Chapter Seventeen
Everyone Loves Surprises

I should have gone to some free clinic in the middle of nowhere and used a fake name just for good measure. Instead, I chose to go to go Open Hearts in Degis, the largest and busiest hospital in a 500 mile radius. It was the second largest hospital in the state, was known for its oncology program, and had an entire children's hospital.

It was also where my mom used to work. Not like it mattered, or that I'd even thought about it on the 45 minute drive over.

I'd called the hospital as soon as I got home from Thanksgiving break at my grandfather's insistence. He'd promised not to tell Nell as long as I kept him updated on what I did about…it. I was too thankful to even think about how irresponsible of a parent he'd probably been.

Things had started to go bad when the receptionist recognized me. "Hey, Thalia girl. How's your mom been?" the lady said as I handed over my insurance card.

"Oh, you know. She's not too lively these days." I felt like Mrs. White from Clue. The movie, not the stupid board game.

The lady hit a few keys on the keyboard. "I didn't know you were expecting."

"I kind of…haven't told people yet, so you know."

She nodded. "Oh, I understand. Don't worry about it. Just take a seat and Doctor Zatari will be with you in a few minutes."

Zatari? That sounded American.

I hoped Luke's mom didn't work in this unit. I suppose in the worst case scenario that I saw her, I could make up some excuse about coming in to get tested for…something. Because that would go over so much better.

The magazines were all baby-themed. I decided it was better to wait without any reading material than risk seeing a graphic article about breastfeeding.

"Is this your first pregnancy?"

Oh. My. Fucking. God. The waiting room of the obstetrics department was the last place I wanted to make friends. "Yeah," I muttered under my breath. Maybe she'd stop.

"I was about your age when I had my first," the woman said. She was kind of pretty and didn't look like she was older than 35. "He's a freshman now. I'm Sally Jacks…Ugliano, by the way."

I wondered if she was always so open with people, or if it was just a pregnancy hormones thing. I hoped someone would shoot me if I got like that.

"I'm 17." The lady didn't say anything. "This is the part where you're supposed to tell me how having a baby ruined your life and I should really consider giving it away or, you know, just nipping it in the bud and-"

"Thalia Grace?" an overweight nurse called out.

As I walked over to her, I wished the ground would open up and swallow me whole. Anything would have been better than this.

"So…you're 17," the nurse said as she led me down a narrow hallway covered with baby pictures. She didn't do a very good job of hiding her disdain. I wished I had a stepmom who owned a nail salon and smelled like methacrylate to defend my honor.

Hollywood definitely glamorized teen pregnancy.

"We just need to get your height and weight." She didn't seem like the type that was very happy with her life. "5'10…140 pounds," she muttered, writing on her clipboard. "Okay, follow me."

The nurse more or less dumped me in a room and left. There were pictures on the walls of ultrasounds at various weeks and a poster describing the different drugs you could get during labor. It was ten times worse than the waiting room.

Doctor Zatari came in a good half hour later. "There was an emergency with another woman," she said breezily, looking at the clipboard the nurse had left. "I apologize for the wait. And it seems like your nurse forgot to ask you a few of the background questions."

Go figure.

"First day of your last period?" She had this really soothing voice. I suppose you needed it when women in labor were constantly screaming at you about how they didn't want to rank their pain on a scale of one to ten and just needed a fucking epidural.

"Umm…October 15."

"So you're right at eight weeks. Any symptoms yet?"

A better question would be which ones I hadn't had yet. "Yeah, umm..lots of motion sickness. Mood swings…I've, like…grown a cup size, and-"

"Thalia?" she interrupted me. "I know you're 17, and this probably isn't something you want or planned for…but you don't need to be embarrassed here, okay? I'm here to help you get through your pregnancy and deliver a beautiful healthy baby at the end of this, if that's what you want."

Her speech was very moving and all, but all I could think of was how many times she probably gave it in a day. "I don't…know if that's, you know, what I want."

Doctor Zatari didn't miss a beat. She grabbed a few pamphlets and handed them to me. "Well, there are other options. Our department works with an adoption agency to help match mothers with potential parents who are unable to-"

"What about…the other option?"

"Well." She folded her hands in her lap. "We do the procedure here up to ten weeks. There are other places that will do it further along, but it gets…difficult."

I didn't like the way that sounded. "Okay, well I'm just going to think that one over."

Doctor Zatari nodded. "Some of these questions don't exactly fit your situation, but I have to ask. Okay, Thalia?"

Twenty minutes later I'd been grilled about all the details of my menstrual cycle, gone over all my symptoms, been asked if this was my first pregnancy and if I was a drinker or a smoker, and worked through a complex family medical history. I didn't know how to discreetly explain that I didn't know my dad, my mom was dead, and my boyfriend didn't know about all this, so I couldn't text him and ask if anyone in his family had ever been diagnosed with a genetic disorder.

