“Forgive what? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I stopped believing in you. I believed that horrible bitch over your word, and I threw you away.”
“No. You didn’t throw anything away, baby.” I touched her heart. “Don’t you know that you have my heart? It’s always right there with you. You never really lost me, not for a second, and you never will.”
“I love you so much.”
“Nina, look me in the eyes. “I love you too. I will always love you. There isn’t anything you could ever do or say to change that.”
“Do you remember when you asked me to make you a blind promise? That I wouldn’t leave you…before you told me about Ivy?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Well, I’m asking you to do the same for me right now. Because there is something I need to tell you.”
“Okay. Yes. I promise you. I won’t ever leave you…not for anything.”
She cried harder. “I can’t.”
I wiped her tears with my thumb, holding her beautiful face in my hands. “Baby, please tell me what’s going on. You’re scaring the shit out of me.”
She closed her eyes and let out a long breath. “Ryan was there…the night that you were drunk and that whore was at the apartment. He saw everything. He knew that nothing really happened between you two, but he never told me.”
My jaw tightened. “What?”
“He was in his room. When he heard her come to the door, he watched you from the hallway without you knowing. He saw that she came onto you while you were sleeping and that you were telling her to leave.”
I looked up at the ceiling in disbelief and then back at Nina. “I told you.”
“I know. I am so ashamed. He’s lied to me all this time, even seeing how devastated I was. He only told me the truth last night.”
I would deal with him later.
“What changed?”
“Here is the part I am afraid to tell you.”
I clutched both of her hands together and kissed them softly. “Baby, come on. After all the shit I’ve put you through? I’m not going anywhere.”
“I confided in Ryan about something, and he had no choice but to come clean.”
“I’m not following you.”
“When I came home from spring break, I got sick. Do you remember that?”
“Yeah.”
“And then I disappeared for a while…”
“Yes…how could I forget? You explained that in your voicemail, that you were just weighing the decision of being with me long term because of my responsibilities with Ivy, and I understand.”
“No…you don’t. It wasn’t just about Ivy. That factored into it, but—”
I was sweating. “Just tell me.”
“I started feeling sick the last few days of spring break. I was vomiting at my parents’ house. I had no appetite.”
“Alright...”
“So, I took a pregnancy test.” She breathed in and out deeply. “It was positive, Jake.”
My body jolted backward in a sharp intake of breath as she said those words. My hands began to shake as it started to dawn on me why she was here.
Why there was blood.
Why everyone was looking at each other suspiciously in the waiting room.
Everyone but me knew that my baby may have died tonight.
“Is the baby…” I couldn’t even say it, couldn’t even fathom it.
She began to cry harder, squeezed her eyes shut and was barely audible. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
“He just did a pelvic exam, and now they’re running a blood test and coming in to do an ultrasound. We’ll know something soon.”
I covered my mouth, talking into my hand. “No.”
Once the initial shock faded, I closed my eyes and immediately started praying.
Dear God, please let our baby be okay.
My hand moved gently over her stomach as if it were covered in shards of broken glass. “You’ve been going through this all alone. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“When I first found out, I was so scared. You were going through so much. How could I possibly tell you that you were about to be a father on top of that? So, I put it off. I lied to you that first night back from my parents’. I told you I had my period and that I just wasn’t feeling well, but it was really morning sickness. Then, I started to freak out, wondering how I was going to continue school and take care of a baby when you were leaving every weekend to visit Ivy. That’s why I woke up in a sweat that night. After that, I knew I had to stay away from you, because I couldn’t look into your eyes and keep it from you, but I wasn’t ready to tell you, because that would have made it real.”
My tone bordered on angry. “Jesus…were you ever going to tell me?”
“Yes…of course. The more days that passed, the more I realized how much I missed you, that I couldn’t ever live without you or with the thought of not going through with having our baby. I’m too young, and the timing is wrong, but each day, I became more certain that this was just meant to be. I had a part of you growing inside of me. I knew I loved my baby…our baby. So, I knew it was time to tell you. That’s when I left you that voicemail and headed straight for the apartment.”
“The night you saw Lexie there,” I said under my breath, shaking my head in understanding.
“I was still going to tell you if this hadn’t happened. I just didn’t know how to approach it since we weren’t together anymore. I had been waiting for the three-month mark next week to be sure the pregnancy was definitely going to be viable, before turning your world upside down.”
“Tell me what happened last night.”
“I came clean to Ryan about the pregnancy. I needed to tell someone. Even though I knew how he felt about you, he really is like a brother to me. I wasn’t ready to tell my parents. Of course, he knew the baby was yours. He broke down in guilt and told me the truth about the night I walked in on you. He wasn’t going to ever tell me because he wanted you out of my life. He’s never thought you were good for me.”
I wanted to kill him.
She continued. “I got so upset at him for keeping it from me that I hit him. I truly hated him for what he did. But I was more upset at myself for not believing in you. I cried the entire night. I was so overcome with sadness and felt like I was going to die from it. Then, that song that Jimmy and your Dad loved, Crimson and Clover, came on the radio, and I totally lost it. I tried to get some sleep, but all I could think about was how I had kept something so important from you for so long.” She was starting to break down again.
“Please don’t cry. I love you so much. Come here.” I held her in my arms for minutes until the tears stopped, and then she continued the story.
“After Ryan left, I was in bed and started feeling some wetness. When I looked down, there was blood all over my sheets. I was so scared because it felt like I was losing the baby. It was my fault for getting so upset. I—”
“No way. No. Nina…you will not blame yourself for this.”
