by Keelan Storm
“Tuck, come on. They’re calling us back,” Izzy said as she got up from the chair and turned to her sister. “I wish you could come back with us, Annie, but I’ll tell you all about it later,” she promised.
“Alright,” Annie replied, picking up a magazine, “I’ll see you when you’re done, and I expect details.”
Tucker followed, curious and terrified, but determined to be there for his girl.
* * *
They followed a short, mocha-skinned woman in scrubs around the corner where she motioned them into an open room. “I’m Miranda, and I’ll be doing your ultrasound today. Could you state your name and date of birth please?”
“Isabel Dearly. January first, 2002.”
“Great. And who did you bring with you today?”
“I’m Bridgette, her mother,” the older brunette answered, taking a seat on a nearby bench.
“Tucker,” he greeted, trying not to freak out at all the supplies and machines set up in the room.
“And the father, I presume?”
He nodded curtly and sunk onto the other end of the bench. It was weird hearing someone refer to him as a father. His mind didn’t know what to do with those words.
“Alright, Isabel, since you’re wearing a dress, I won’t have to ask you to change, but I need you to head into the restroom over there to remove your underwear, then come back and crawl up on the table here. I’m going to give you a sheet to cover up with,” the tech said, pulling a folded white square from a nearby drawer.
“I feel so exposed,” Izzy said when she came back out and climbed up, pulling the paper sheet over herself.
“You had better get used to it, sweetie. It’s only going to get worse. Modesty goes out the window when you have a baby.”
Ignoring her mother as the tech read over some paperwork, she said, “You okay, Tuck? You haven’t said very much since we got here.”
“I’m just a little nervous,” he replied. At least, he had managed to stop fidgeting. Izzy would have hated it if Bridgette had sent him outside. It helped that they weren’t in the waiting room anymore. In here, he didn’t have to look at all of the different pregnant women and baby pictures all over the place. Although there were still parenting magazines on a small table nearby.
“I’m a little nervous, too,” Izzy replied, twirling a lock of hair around her finger.
“Well, if you two hadn’t decided to have sex, you wouldn’t have anything to be nervous about.”
Tucker sighed. He had a feeling that Bridgette was going to be making comments like that for a while.
“I still think you should at least consider giving the baby up for adoption. I don’t think y’all realize how big of a deal this is.”
Isabel groaned. “Mom, we’ve talked about this like fifty times this week. We’re not giving the baby up. You’re not going to change my mind about it.”
“Well, we still have a while to discuss it,” Bridgette said as she checked her phone.
Isabel growled in frustration. Her mother was impossible.
“Alright, Isabel,” the tech broke in at their pause. “Does your bladder feel full?” She nodded. “Good, that’ll just make this go easier. Now, I’ll need you to place your feet in the stirrups.”
“Feet in the stirrups?” She had known they were going to do an ultrasound, but she hadn’t realized that she would be asked to spread her legs. Modesty really was going out the window.
“Uh, should I be in the room for this?” Tucker suddenly felt very awkward and wondered if Annie should have been the one to come back instead of him.
“Of course you should be in here,” Bridgette answered irritably, her voice tinged with bitterness. “Don’t be shy now. It’s not like you haven’t seen my daughter before.”
“Do you want to come stand up here by me, Tuck?” he heard Izzy ask.
He didn’t miss the shakiness of her voice and realized that she was probably just as uncomfortable as him, if not more so.
“Alright,” he answered and got up to approach the table uneasily.
He watched as the tech Miranda put on a pair of gloves. He made sure to stand very close to Izzy’s head. Even if he knew what she looked like, this wasn’t something he wanted to see.
Isabel tensed a little as the tech pressed the gloved fingers of one hand between her legs and the other hand against her lower abdomen. She felt extremely awkward and was aware that Tucker felt the same way. A fact that did not help her relax.
“That wasn’t so bad,” Tucker thought to himself in relief when the tech pulled away. But all relief left him when he saw what was coming next. She had pulled out a long, thin device covered in a protective wrapper and a huge glop of clear gel. “Please don’t tell me she’s going to put that thing in Izzy.”
“Everything looks good so far, Isabel. Now I’m going to use this to help me see what’s going on inside, and hopefully, we’ll be able to see how far along you are.”
Isabel nodded nervously and grabbed Tucker’s arm to brace herself for the cold intrusion. She felt him take her hand and was glad that he was there beside her for this, no matter how embarrassing it was.
The woman’s eyes were on the screen of the large machine for a bit as she moved the long device around slowly. Tucker wondered what she could possibly be looking at for so long.
“You’re doing great,” the tech reassured her. “From what I can see here, I’d say you’re right at eleven weeks. That puts your due date right around March 12th.”
“Eleven weeks?” she asked, puzzled. “Don’t you mean nine? We had sex nine weeks ago. Not eleven.” She was dating Wesley eleven weeks ago, so that couldn’t be right.
Tucker waited for the doctor’s response, sure she was about to say she was wrong. Izzy hadn’t let Wesley touch her. He’d walked in on the proof of that. Thank God.
