if that's not the end

 It was a dream. Matty kept telling himself this. Yet, it might as well have been a mystery he was solving with Sherlock Holmes.

"I know you want this," he'd said to his father Xander. Something he'd always wanted was a baby. And his adopted father had smiled back. After all, a gay couple has their ways of starting a family. They never had a girl, just fostering one orphan after the other. Matty was one of those they'd taken in. 

When Matty awoke he might as well have been climbing out of wet cement. He might be coming down with something. He swore the bed shook, but it was only his phone.

Of course, it was Valentina. He couldn't imagine why she would be calling him this early, but maybe he already knew.

It was not the breakup. He imagined. True, they were going strong. Throw in Prom, a wedding and summer too. They'd get to this other thing that needed to be fixed, sooner or later. 

"What's wrong?" He wanted to know. But didn't he already know? She was crying. He sat up thinking it was his fault, whatever it might be.

"You need to get checked out." She blurted.

Matty's eyes were now in full focus. What could that mean?

"Huh?"

She went on about having some kind of cancer. She wanted to make sure he was OK. Had he been vaccinated in middle school for HPV?

"Where are you?" He needed to get dressed. 

"It's OK." Her voice kind of settled.  "It might be nothing. It could go away." She said she could still have a baby.

"What?" He winced hard. These were such adult matters. What was she going on about?