Page 177 of Slapshot Baby

31

AVA

Three on the Roster

Seventeen missed calls to a man who reads every text I send but won't answer a single one.

I know because the read receipts are still on. Kai, the most annoyingly thorough person I’ve ever met, hasn't turned them off.

Which means he wants me to know he's seeing my messages. He just doesn't want to hear my voice.

I'm lying on my side in the dark, phone pressed against my cheek, listening to his voicemail greeting for the fourth time tonight. It's the standard one. He never recorded a personal message because Kai doesn't believe in wasting words on things that aren't direct communication.

I used to find that attractive.

Now it's just the sound of a door I can't open.

Biscuit is curled behind my knees, her warm weight the only thing keeping me from pacing the hallway again.

My hand rests on the swell of my belly where I can feel the faint shifts, the small turns that tell me everything is functioning the way it should.

I close my eyes and try to sleep. Behind my lids, I see Kai's face in the bathroom doorway, holding my phone, the screen glowing against his fingers. The way his expression froze. Controlled and exact and devastating in its stillness.

It’s been three days since he found out.

Three days since he told me to take my prenatals and drove me home with both hands on the wheel and nothing left to say.

I roll onto my back, stare at the ceiling, and count the hours until the blood transfusion.

When the time comes, Lucy drives because I can't stop my hands from shaking.

"You need to eat something before the procedure," she says.

"I ate toast."

"Half a piece of toast with no butter doesn't count."

"It had butter."

"I saw the bread, Ava. It was dry."

I don't argue because she's right and because fighting with Lucy about toast requires energy I no longer have.

The clinic is cold and bright. Lucy fills out the forms I can't focus on while I sit in the waiting room chair pressing my palms flat on my thighs to keep them still.

A woman across the room is reading a parenting magazine, her belly enormous and round beneath a floral top. She looks calm. Content.

When they call my name, Lucy stands up with me.

"You don't have to come in," I say.

"Shut up."

She follows me through the door.

The procedure room smells like antiseptic. I lie back on the table while the nurse straps the fetal monitor around my belly. The baby's heartbeat fills the room.

Lucy's hand finds mine.