Their tech laughed a soft chuckle. “No. I mean eleven. We count from the date of your last menstrual cycle, hon, not from the day you think you conceived, and this ultrasound machine uses measurements to help us get a pretty precise date.”
“Can we see the screen?” Bridgette asked, getting up from her seat.
“Sure,” the tech replied, tilting the monitor in their direction. “It’s not much to look at yet, but if you look here,” she said, pointing to the screen, “you can see the sac, and this little thing right here is the fetus.”
Isabel leaned forward a smidge, bracing herself against her elbows to get a better view of the screen. There, in black and white, was a small spot in the middle of what looked like a bubble. “That’s our baby?” she asked incredulously.
“That’s it,” the ultrasound tech replied. “Would you like to hear the heartbeat?”
“We’ll be able to hear that already?” She was still reeling from the fact that she was looking at her little baby spot.
“Of course.” The woman reached up to press a button on the machine. A few seconds later, they heard a loud, fast-paced thrumming.
“It doesn’t sound much like a heartbeat.” Tucker thought when he realized that was what he was hearing. The sound was strange to him, and he felt guilty when he watched Izzy’s eyes well with tears, and Bridgette grab her daughter’s free hand.
Why wasn’t he having the same reaction? It was his baby, too.
When Izzy looked up at him, he stayed focused on the screen, doing his best to look fascinated. He couldn’t let her know he wasn’t feeling the same thing she was. Even after looking at proof that his baby was there, he still didn’t have that attachment that Izzy felt. Maybe he was still in shock about the whole thing, and he’d react differently once it passed?
Isabel crawled down from the exam table slowly when they were done, her little baby spot pictures she’d been given in hand. She was still stunned at what she had just experienced. Her baby was alive inside her. It was amazing. There was no way her mother or anyone could talk her out of keeping this baby.
“Okay
, you should be hearing from the lab next for your bloodwork, and then they’ll show you back to the main waiting room.”
“Blood work? Why? Is something wrong?!” she thought in a panic.
“Now, don’t freak out. It’s just standard stuff. They’re just going to draw some blood so they can run some routine tests to make sure all of your levels are okay.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay, no problem.”
Lab work went quickly, but Tucker still seemed too quiet to Isabel. She wondered if it was just his reaction to the experience. It had definitely blown her away, and her mother seemed to have relaxed a little after hearing the heartbeat, so that was good.
“Okay, sweetie, I’m going to check at the front desk to see if they can pull you and Annie in together for this part since you’re both scheduled for Dr. Fallor, and they seem to be running behind. You’ll have to stay in the waiting area, though, Tucker.”
“Mom,” Isabel protested.
“He doesn’t need to be in there when Annie is, and he was with you for the most important part today. Tucker can meet Dr. Fallor next time. She’s just going to go over your lab work and ask you questions about your cycle and things like that today anyway.”
Tucker held up his hands. “I don’t mind. Really,” he assured them. He had enough to take in. “So what’s Annie here for?” he asked when Bridgette walked off.
Izzy smiled, shaking her head. “You really have been out of it today, haven’t you? Annie and I were talking about it right next to you in the waiting room for at least twenty minutes.”
“Oh, well, what’s she here for?”
“Birth control.”
Tucker coughed. “Birth control?!” he asked in a loud whisper. “Did we freak her and Jet out that much?”
She laughed. “No, well, yeah, probably, but that’s not why she’s getting it. It’s more like Mom, Helen, and Stefano freaked out. They don’t want them to ruin their futures like we did.”
Tucker stopped her before they reached the empty chairs by her sister, waiting for her to meet his gaze. “Our futures are not ruined as long as we’re together. They’re just different. We’ll figure it out.”
“I know, Tucker. I agree. It’s our parents’ words, not mine.”
16
Calling Him Out
The next few weeks passed by as uneventful as possible considering everything that had happened. Annie and Tucker got to school early every morning for track practices, and Isabel would carpool with Jet, appreciating the extra hour of sleep she got since the baby seemed to zap so much of her energy, her usual early rising be damned. Jet still had football after school every day, so Annie was watching him practice from the bleachers while she studied. That or hanging out with other friends.
Tucker and Izzy spent their free afternoons wrapped up in each other, savoring each second they had before their parents got home. The grief and constant attempts at persuasion to give up their child was exhausting. Thankfully, Annie and Jet were good distractions most evenings once homework and chores were done.
Isabel felt badly for all the strife she and Tucker had caused their friends. Constantly under their parents’ watchful eyes, Annie and Jet were barely allowed to kiss hello or goodbye and were never allowed a moment alone together when at home. It was unsettling. Annie just wanted time with her boyfriend. Jet, in turn, hated that football took his only parent-free gap in time that he could spend with her. But it was senior year, and he loved being on a team.
Their siblings had been told about the baby, but Tabitha was the only one it seemed to resonate with so far. She’d asked Izzy a few questions in the beginning, but soon became awkward and distant. Isabel hated it. She and Tabby had been close, and she knew the younger ones would likely start to pull away once she started to show.
Her nausea had mostly cleared, but Tucker noticed she had started crying a lot more, and it was getting easier to make her angry. Thankfully, Annie was pretty good at reining her in when they were all together.