“It is my fault.”
“If you want to blame someone, blame me. I was the one who never used a condom that day I practically attacked you when I found you in my bed. None of this would have happened if I had been responsible and protected you. To be honest, though, I wouldn’t go back and change anything, if this baby turns out to be okay. The only thing I would regret is causing you pain, but a child with you would be a blessing.” I buried my face in her neck and breathed in her delicate scent.
There may not be a baby anymore.
I suddenly remembered the strange feeling I got in the middle of the night…about an hour after hearing the same song come on the radio. I knew now that I had somehow sensed on a cellular level that my baby was in trouble.
My baby.
Our child.
A part of me and a part of Nina.
I had only known of its existence for a matter of minutes. Suddenly, there was nothing more important. I had given up my dream of ever becoming a father a long time ago, but secretly, I pined for it. I wanted nothing more than to be able to give a child the same kind of love my father gave me in the short time we had together and to be able do the things we never had a chance to.
I was a father.
Even if God forbid, this baby didn’t make it, from this day forward, I will always have been someone’s father…an angel in heaven. No one could ever take that away.
Fear and pain built up inside me as the reality set in. This situation did not look good. I tried not to get my hopes up. How it was possible to be elated and devastated at the same time, was beyond me, but that was the only way to describe this f**ked up confusion.
The sound of a passing baby crying in the hallway startled me. Nina and I looked at each other. It was obvious that we were thinking the same thing. I could see in her eyes how much she wanted our baby too. It pained me that she had been going through all of this alone. Not anymore. No matter what happens, I was more certain than ever that this was the path laid out for me: a future with Nina and our child…our future children, hopefully lots of them.
Her eyes were closed, and I leaned in to kiss her face. “We’re gonna get through this. No matter what happens, we are going to get through this together.”
The sound of the door squeaking open caused both of us to sit up suddenly. I grabbed her hand and held onto it like our lives depended on it.
The doctor walked in with a technician who brought in an ultrasound machine. The rolling sound of the wheels seemed unusually loud and alarming, like thunder. I wondered if Nina could tell how scared I was, because I was trying to put on strong face.
“Okay, Nina…we’re just going to open up your gown. You’re going to feel a cool gel on your stomach. This is going to allow us to take a look and see what’s going on.” The tube of whatever crap they were putting on her made a loud squirting sound.
As I moved out of the way, Nina reached for the return of my hand, and I squeezed hers tightly as they were setting up the machine and rubbing that stuff on her belly, which was still almost perfectly flat. It was hard to imagine a human growing inside of there. She became fixated on the dragon tattoo on my left arm, something she always seemed to focus in on when she was really nervous. I was grateful for anything that could be of comfort to her right now, because I was nothing but a useless ball of nerves.
My hand began to shake. Fuck.
She looked at me and said through tears, “It’s okay. It’s okay to be scared.”
She was comforting me now. I wasn’t even going to feign strength anymore because I was scared shitless.
I mouthed silently, “I love you.”
Next, they dimmed the lights, which spooked me. It was like they were about to show a horror movie, except instead of popcorn, the room smelled like antiseptic. The woman turned on a monitor, and they put this nozzle on Nina’s stomach, rubbing it around over the gel. After about a minute, there was a really strange sound.
Swoosh.
Swoosh.
Swoosh.
Swoosh.
It was freaking me out. “What is that sound?”
The doctor looked at me with a slight smile.
He was smiling.
“Jake, that’s your baby’s heartbeat.”
He turned the monitor towards us, and I became completely mesmerized by the sight of the grayish silhouette on the screen that looked like an alien with a gigantic head and a tiny body. The doctor pointed to the heart beating, which looked like a tiny pulsating bean. My eyes couldn’t move from the monitor because I had never seen anything so beautiful as my child’s heart beating, arms and legs moving around in Nina’s belly. I was in awe, overcome with emotion, as I cried for the second time in my adult life. This time, they were tears of joy.
The only time I tore my eyes away from that screen was to look at Nina, whose expression of wonder matched my own.
It was unbelievable how life could change in an instant. Suddenly, all of my other priorities took a backseat. Nothing mattered more than that heart beating inside of Nina.
“Is everything okay?” Nina asked.
“I’m afraid we’ve discovered a possible cause for your complications, although bleeding doesn’t normally occur as early as it has in your case. You have a condition called placenta previa. It’s not typically discovered until the second trimester, when the first ultrasound is normally performed.”
Nina’s face was turning white.
I shook my head. “What does that mean?”
“It means that the placenta is covering the cervix. The majority of these cases correct themselves in time. However, if it does not, it becomes very serious and can cause excessive bleeding during delivery, putting the mother and baby at risk. In your case, I’m a little concerned because of the amount of bleeding you’ve already experienced so early on in conjunction with this condition. I think the best course of action is going to be bed rest until we can see an improvement.”
Once again, life as I knew it changed in an instant. The doctor continued talking to Nina about the precautions she would need to take. It felt like my heart was pounding through my head. The conversation was muffled because I couldn’t focus on anything but the image of our baby still on the screen, unable to take my eyes off of it. Everything else faded into the distance. When the monitor went to black, I wasn’t able to let it go.
“Can I listen to the heartbeat one more time?”
The technician repositioned the instrument, and the swooshing sound returned. It was pure music to my ears. There was no doubt that I would give my own life if it meant this baby would survive. I never understood how people could say stuff like that and honestly mean it…until this very moment. It was instant, unbridled love, along with a helpless fear that shook me to my core, because I had absolutely no control.