Giovanni sits beside me, his hand gripping mine, his eyes fixed on the screen as the doctor begins to move the wand over my stomach. The gel is cold against my skin, a sharp contrast to my overheated skin, and I shiver. I hold my breath, fear and hope tangling in my chest.
The screen flickers, and I stare at the two tiny shapes the doctor is pointing to, not understanding what they mean.
“Wow, not one sac,” he says, glancing at Giovanni. “There are two sacs.”
I look at him, certain I have misread his lips. “Two?” I mouth.
He nods, showing me the flickering shapes on the monitor, both strong and steady. The sound booms from the laptop speaker, two fast, separate heartbeats pulsing in rhythm. A miracle I hadn’t dared imagine.
Something in my chest loosens. I am smiling before I realize it, my hand covering my mouth.
Giovanni laughs softly, the sound rich with something I cannot name. His hand finds mine, squeezing. “Twins,” he says, as if tasting the word for the first time.
The joy is real. I feel it in my bones. But beneath it, the shadow of the dream lingers, tainting the moment with worry. Twins. Two lives, two chances for my fears to come true.
I sign, my hands trembling, What about their health? Can you tell?
The doctor shakes his head, his tone gentle. “It’s too early to know, but they look strong.”
Giovanni squeezes my hand, his eyes steady, and I want to believe him, to let his strength anchor me, but the fear is stubborn, rooted deep.
Giovanni dismisses the doctor, his voice quiet but final, and turns to me. He sees it in my face before I can hide it. “What is it?”
I shake my head, but he doesn’t look away. I sign slowly, my fingers careful. What if they are like me?
His answer comes without hesitation. “Then they will be perfect, like you. They’ll be fighters. They’ll be strong. And they’ll have us.”
The words hit harder than I expect. My eyes sting, but I blink quickly, not wanting him to see.
He leans closer, pressing his forehead to mine. “You are the strongest person I know. Our children will be lucky to beanything like you.” He kisses my temple, his lips warm, and I feel the love he doesn’t say, the love I’ve missed hearing. The weight of it, of him, of this moment, breaks something open in me.
I close my eyes. The weight in my chest shifts, not gone, but smaller. When I open my eyes, I find him watching me, his expression softer than I have ever seen it. The tightness inside me swells until I can barely breathe.
For so long, the words have lived in silence, pressed into my bones where no one could take them from me. I have held them back out of fear, thinking that if I kept them locked away, they would be safe.
But now, with his hands steadying me, with his voice still echoing in my head, telling me our children will be lucky to be like me, I know they have to come out. If I don’t say them now, I never will.
My lips part, but nothing comes. The air between us feels fragile, as though one wrong breath could shatter it. His eyes never leave mine, patient and searching, and that is what gives me the courage to try again.
When the words finally scrape their way up, they are hesitant, uneven, and raw. “I… l…o..ve yo…u.”
It is the first time I have ever said them to him.
Giovanni stills completely, as if the entire world has gone quiet. He doesn’t blink. He just looks at me, the muscle in his jawtightening, his eyes dark with something I can’t quite name. For a moment, I think he might not believe he heard me right.
Then, slowly, his mouth curves, not into the easy smirk he uses when he’s amused, but into something deeper. A smile that feels like it belongs to this moment alone. His hands come up to cradle my face, his thumbs brushing my cheeks with a tenderness that makes my chest ache. His voice is rough with emotion. “Say it again.”
The words rise before I can stop them, pressing against my lips, too big to swallow back.
The habit pulls at me, and I sign it first, my hands trembling slightly. I love you.
But that isn’t enough. Not anymore.
I take a breath, steadying my voice, and speak it aloud again. “Ti amo, Giovanni.” This time, my voice is firmer, even if it still breaks at the edges. The words feel too small for everything I mean, but they are all I have.
He’s given me something I never believed I could have. He’s been patient when I made it difficult, unyielding when I tried to push him away, and he has loved me without ever demanding I be anything other than myself. And I am utterly, hopelessly, recklessly in love with him.
The words scrape my throat on the way out, my voice low and rough, but they are steady. “Ti amo, Giovanni.”
