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I recline back against the examination table robotically as Dmitri stations himself by my shoulder. He’s looking at the screen, but I’m looking at him.
Is this really happening? Is he sticking around? Is he actually going to be involved?
Cold fingers and even colder wands poke and prod at my exposed belly. I stare up at the lights until my vision is just one big field of crackling black and white, that blood in my ears still rushing loudly. My heart is galloping so hard that I almost miss the part where Dr. Saeder tells us what I’m having.
“Wait!” I exclaim, sitting up a little. “Say that again?”
Dr. Saeder looks back at the screen and rolls the pointer over the pulsing little alien inside me. “It appears to be a boy.”
“A boy,” I breathe. “A boy.”
All I can see now is the blue blanket that Rose knitted the week she thought she was pregnant. I still have it stored away somewhere in a box marked with her name. She was in the process of knitting a pink one, too, just in case, when she’d gotten her period. She cried for a week afterwards. I spent every day of that week at her side, telling her that she could try again soon. That it wasn’t over yet.
“That blanket won’t go to waste, Rosie,” I whispered in her ear with my arm around her. “You’re going to have your baby boy one day. Just you wait and see.”
I’m vaguely aware of Dmitri snarling more questions from his spot at my shoulder. But I’m distracted by the heaviness that’s gathering in my chest like storm clouds. I do not want to break down in front of either one of these men.
“I’ll give you a moment,” Dr. Saeder blurts unexpectedly before fleeing out of the room.
I bite down on my tongue and pinch the soft part of my elbow and stare at the screen as hard as I can, but it’s still not enough to keep the tears from slipping down my cheeks.
The only thing I can do now is lie and pretend I’m fine.
I feel Dmitri’s eyes on me, but I don’t return the gaze. I don’t want his scorn or his pity, though I’m not sure which of those two would hurt me more. I’m relieved when he turns and walks away.
But he only gets as far as the shelf and cabinets built into the far side of the room. I watch through tear-blurred eyes as he snatches a fistful of tissues out of the box and returns to my side.
Numbly, I hold a hand out to take them from him. My fingers shake in the empty air between us. I’m halfway to adding a mumbled “thank you,” when he pushes my hand gently aside, bends over, and starts to dab the ultrasound jelly off of my stomach.
The gasp flutters out through my lips involuntarily. “Y-you don’t have to do that.” He just ignores me and continues. “Seriously,” I insist. “I can do it.”
I can’t quite explain it but if he continues to do what he’s doing, I might just have a full-blown meltdown. His eyes rise to mine. Under the fluorescents, the silver gray of his irises has turned a teal blue.
“Let it out,” he says.
And that’s all it takes. Three magic words and then boom, an ugly sob explodes out of my mouth, breaking open the floodgates. I lie there, crying desperately as Dmitri Egorov wipes my belly clean with a tenderness that does not in any way line up with the cruel, arrogant asshole I thought I knew.
By the time I’m done crying, I feel dehydrated and exhausted. At least my stomach’s clean, though.
“Here.” He hands me a glass of water. “Drink.”
I take it wordlessly and finish the whole glass in one shot. He removes the glass from my hand before I can even offer it back to him. As nice as it is to have someone here with me, I’m wary of his presence. I’m nervous of his expectations.
Is his concern legitimate? Or is he just using it to manipulate me?
“Dr. Saeder mentioned that you’ve been having trouble keeping down your prenatal vitamins.”
I glance at him through my eyelashes. With the lingering tears caught in them, he looks like an Impressionist painting, all vague suggestions of color and light and shadow. It’s eerily beautiful. “Yeah. They make me nauseous.”
He nods. “He’s going to prescribe more options to see which ones are best suited for you. I want you to take them daily without fail.”
I push myself upright. “I have too many as it is. I don’t need all that.”
Those eyes are so piercing they leave a tingle on my skin every time he looks directly at me. “This isn’t a negotiation, Wren.”
There he goes, using my name again. I wish it didn’t make me shiver and melt at the same time the way it does.
“You’re right; it sure as hell isn’t. It’s my body and my choice. You don’t get a say.”
