The weirdest feeling is waking up in a strange room with a strange man standing over you. It’s like an episode of The Outer Limits minus the creepy music.
“Where am I? Who are you?”
“Welcome back, Ms. Reed.”
“From where? Did I go somewhere and no one told me?”
The cute guy standing over me—I think he’s a doctor—is now smiling at me with a full row of pearly whites. “Yes, you’re in Manhattan Hospital.”
“Good, I thought this was a one-night stand gone wrong. I don’t do those.”
His lip turns up at the side. “That’s good, those can be dangerous.”
I try to get up but my head feels fuzzy.
“Don’t try to get up so fast, take your time. I’m Dr. Vega. Can you tell me your full names?”
“Catherine Emerson Reed.” He asks me a few more questions then he lets me sit up.
“Good. You suffered a mild concussion.”
“That explains the fuzzy feeling in my head.”
“Do you remember what happened?”
“I was at school in the middle of a lesson when I started feeling unwell. I asked one of my coworkers if she could keep an eye on my class for a few minutes. I stepped out into the hall, and everything started shifting and turning. I tried to steady myself, everything went black, and I woke up in here with you.”
“You hit your head on the floor when you fainted. That’s what gave you a concussion. You were out for a while. We gave you an MRI and everything looks fine.”
“Do I have to stay here?” I don’t like hospitals, they make me nervous. They make you too aware of sickness and death, two things I try to avoid.
“No, you don’t have to stay. You can go home today but you’ll need a family member or friend to take you home. They also need to check on you for the next…forty-eight hours.”
“Okay,” I say, relieved I don’t have to spend the night in this place. A nurse comes in and hands him a chart. He thanks her and closes the door.
“Your other tests came back and everything is good; you’re perfectly healthy.” He pauses and looks at the papers he’s flipping over. “I see here you’re pregnant,” he says, looking at me for confirmation. I stare back at him.
“No, I’m not,” I tell him calmly. He needs to look again.
“Yes, you are,” he says again like it’s the truth.
I have to sing it to him so he can understand. “Nooo.” I point to the papers in his hands. “That’s a mistake, you need to run that test again.”
He closes the chart, and with a charming unassuming smile says, “This must be a surprise pregnancy.”
There’s that word again!
“You are now with child. Congratulations.”
W-T-F!!!!!!!
One minute I’m at work, the next I wake up in the hospital pregnant. Crazy. Unbelievable. Alone. What am I going to do? I’m pregnant. And I’m surprisingly calm. I gave the nurse the only name I could think of in this situation. Not Matt—it should have been him since we’ve been seeing a lot of each other lately. Oh God… The nurse said she would come back with a prescription for me and I should lie back and relax.
The door opens. I sit up thinking it’s her.
“If you wanted to see me all you had to do was call. I would have come, you didn’t have to go through such elaborate lengths. The hospital? It’s a bit much.”
There he is, well-dressed personified masculinity.
“Get over yourself,” I say, feeling a little awkward and self-conscious seeing as we haven’t spoken a single word to each other since I told him I was done with his ass over two months ago. We smile at each other for a minute before he walks fully into the room. He leans back, his back against the bed next to me, where I’m sitting up with my legs dangling off the bed in my thin hospital gown. We’re silent for a while, not looking at each other before he breaks the silence.
“You all right?”
“I will be.”
“You scared the shit out of me. I was in the middle of a very important, albeit boring, meeting when I got a call saying you were in here with a concussion.”
“I’m sorry you had to leave your meeting for me. I shouldn’t have called.”
“Yes, you should have, you’re more important to me than any meeting. They’ll be fine without me. I was surprised I was the person you chose to call, though.”
“I would have called Ava but she won’t be back from Nashville for weeks. I couldn’t call my family, I haven’t spoken to them in months except for Chris. You were next on my list.”
“Glad you called me. Hell, I’m happy I even made it on the list. The last time we were together was pretty heated.”
“I remember, it was a major blowout. I can’t recall us ever having one that bad,” I say, fidgeting with my paper gown as he clears his throat.
“I called you. I don’t know if—”
“I got every single one of your messages. Beyond my better judgment I listened to one or two.”