"We're running really far behind today, Thalia. I apologize. Can I schedule you to come back in a few weeks so we can run some tests and talk more about your plans for this pregnancy?"

"Yeah. That would be good."

"And maybe someone from your family could come with you…or the father of your baby? Just so we can get a better medical history."

"Maybe. I'll see."

I'd think about it when hell froze over.

Silena hadn't been able to shut up about how in love she was when she'd gotten her first boyfriend. It'd been like I was in their relationship – that's how much she had to tell me. It was surprising that the world kept spinning when they broke up two weeks later.

So what if that'd been in fifth grade? I thought she would let me have my moment when the time came.

I was giving her all the details before The Bachelor started. "Chris gave me a ride home from practice last night and asked if I wanted to do something this weekend. And today during school he-"

Silena rolled her eyes. "Clarisse, are you listening to yourself when you talk? You sound…desperate. Obsessed. Clingy. He's not going to want you if you don't play just a little hard to get."

I wanted to tell her to take a look in the mirror. "We were talking about Luke and Thalia last night."

She immediately perked up. "What did he say? Does he hate her?"

"I don't know. You sound kind of, what's the word I'm looking for? Desperate. Maybe obsessed, even." She glared at me. "He thinks Luke's doomed to be one of those people who never gets out of the small town trap and Thalia will break up with him sometime between now and when he flunks out of high school."

"That's harsh." Silena frowned.

"Chris doesn't exactly sugarcoat things."

We sat there in awkward silence. The awkward commercial break in between shows wasn't even close to done. This was weird – normally we had way too much to talk about.

My phone beeped. "Who is it?" Silena asked, sounding only halfheartedly curious.

"Chris."

I need to tell u something.

What? I texted back, my fingers shaking.

A few seconds later: I don't date during basketball season.

Then what have we been doing?

I don't know. Sorry. We can still be friends, right?

I threw my phone to the ground.

"Trouble in paradise?" Silena asked haughtily.

I glared at her. "Shut up. I'm going home."

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever. You'll be over it by tomorrow."

Only people like her could say that and really believe it could happen.

I had a perfectly good laptop and speedy wireless connection at home, but people at the library didn't ask a million questions about how your day had gone, if you were ever going to invite any friends over, and why you had to be so difficult.

Some people didn't know where to start on a ten-page paper. I'd been able to write one easily in seventh grade. I could go from researching to final draft in less than four hours, not to brag.

I was in my element, researching my topic and creating my organizer.

Until I remembered why I didn't like going to the library's media center. All the freaky gamers and Facebook addicts used it religiously. They didn't exactly create an environment that was great for academia.

But the person who ended up taking the computer next to me was worse. Much worse.

Percy Jackson.

Why did life keep throwing him in my direction?

"Working on your English paper?" he asked nervously. I looked over at his computer screen. He'd Googled "high school essay ideas."

"Yeah."

"What's your topic?"

I held up one of the sites I'd printed off. "Who's ad Civin?" he asked.

"da Vinci." I tried not to roll my eyes. "Wait…you're dyslexic?"

His face turned red and he looked back at his computer screen. "Yeah," he muttered and clicked on one website that claimed it had 50 topics that would be sure to get you an A.

I felt kind of bad for him. "I'm dyslexic, too," I admitted.

He stared at me. "I know you feel bad for me, because it's really bad when you're 14 and still can't read right, but you don't have to lie to try and make me feel better."

"No, really. I'm serious."

Percy shrugged and went back to looking for a topic. A few minutes later he asked, "So can I ask why you're picking to do a paper on some dead artist guy?"

Again, I tried not to roll my eyes. "He wasn't just an artist. He was an inventor, an architect, a musician…it'd be really easy to write ten pages about him." That was putting it in terms he would understand.

"So does that mean how to plan a surprise birthday party wouldn't be a good topic?" he asked, reading off his screen.

I couldn't tell if he was serious or not. "Well, I guess it depends on how elaborate of a party you're going to have."

He grinned and started laughing. "Annabeth, you know I'm joking, right?"

"Yeah, I knew that, but, um, you're a swimmer…so maybe you could do your paper about…?" I left the thought hanging.

"Water?" He laughed again. "I'll keep looking."

I went back to making my outline. Next, I'd make my works cited. Then I'd start writing. I'd easily be done with this project by the time everyone else was finishing up their research.

I looked over at Percy's screen. I swear I was just curious to see what topic he'd finally come up with. Only, he wasn't looking for a topic anymore. He was on Facebook, talking with two guys from the swim team.

I should have just kept my mouth shut, but I couldn't stop myself. "You know your research needs to be done on Friday, right?"

"Yeah, I was just…taking a break," he defended himself. "And I picked my topic."

"Which is?"

"The…ummm…history of…the very rare…thing…that's…"

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever. You're obviously Mrs. M's favorite, so she'll probably let you get away with not being done on Friday."

"I'll be done on Friday!"

"Whatever." I unplugged my USB and grabbed the stuff I'd printed off. "We'll see."