“I’m sorry, this is cold,” she tells me before squirting jelly onto my stomach.
As the wand touches my stomach, the screen lights up. I decided to watch Maggie to see if she shows any sign of seeing something, but she doesn’t. She constantly takes pauses, pushing buttons on the main base and taking a deeper look at what's on the monitor.
After what feels like forever, she looks down at me. “We’re all done.”
“What did you see?” I ask her while I sit up, pulling the gown closed. I need to get off this table. I do. I can tell she doesn’t expect to see me standing as she turns around.
“I’ll let you get dressed and will be back in.”
“No, can we just go over it now?” It comes out as a plea.
Dr. Maggie gives me a tight smile. “Of course.”
I follow her to the chairs we were in earlier.
“I will not sugarcoat this with you. Your ultrasound lit up like Christmas. You have so much scar tissue in your uterus, I’m not surprised you’re in pain. And yes, this is most likely from the trauma you endured, but some endometriosis could have already been present. But I’m betting on my first answer. Your body went through so much trauma that I would expect your uterus to look as it does.”
All I can do is nod, because what the hell else am I supposed to do?
“You can have surgery to remove the scar tissue. Especially if the pain gets worse, I’d recommend it. But of course, that’s all up to you.”
“Okay.”
“I’m going to send the cultures off, and I will call you when I get them back. We can hang off on the blood test if you want, but I’d recommend it.”
“Yeah, let's get that done too while you’re here,” I say monotone, checked out.
My eyes follow her as she makes her way back to the bed, putting on new gloves before walking back to me.
“Whichever arm you’d prefer.”
I hold out my left arm and watch her as she ties a rubber band around my forearm and proceeds to clean my skin with an alcohol wipe.
I don’t wince when I watch the needle disappear into my skin, fascinated watching the vial fill with my blood…my crimson red blood.
The pop sounds as she removes the vial and replaces it with another, then removes the rubber band from my arm, takes the needle out, caps it, drops it into her scrub shirt, followed by the vials. Holding a cotton ball to my arm, she smiles at me.
I watch as she places all her belongings back in her bag, one question wanting to escape my lips, but I’m scared to ask.
“Dr. Maggie.” I pause, needing to take a deep breath. She looks at me, eyebrows raised. “Do you think I’ll be able to have babies?” It comes out so quietly, but I know she heard.
She stands up straighter as I watch her lips curl inward. “I hope you’ll be able to. But is it going to be easy? I don’t think so. You’ll need some intervention, I’d think. But Rowan, I’m not God. Only he can decide that.”
I huff out when she speaks of God, because I’m still pissed off at him.
“Have faith.”
“Easy for you to say,” I grumble like a petulant child. I’m annoyed with myself for acting like that, but I’m mad.
“We all have our own stories, Dear, and maybe mine was just like yours.”
My eyes widen when she gives me a sad smile right before turning her back to me, making her way to the bedroom door. She stops her exit, turning back. “I was able to have four healthy babies.” Her eyes glisten before she disappears.
I sit there, replaying her words. Trying to decipher them, and it’s easy to do. She was a survivor, like me. Dr. Maggie survived, like me. Tears run down my cheeks before I swipe them away, running to the bedroom door and slamming it before getting dressed. One thing on repeat as I dress is David is paying for this. For the chance he most likely took away from meto have children. For using me. For killing my soul and scaring my body, inside and out. He is paying for it all.
Once I exit the bedroom, Luca sits on the barstool waiting for me. He turns around, eyes wide. “Baby.”
I plant myself right next to him. Laying my head on his shoulder.
