Page 21 of Worth the Fight

I gasp so hard that I start coughing.

They have been wanting to have children ever since they got married. They looked into both adoption and surrogacy, both which were found to be incredibly expensive. They found a surrogate who they loved, but after a failed IVF, the emotional devastation was almost too much for them to bear. They hadn’t brought it up again.

“No...” I gasp again, and when Ronaldo opens his hands, I practically rip what looks like a picture free. Spinning it over, I gasp yet again, because the black and gray photo in front of me looks an awful lot like an ultrasound. There’s a black circle in the center of a grainy whitish gray background, and in the center of that black circle in another little circle, is a peanut-shaped sac, and tears immediately blur my vision.

“No,” I croak, and Ronaldo nods.

“Yes.” He steps closer to Raymond and wraps his arm around his lower back. “You’re looking at our baby.”

I slap a hand over my mouth and look up at the two men who have become my two best friends. Ronaldo, who I met on my first day with the Opera Ballet, and Raymond, who came into our lives shortly afterward. “You’re having a baby?” My bottom lip quivers as the next few words attempt to leave my mouth, but instead, they come out shrill and mouselike.

“I think she’s happy?” Raymond stage whispers, and I drop my hands to my sides.

“Of course, I’m happy. Oh my gosh! You guys!” I reach forward, wrapping my arms around each of their necks and pulling them to me in a tight and painful hug. “You two are going to be the best parents. This baby is going to be so loved.” I step back, looking at the ultrasound pic in my hand again, noticing my sweaty palms have curled one edge.

Tears stream down my face, and I try to dab at them with the corner of one sleeve. “I’m going to get snot all over your picture,” I tease, and Raymond laughs as a hand comes up to swipe at his own tears. He reaches over to grab the hem of Ronaldo’s apron, using it to dry his face.

“There’s something else we want to talk with you about,” Raymond says as I reach for my champagne, needing the cold drink to calm my racing heart.

“I don’t think I can take any more good news,” I tell him, still holding the ultrasound picture to my chest.

Raymond and Ronaldo steal a glance at one another, and that quick fleeting glance has my hair prickling.

“What is it?”

Raymond takes a calculated breath. “You know I’ve been with the ballet for fifteen years now. I’ve dedicated my entire professional career to them.” I nod once. Raymond was already with the Paris Opera Ballet before I started in the junior ballet program. He’s a few years older than I am, and he’s been working up the ranks each year. He loves ballet as much as I do, and he was born to dance.

Raymond looks up at Ronaldo and he smiles, a hand coming up to rest on the back of his husband's neck. “I’ve decided that once this season ends, I’m not coming back.”

My shoulders lurch back. “What? Where are you going?”

“Nowhere. Our baby will be born in September, and I’m going to be a stay-at-home dad. The season ends in July. I’ll be busy going to appointments with our surrogate and getting everything ready here.”

A new set of tears blurs my vision, but they aren’t there from happiness. Not from anger, either, or sadness. A new emotion enters the chat, something unexpected. Jealousy, maybe? Envy? They’re two people so opposite, but so in love, so perfect for one another. One is playful, one serious. One is a dancer, a dreamer, the other does something really boring in finance. They’ve somehow found each other, connected on what matters, fell madly in love, and are going to have the most beautiful family.

I pocket my jealousy and step forward again, reaching my arms up to snag both of them in another hug, the ultrasound photo now crinkled in my hand.

“You can have that copy, by the way,” Raymond says. “We have fifteen more.”

Through blurred vision, I nod, looking back at the grainy picture. “How can I love something so small? Someone I haven’t met yet?”

It’s Ronaldo who gets choked up with that. He pretends to cough to hide the tears, but Raymond catches it, reaching for his hand and squeezing it.

“That’s how we felt,” he says. “I thought all these emotions wouldn’t come until the baby was born, until I could hold him or her for the first time, but apparently, I was wrong.”

Raymond and I both nod. I’ve heard people talk about that before. My friends from high school who have had children talk about how they felt different once they were pregnant. They were creating a whole little human inside their body. I imagine that changes a person.

I look back at Raymond, releasing a heavy breath. “I can’t believe you’re done with ballet.”

“At first, I didn’t know if that would be my choice. We had talked about me taking time off the first year and auditioning again, but now that the time is here … I’m ready to be done.” He turns to me. “I’ve loved my time in the ballet. I love dancing with you,” he emphasizes, squeezing my hand. “But I don’t feel that same fulfillment anymore. It started to feel more like a regular job than a dream. I want more than that. I want a family,” he says softly, and my stomach lurches as a cascade of unexpected emotions filling my body.

So many of our dancer friends have found love while I’ve been in Paris. Some get married, have kids, and come back to the ballet with a newfound strength.

Others, like Raymond, decide they want to be home with their family.

I didn’t always understand it, especially when I was younger. Even less when Lukas and I ended our relationship. But now that I hear the way Lukas talks about Ivy, mixed with the excitement in my own chest over my two best friends having a child of their own, a new realization dawns on me…

I want that, too.