So far, the pregnancy remained unnoticed by their peers, even though Isabel was now in her fourteenth week. The teens made it a point to never talk about it in public, especially since the attention from Tucker having a steady girlfriend had just started to settle. They were biding their time, but Isabel knew if anyone needed to know it was Leo.
Her doctor had still cleared her for dance those couple of afternoons each week, with some precautions, but she needed to fill her partner in before he figured it out on his own. He deserved the choice if he wanted to continue the season with her. It was just a hard pill to swallow that he might say no.
As they moved into the later part of September, the heat from the sun wasn’t beating down quite as hard now, but the eighty to ninety degree weather was far from cool. Isabel stared at a tree near their picnic table one day during lunch, appreciating the green of the trees while she still could, wondering how long it would take before its leaves turned brown and fell to the ground, the branches left spread in a bare, depressing state.
“Hey, Izzy, are you going to eat that piece of pie?” Hector asked from across their table.
“Eat your own food, Hector,” Emma scolded from next to him. “I’m sure Izzy doesn’t feel like giving hers away.”
“I was just asking. It’s been untouched and looking delicious since I sat down.”
Isabel sighed inwardly. She had honestly been trying to eat better for the baby, but the dessert had just looked so inviting sitting on the lunch counter today that she hadn’t been able to resist.
“No, it’s fine, Emma. He can have my pie. I don’t need it.”
“Awesome! Thanks, Izzy.” He snatched it from her tray like he was worried she would change her mind.
“No problem, Hector,” she tried not to grate. Now that her hormones were going haywire, her nickname had started irritating her to no end.
“Yeah, I didn’t think you’d mind. I never see you eat anything unhealthy anymore.”
“Just trying out a new diet,” she replied. It was her excuse to anyone who ever commented on her new eating habits now.
“Oh, is it because your clothes are getting tight?” Hector asked, his mouth full of the pie that had sat on her tray less than a minute ago.
Isabel’s jaw dropped, stunned. She looked around at the faces of her friends, who were equally shocked. “Can people tell?” she panicked inwardly.
Her pants had been feeling a little snug lately, and she had a dress or two she didn’t dare try to wear anymore, especially this past week, but she didn’t think her waist was that noticeable. How was she supposed to respond to that?
While she fretted, Emma’s hand flew up and whacked Hector in the arm.
“Don’t be so rude!” the small blonde snapped. “You never talk about a girl’s weight.”
“Why not? I’m just agreeing with her that eating healthy is the way to go. It would suck if she got fat. Then Annie would be the only hot twin at this school. Twins should be hot plural, not one hot, one not.”
Isabel could feel her eyes starting to swim. Why was she about to cry? She should be pissed right now, or at least offended.
She took a few slow breaths and shut her eyes, willing the tears to stay away, but she could feel the water start to leak over the edges. Jeez, it was bad enough that she was so emotional lately, but to actually start crying in public? Her humiliation had standards.
“I’ll be right back, restroom,” she murmured, getting up from her seat to rush inside where she could hide in a stall until her completely unnecessary display of emotion passed.
Annie kicked Hector from under the table just as Emma whacked his arm again.
“What the hell is your problem?” they asked him simultaneously.
“Damn that hurts,” he grumbled, grabbing his shin where Annie’s foot had made contact. “It’s not safe to hang around any of you. You’re all abusive,” he commented, looking around at the group.
“And you’re tactless,” Annie replied. Did he seriously not see how completely inappropriate he was when he spoke?
“Me tactless?! You’re her sister. Shouldn’t you be going after her?”
Annie fumbled. How could she answer that question without being too obvious? “No, Izzy likes to work through things on her own most of the time. If she needed me, she would have asked me to go.”
The truth was, Annie was never sure when it was okay to try and comfort her sister anymore. Tucker swore she was doing better than him, but more often than not, her attempts just set Izzy off all over again. It didn’t seem to bother Jet too much. He just took it all in stride. Sometimes, she wondered how her boyfriend could be so calm about everything.
“Whatever. You know, Tucker, I don’t see why you chose someone so emotional to finally settle on, other than her obvious hotness,” Hector commented after accepting Annie’s explanation.
This time, a hand and two feet made contact with the tactless football player.
“Damn it. That’s it. I’m going,” he retaliated, scowling at the group. He stopped to grab the rest of the pie before he stormed off.
* * *
Isabel splashed cool water on her face from the tap in the restroom, not caring this one was off limits during lunch. She’d take her detention if she got caught if it meant no witnesses. She found her eyes in the mirror, red and puffy, her cheeks hot and flushed from her minutes of senseless weeping.
She hated that someone had noticed her clothes becoming tighter on her. If Hector noticed, then surely others had, too. Apparently, she was going to have to do some clothes shopping if she wanted to keep this pregnancy under wraps much longer.
With a few minutes left of lunch and wanting to let the others know she was okay, she did a quick touch up of her make up and stepped out of the bathroom, heading towards the door closest to the picnic tables. Only moments later, she stopped.
There, right in front of her with his back against the wall, was Wesley. She stared at him in surprise at first and then realized that they were the only two people in this particular hallway. It didn’t feel safe to be there.