Kylie and I share a cheerful smile, and then I glance at Amanda. She sits a few feet away with my mother, her head angled down so that it looks like she's focused on her cell-phone. I can see her gaze locked on me. I smile wider. 

I bring Kylie over to where they sit. I notice her fidget slightly and glance at Amanda with uncertainty. My mother arches an eyebrow. 

"Mom, this is Kylie," I say, and then glance at Amanda. "She's a friend from school." 

Kylie smiles at my mother. "It's very nice to meet you." Then she glances at Amanda again, and nods slightly. "Hey, Amanda." 

Amanda flashes a cheeky smile. "'Sup."

My mother's polite smile widens and she stands. She shakes Kylie's hand. "It's so nice to meet you! I didn't know Alice had any other friends." She glances at me, teasingly. 

"Mom," I say, and shoot her a glare. 

Kylie laughs. 

Amanda stands, and I glance over my shoulder, toward the door that Kylie had come out of. A nurse stands there, a clipboard in her hand. Her scrubs are mint green and covered in cartoon puppies. She smiles. "Alice?"

I glance at Kylie. "Don't worry," she says, and places a hand on my shoulder. "Dr. Lance is really sweet and understanding. I'll see you three when you're finished." She wiggles her fingers in a wave and disappears through the door. 

Amanda loops her arm through mine and we follow the path Kylie had taken, toward the nurse. My mother trails along behind us. 

Amanda squeezes my arm. "This day is just chock-full of surprises." 

"I think I've seen her before," my mother says from behind us. I glance back over my shoulder and almost laugh at the look she has on her face. Her brows are furrowed and her lips are pressed together, into a firm, wrinkled line. 

"So have you been here before?" The nurse asks politely as she leads us toward a small room. It's more of a cut-out in the wall, where a scale and several other machines are crowded inside. 

I shake my head. "No, I haven't." 

The nurse nods. She stops in front of the scale, and asks me to take off my shoes. I slip out of them and step onto the scale. I close my eyes. I don't want to see how much weight I've gained. Next she checks my height, and then pricks my finger. 

When she's finished with the usual check-up material, we're taken to a smaller room. A weirdly shaped chair is pressed up against the opposite corner from the door, angled out. It's an ugly green color, but because it's covered in a runway of flimsy white paper, I immediately recognize it as my new throne. There is another chair pressed against another corner, and then a counter filled with an assortment of medical supplies. 

The nurse leaves us. I climb onto the ugly chair and lean back. My mother takes the seat and Amanda stands beside my mother, her arms folded across her chest. The amount of boredom that immediately claims their expressions almost makes me laugh. 

My mother places her purse in her lap. "I swear," she mutters under her breath. "Who was that girl again? The one you were talking to in the lobby..."

I laugh at her. "Mom, that was Kylie. Do you remember when we went to the mall, before school started? She was one of the girls that was sitting at the food court." I grimace at the memory. 

"Oh yeah!" My mother exclaims. She snaps her fingers and smiles proudly. "One of the skinny bimbos. She doesn't seem that bad." 

Amanda snorts. She presses her hand to her mouth to stifle her laughter. 

"She's a good friend," I say, trying not to laugh myself. Kylie had been pretty mean at first, but now I know that she wasn't actually that bad. But my mother didn't need to know all the glory details of our relationship.

There's a knock at the door. It opens, and a slender woman pokes her head inside. "Hello!" she says as she steps inside and closes the door behind her. She has short brown hair, shaped into an angled bob. I watch her move toward the counter. She washes her hands and then sits down in a small stool that is centered between the counter and my chair. She glances at Amanda with concern. "Would you like a chair?"

Amanda shakes her head. "I'm good for now, thanks." 

Dr. Lance nods, and then turns to me, expression serious, yet soft. "So tell me what's going on, Miss Alice." 

I take a deep breath and glance at my mother and Amanda. Their reassuring nods give me the support I need to explain my story. Unlike with my mother, I don't start at the beginning, or delve into the depths of my emotional roller-coaster ride. Instead I explain how I started to get sick, and Amanda's genius mind came up with the idea to take a pregnancy test, and how it was positive. 

The doctor listens carefully, and nods. She asks a few of the required questions and then announces that I'll have to pee in a cup for further testing. She leaves the room and a nurse soon enters, a small plastic cup in her hands. She directs me toward the bathroom and I do my business. 

I return to my room and climb back onto my ugly chair. 

It doesn't take long for the doctor to return with my results. Naturally, the two I'd taken before with Amanda weren't false positives, and the weight of the fact that I was really carrying a small, still slightly deformed human being inside my body started to weigh in. 

I stare at the ceiling as the doctor starts to discuss the idea of a sonogram with my mother, and wonder vaguely whether or not this is what it feels like to be abducted by aliens. Something foreign has been placed inside my body, by someone else, and I am now forced to carry the burden myself. Blue-Eyes has sped off in his space-ship, never to be seen again. 

The only proof of his existence was inside my body. 

"Alice," my mother's voice shook me out of my emotional alien-themed tirade. 

The doctor placed her hand on top of mine. "Don't worry, Alice. A sonogram doesn't hurt, I promise. It just feels a little cold." 

"Oh," I say absently, "Alright." 

A nurse steps into the room. She pulls a cart, that holds a small television screen atop it. I shift around on my ugly throne so I can see the screen, and pull my shirt up. There's hardly a even bulge. The nurse spreads some really cold goo on top of my stomach. Amanda and my mother crowd around. 

There's a strange noise that fills the air when the doctor presses a weirdly shaped stick against my stomach. 

"What's that?" I ask. 

"That's the baby's heartbeat," the nurse answers kindly. 

I pause and listen to the sound. It's a surreal experience. I close my eyes, but before my mind can wander again, the nurse speaks. "Alright, Miss Alice. You're about thirteen weeks along. We usually wait until the sixteen week mark before we start looking to find out the gender." 

"Okay," I say, and she turns the screen toward me. 

My mother makes a strange noise and wipes at her eyes. Amanda peers closer, and I squint at the screen. "I don't see anything," I say. 

The nurse points to a weird blotch of whitish gray. "That's your baby."

I stare at it harder. 

"It looks like a peanut."