The woman soon came back, test in hand, giving me a patronising smile that was probably meant to be somewhat comforting. She needed to work on that.
I thanked her again before rushing off to the toilet, desperately hoping my mum wouldn't see me on the way there. The toilet wasn't too far away, but my mum had her ways of checking up on me, even when there were plenty of people already doing that job for her.
Luckily, I managed to get there without much fuss. And when I say luckily, I mean it.
No. No. This couldn't be happening.
It had to be wrong.
It had to be.
There was no way…
No.
When I got back, the female doctor knew the result before I even spoke – the tears still streaming down my face said it all.
"I guess the scans will have to wait," she commented, before putting her arm around my shoulder and hugging me slightly. "Do you want to go and tell your mom?"
I shrugged. "What am I supposed to say?"
"That's your decision, Hazel, but you're going to have to tell her one way or another."
"But how? This wasn't meant to happen!" I collapsed onto the floor in tears, knocking Philip over at the same time. "This wasn't how it was meant to be! Augustus wasn't meant to die, I wasn't meant to get pregnant, and none of this was meant to happen!"
I could feel myself getting short of breath even with the cannula, but I couldn't stop myself.
"I wish I'd never gone to Amsterdam. I wasted Augustus' wish on a stupid author and now this has happened!" A new wave of tears flooded from my eyes.
"Hazel," the female doctor said softly, obviously trying to calm me down somewhat. "If it's too hard for you, I'll get your usual doctor to tell your mom and then we can discuss your options."
I shook my head before wiping my tears from my eyes. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves."
The doctor looked confused. I held my hand out and explained while she helped me up.
"It's my fault – I've got to tell her."
I shuffled out slowly, oxygen tank in hand, and almost made it to the door before I started crying again.
What was I going to do? Having a kid while battling cancer wasn't exactly the best idea. And it wasn't just mine – it was Augustus' too.
What would my mom say? My dad? Would they be shocked? Annoyed? Sad?
Would I be able to cope with pregnancy? And looking after the baby?
Oh God. I was going to become one of those cases on documentaries – "The Idiots Who Became Pregnant at 16". My mom and I used to laugh at those. Would she laugh at me?
What would Augustus say if he was here?
I could feel myself getting more and more stressed as I walked back to the Children's ward, and when I saw my mom sitting reading a magazine I felt myself fill with dread.
It should have been cancer.
Why couldn't it have been cancer?
No, Hazel. Stop, I told myself. This is better. It's a new life.
But pregnancy and parents and-
No. It is better.