Note: The setting on these drabbles is mostly ambiguous. In this particular case, you can pretty much put it in Volume 1, post Karen and Matt's first break up

The Secret Life of Ms. Page

The Waiting Room

Karen Page sat nervously in the clinic waiting room. Her foot couldn't seem to stop tapping on the thin carpet beneath her. It was all of her anxiety was coming out in just that one part of her. She was rather surprised by how calmly she managed to appear as she flipped through the pages of a months old copy of Glamour. If Matt was here, he would undoubtedly "see" through the façade, but the other women sitting beside her were most certainly not Matt and they all had their own game faces on. After all, they were all there for the same reason.

In all honesty, she was surprised that Matt hadn't figured out that she was pregnant before she did. He had claimed once—in a moment of half-asleep, male stupidity—that he always knew when her cycle was coming because he could smell the pheromone shift in her body. She thought that he would have noticed something…anything different about her. Matt's perceptive nature only went so far. Recently, he'd managed to miss a lot of things about her. Matt carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, and sometimes he got crushed beneath it. Karen knew that she shouldn't blame him for not knowing the instant she conceived, but amazingly she did. She blamed him because it was easier than blaming herself for being stupid enough to just think that she was late.

"Page, Karen!" a receptionist called out in a voice that conveyed nothing but absolute apathy for the women she was summoning.

"I'm Karen," she said shakily as she stood.

The receptionist slid on a pair of reading glasses. "You forgot to sign one of these forms."

Karen's heart felt like it was coming through her chest. "Oh. Alright."

"Sign it and then the doctor is ready for you."

"Okay."

The world seemed to be on slow motion as Karen picked up the pen to sign her name one last time. Writing her name seemed like such an innocuous thing, but she realized the weight of what she was doing. Ever the good Catholic, Karen could almost her Matt's condemning voice telling her that she was signing their child's execution papers. Karen wasn't like Matt. She didn't believe that life began at conception, and she most certainly didn't believe that having this baby would be the right thing to do. This was her choice.

Looking only marginally more interested in Karen than she had been before, the receptionist began to lead Karen down the maze of examination rooms just beyond the waiting room. The building had the sterile quality about it that she'd been expecting despite the soft, comforting framed pictures on the walls. It was a strange mixture of messages. On one hand, even the air seemed to be a stale reminder of exactly what she was doing, while on the other the smiling photos wanted her to believe that everything would be okay once she was done. It will be okay, she told herself staring down at her shoes. It will be okay.