gynecologists office. Two months, three weeks, and one day late. Two months and three weeks since she saw Tyler. Two months and two weeks since he stopped answering her texts and emails. Two months since she fell into a deep, deep despair. Only a week since she realized that she hadn’t gotten her period in two months.

She sat still, hands folded in her lap, head upturned to try to keep the tears in. She sat in that leather chair and waited.