Nope. Not happening. I’d rather poke my own eyes out with chopsticks than tell him I’m pregnant and have him look at me that way.
It all feels surreal. I lie down on the bed in the ultrasound room and stare at the screen in front of me. The nurse tucks a paper towel inside the waistband of my pants and squirts cold gel onto my stomach.
“Sorry, it’s a bit cold.”
“That’s okay.” The fawn in me speaks before I can stop it.
I reach for Ariel’s hand. She’s warm and strong, and I don’t know what I would do without her, but it crashes through me like an avalanche that she isn’t the one who is carrying a baby inside her. She can’t do this for me. No one can. This is all on me, and I’m not ready for it.
I try to sit up, smearing gel all over the paper tucked inside my waistband. My breathing is all wrong. I feel dizzy.
“Remy?” Ariel grips my hand tightly, and I lean against her.
I know I need to calm down, but once I’m holding that ultrasound image of my baby, there will be no turning back. It will be real, and I’ll have to think about The Future, and I don’t know if I can.
“Do you need a moment?” The nurse rubs my back.
Maybe she has seen this reaction before. Maybe I’m not the cowardly maniac I thought I was. This is perfectly normal, I tell myself. A few deep breaths. Regulate my pulse. Once I see that ultrasound image, I’ll realize that I’m carrying a tiny miracle of life inside me.
Ariel’s face is in front of me. “You’ve got this, baby girl. Come on, breathe with me.” She sucks in a deep breath, expanding her sizeable chest, and I mimic her. It helps. “Better?”
I nod.
The nurse helps me to lie back down. Her tone is soothing and I can almost hear the gentle waves of background music used in spas. “It’s alright, Remy. It’s natural to be worried, but I’ll check the heartbeat first and put your mind at rest before I start taking all the measurements.”
She thinks I’m worried about the baby’s health.
Ishouldbe worried about the baby’s health.
I need to get out of my own head and get back into the real world. This ismylife.Mybaby. Bastien Murray made his own choices, and I will not be the person who can’t survive without a man in her life.
I won’t!
“I’m fine.” I swallow the panic that feels like an apple core stuck in my throat, and squeeze Ariel’s hand. “I haven’t eaten today; it’s just my sugar levels crashing.” The fawn will need a lot more persuasion to back down, but perhaps we’ll learn to get along in time.
“Okay.” The nurse rolls her seat closer and places the transducer on my tummy. The screen above the bed stays blank while she studies a different screen that’s outside of my peripheral vision. “Can you confirm the date of your last period for me please, Remy?”
I tell her the date I started working at the Rinse. I haven’t had one since then, and sure, I should’ve realized sooner, but a certain Gaelic-speaking adonis was playing havoc with my prefrontal cortex. Not to mention certain other parts of my body. Why couldn’t I get employed by an eighty-year-old dude about to celebrate his sixtieth wedding anniversary? Why did I have to get Bastien Murray?
I don’t believe in fate. But I’ll make an exception for you, baby.
Ugh!
“Everything is fine, Remy.” The nurse’s voice cuts through my reverie.
I’m not doing such a great job of getting out of my own head, but it’s become habit. A bad habit. An addiction. I’m addicted to thoughts of the man whose child I’m carrying, and that scares me more than anything else because I’ve seen what addiction can do.
She flicks on the screen above me. I don’t know what I’m looking at, but everything else evaporates when I watch the tiny flicker of movement inside me. Images of me and Bash are replaced by this tiny human that we created together in a moment of pure passion, and my heart wants to explode with the wonder of it all.
There’s another blip of movement, and another, the shape on the screen blurring and morphing as my baby wriggles around.
My cheeks ache from the smile on my face.
“Oh. My. God,” Ariel murmurs.
Then the nurse says, “You’re having twins, Remy,” and the avalanche of panic rumbles somewhere deep inside.
8
