I glance to Matt, eyes wide with panic, but he’s still looking at me with that same expression as before. I turn back to the doctor. “Fuzzy,” I finally come up with.
She gives me a warm smile. “That’s normal. And hopefully I can help clear everything up for you.”
As I listen to Dr. Sultana relay the last four hours of my life, all I can do is stare at her. I feel Matt’s eyes on me, but I can’t bring myself to look at him. I was pregnant?
And now…now I’m not. And I’m down a fallopian tube. Okay. I want to process all of this, but one feeling is stronger than all the rest.
I want my mom.
It’s a knee-jerk reaction I haven’t quite been able to knock. When the nice doctor asks if I have any questions, I can only shake my head. My eyes sting and I do my best to blink through it as she and Maggie leave the room with promises to check back in shortly. My hand is still in Matt’s, against his lips. I look up at the ceiling and close my eyes.
It’ll pass. It’ll pass. It’ll pass.
A few tears leak out the corner of my eyes and I squeeze them tighter. Matt makes a strangled noise next to me. “I’m okay,” I try to reassure him, but it sounds hoarse and shaky. “Just…over…whelmed.” My breath hitches in between syllables.Dammit.
When I turn my head to Matt and open my eyes I’m met with a blurry, pained expression on his face. I use the hand not in Matt’s to swipe at my eyes, careful of the IV port in my arm.
“This is a lot to process,” I whisper. “I didn’t even know I was—” An edge of panic creeps in. I remember Matt’s history.
“I know, baby,” he rushes to say. He nods and then kisses my hand again, keeping it tight against him.
He looks calm. Too calm. “Aren’t you…freaked out?”
Matt’s still looking at me. I don’t think he’s taken his eyes off me since I touched his hair. “I was plenty freaked out before you woke up,” he answers.
“What about the…the…” I can’t seem to say it. It doesn’t feel real.
“The pregnancy?”
I nod. Matt searches my face for a moment and then drops his forehead to the hand he’s holding in his.
I hear him exhale before he picks his head up to look at me. “You know that I’m in love with you, right?”
If it wasn’t for the monitor next to me, I’d think my heart stopped for a moment. I guess I was pretty sure he was, but there’s nothing like hearing it come out of his mouth.Mattis in love withme. All I’m capable of is a small dip of my head in stunned acknowledgment.
“Then you should know the only thing I was freaked out by was not knowing if you were okay. That’s all that mattered to me, all right? We can figure everything else out.”
My heart thumps heavily in my chest. “I…I’m in love with you too.”
Matt’s answering smile takes my breath away. “I know you are.”
He releases my hand and braces himself on the bed to lean forward and kiss me. It’s a soft touch of his lips to mine.
He pulls back just enough to look at me. “I’m sorry if this overwhelms you more. I had been trying to wait for a good time, but I needed you to know.” He swipes a finger along my cheek and then sits back down on the chair next to the bed.
“How long have you been waiting?”
He shrugs noncommittally. “A while.”
I smile at that as I try to adjust myself in the bed to sit up a little straighter. The tug of pain low in my abdomen makes me wince and I freeze. Matt immediately stands up, but I wave him off. “I’m fine, just going to use the remote to sit the bed up more instead.”
He hesitates and then sits back down. “Maybe we should call the nurse?”
“Matt, I am a nurse.”
“You’re a patient right now though,” he argues gently.
“I’ll ask for more pain meds next time they check on me, okay?”
