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He takes his seat in the chair next to me, pinching my hand when my eyes start to water. “Oh, hon. You okay?”
“I don’t know. I had an implant in my arm, but I did two tests and they both were positive,” I tell him, fighting against my tears.
“Let me look. If you hop on the examination table, I’ll take a look at your arm.”
I roll up my sleeve, and he examines my arm, the crease Jesse also gets between his brows when he’s thinking now lining his father’s forehead. “When did you say you got the implant?” he asks, prodding my arm with his fingers.
“Three years ago. And the doctor made sure it was in there,” I tell him, noticing for the first time the button of my jeans is ready to pop.
“She did? I can’t feel it,” he mumbles, putting on his glasses.
“You can’t?” I almost yell. He grabs some weird-looking device and pushes it against my inner arm.
“I’m sorry, Ace. I think something went wrong with the insertion. Sometimes those things get stuck in the device. And it looks like they got it in when it didn’t,” he says, laying a fatherly hand on my shoulder.
“You sure?” I ask, my voice small, feeling sick all of a sudden.
“Let’s do some tests, and I’ll ask my assistant to get the ultrasound machine out,” he says, his voice kind. “I know I’m his father, but right now, I’m your doctor, and I protect my patients. I can ask you all kinds of questions about when you think this happened, but let’s take blood samples first and do an ultrasound. “You wanna call Jesse?”
I shake my head.
“You want to call anyone?” I shake my head and he lays his hand on my shoulder again and pinches a little. “Don’t worry, kiddo. It’s going to be okay.”
He leaves me alone, and I keep staring at my stomach, doing the math in my head. I cringe when I think back to the time at Jesse’s place when we had sex for the first time without a condom.
A kind-looking nurse walks in and sets up the ultrasound. “Let’s see, hon,” she says, spurting some sticky substance on my stomach after I lie back on the table. I watch the monitor and gasp when she points to the screen. “There is your baby, honey.”
“Oh my God,” I whisper.
“Do you want to hear the heartbeat? It takes a couple of seconds before we hear anything.”
“Can I?” I ask, and I smile when the room fills with my baby’s heartbeat. My baby. She prints out two pictures and hands them to me.
After I’m dressed, Jesse’s dad walks back into the room. “I’ve got the bloodwork back, kiddo. I did them myself. It usually takes twenty-four hours, but I thought I’d rush it, and the ultrasound confirms what I thought. You’re about fourteen weeks pregnant.”
I place my hands on my stomach. “I can’t believe it. You can’t really see anything yet.” I can’t close my skinny jeans, but I thought it was due to the fact I got a home-cooked meal almost every week when I went over to my parents’ house.
It’s like he can read my mind. “Sometimes it takes some time for you to notice anything.” He prescribes me all kinds of vitamins and gives me a couple of leaflets on pregnancy. “Kid,” he says, kneeling next to me. “Please know I’ll be here for you if you need me in any way. But you have to tell my son when he comes home. If he is the father, he would want to know.”
I nod, biting on my bottom lip.
“He is a stubborn son of a bitch. Please give him time to—”
I place my hand over his. “I will, Mr. Winchester.”
“Please call me Dan.” His smile is kind.
“Thanks, Dan,” I whisper.
He walks me to the door, and I hug him. At first, he freezes, but then hugs me back, holding me for a couple of seconds. “Take care, Ace,” he tells me.
“I will.”
When I get home, I sleep well throughout the day and spend the next two weeks either on the couch or munching on donuts. Jesse sends me a ticket to Japan to watch him from the sidelines at the Olympics. I can’t risk throwing him off his game. When I call him to tell him the news that I’m not coming because I’m sick, he sounds disappointed but promises to ride like his life depends on it. I watch the event from my seat on the couch, balancing a bowl of popcorn on my ever-growing stomach, and see him win gold with one of the best runs he’s ever done. I shoot him a text to congratulate him, and he texts me a thumbs up back.
My appetite hits me in full force, crazy cravings starting to occupy my mind. I take another bite from a donut. It’s like the news flicked on the pregnancy switch in my brain. Yesterday, I had a vegan hamburger, then a hotdog to wash it down. I’m a mess.
I promised to meet my parents, since they came back from Sturgis this afternoon.
