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And luckily, for once, there wasn’t a long wait between the nurse leaving and my doctor arriving, so there was no time for Kip and me to linger in a loaded silence.
As always, she rushed in with a smile, cheerful and excited to see me and not giving me any inclination that she thought this was the time they wouldn’t be able to find a heartbeat. It was reassuring.
She paused when she spotted Kip in the corner. She looked momentarily surprised and then delighted. “Dad?” she asked, looking to me.
I nodded once, not able to verbalize it.
Kip looked equally uncomfortable. Again, although I was supposed to be mad at him, I felt an incredible amount of empathy.
He had not been calledDadsince his daughter died. I couldn’t imagine what he must be going through.
My doctor clapped her hands together. I jumped. “Well,” she said. “We’re happy to have Dad here, especially today. I understand you had a bit of an accident?”
I nodded, looking down at my bulky cast. “Yeah, a little bit. But I’m okay.”
She gave me a soft smile. “I looked over your chart from the hospital, and it seems you’re both okay. We’d been trying to reach you because you’re overdue for your anatomy scan.” She gave me a look that could only be described as… maternal and slightly chiding.
I bit my lip. “Yeah, um, I’ve been busy,” I hedged.
I could feel Kip’s glower from across the room. I refused to look at him.
“We do happen to have a small gap in our ultrasound tech’s schedule,” she said, clicking on her computer. “And considering your recent trauma, I do want you in there right now.”
I opened my mouth as an endless pit opened in my stomach.
But before I could argue, my doctor got up. “I’ll just go and tell my tech to get set up for you,” she said with a smile before leaving the room.
Fucking hell. I did not get a moment of reprieve.
“You’ve beenbusy?” Kip parroted, turning so he was facing me. “Too busy for an anatomy scan, which sounds pretty fucking important?”
I pushed myself up from the table, now that it was clear I wasn’t getting any kind of exam. “Really? You’re giving me shit about missingoneultrasound?” I snapped. “How many have you been to?”
That shut him up.
Which gave me the time I needed to freak the fuck out.
Unfortunately, Kip didn’t stay silent for long. He picked up a figure of a baby inside a womb, inspecting it with a frown, holding the small baby up to my stomach as if to figure out whether the size measured up.
He then moved his attention to me, and unfortunately, I didn’t seem to be hiding the freak-out.
“Why were you putting off the scan?” he asked, gentler this time.
I pursed my lips, intent on keeping them glued.
But then Kip kept looking at me while holding that fucking baby figurine or whatever it was called.
“If you had been here for the past five months, you might’ve witnessed me having multiple panic attacks of varying severity,” I informed him smarmily. “All because of the many ultrasounds I’ve had before, because of my… history.”
I felt uncomfortable talking about myhistory, uncovering all the nerves that had been exposed since the second I peed on the stick. Oh, how I wanted to be snarky and strong and breeze over my trauma and worries. But I wasn’t capable of that. All my strength was going toward remaining half sane and growing a child, dealing with a car accident, and also my fake husband, who had decided to become my real husband and baby daddy in the past twenty-four hours.
Kip sighed, guilt sculpting his face. “I’m sorry—”
I waved my hand. “I understand, and I get that you’re sorry, but I’m really not in the mood to hear another apology right now,” I said, not harshly, but a little of my resentment might’ve slipped in. “As time has gone on, I’ve become a little less of a hot mess in this office.” I gestured around. “But that scan is a serious one. Where they can discover serious shit. I might’ve had a bunch of tests to rule out the normal stuff, but then there’s also all the abnormal stuff,” I ranted. “And because I’m unable to sleep these days, I spend all that time doom-scrolling mom forums and reading horror stories about babies with half a brain or an incurable kidney disease or something. So, excuse me for not wanting to find that out right now!” I was yelling again, but I couldn’t help it.
Kip put down the baby, which clattered awkwardly in the womb on the table. He crossed the distance between us, and I tensed, communicating that I really did not want him touching me right now.
He got the message, since he stopped before he got within touching distance. Although he was now close enough that I could smell his scent.