“I was wrong for a few things I said—no, I was wrong for way more than a few things. I let my anger and jealousy get the better of me and I apologize. I know I was selfish and I had no right, after all the shit you put up with and had to go through with me. You deserve better than what I was offering and bringing to the table for you to accept…I’m truly sorry. Please, is my apology accepted?”
“If you really mean it, I accept,” I tell him, watching what I would consider relief of some sort cross his face as he bites down on his bottom lip and nods his head. “But make no mistake, I was angry and beyond upset with the words you chose to throw at me. Since then I’ve had some time to think and I’ve cooled down some.” Besides, he wasn’t the only one throwing around words, I said some stuff I knew would set him off. An unexpected pregnancy puts things in perspective. If I wasn’t pregnant I wouldn’t have called him, but I am, and that changes things. My feelings for him haven’t completely changed, I can’t shut those off overnight. We’ve always been friends and he’s still the boy who fell in the mud with me. Making me fall head over heels in love, and giving me my first kiss at thirteen. It was messy and real, just like us.
“I know I can’t take any of it back but give me time. Time to show you I can change, I can be a better man. I can be the friend that you deserve.”
Hmm, friends. I don’t know if I can just be his friend anymore, especially with this new development in our forever-complicated relationship. “I don’t want you to change. Well…not completely. Maybe we can work on some things that need some polishing because the bad usually works itself out with the good stuff.”
“I’ll work on them. I promise.”
“Good.”
“I mean it, again, I’m glad you chose to call me. So, what happened?”
“Passed out at work. I didn’t eat anything, I haven’t had much of an appetite for a few days. I started feeling weird, went to get a drink, and didn’t make it.” He looks really good in this suit though, and he smells even better. “I hit my head on the floor when I went down, now I’m here with a mild concussion.”
“You need to take care of yourself, you can’t go around not eating,” he says with real concern in his voice. “If you do, this is what’s going to happen. Did you eat yet? Do you want me to get you something?”
He’s so concerned. I have to tell him. I wonder what he’s going to say. I have no idea, it could go either way. He could say whose kid is it? Or I don’t want to go through this again; I don’t want a kid. I thought it would be awkward seeing him after how everything went down, but it’s not. I missed him.
“I’m fine.” I hold my hand up for him to see. “They gave me an IV drip, I was dehydrated.”
He turns his head. His eyes hold me like they always do. He places his hand on my thigh and moves it down my bare leg. His touch is electric, snapping my senses to life. I stifle the groan on the tip of my tongue from his touch and blurt it out,
“I’m pregnant.”
&
nbsp; Total silence, longest pregnant pause ever. His eyes are hooded for a long time while I wait for him to speak. I can see the wheels spinning in his head. For the first time since I found out I was pregnant I’m nervous and anxious, mixed in with scared, waiting for him to say something, anything.
“You just let it out, no warning. No I have to tell you something prepare yourself.”
“No other way to do it.”
“You Reed women sure are fertile.”
This shouldn’t be amusing. I’m smiling because I’m relieved he doesn’t sound or look angry. “You and your super sperm. You gotta wrap that up or you might end up impregnating half the hospital.”
He laughs, looking down as he shakes his head. “Cat, only you can deliver news like this, make me laugh and cringe at the same time.”
“You’re taking it better than I thought...better than I did.”
“I’m calm on the outside. That’s why you passed out, because you’re pregnant?”
“Yes, that, not eating, and being dehydrated.”
“You told me you weren’t pregnant.”
“I wasn’t then.” His hand is still on my leg and it’s distracting me. “For the past two months I thought I was getting my period, turns out I wasn’t.”
“How didn’t you know? It’s something that happens every month.”
“The nurse said it happens sometimes where you think what you’re seeing is your period but it’s not. It’s the embryo implanting itself. I thought my periods were off because I was under a lot of stress. I wasn’t eating or sleeping well. I thought all of those things together were affecting my period and made it change.”
“How far along are you?”
“About two months.”
“That would mean—”
“I got pregnant on my birthday. Christmas night.”
He bites his lower lip and nods his head. “That’s what happens when you take a chance. You get swept up in the magic of the moment gold dust and all.”
“Yeah, there’s a chance something might happen that you didn’t want to happen, that didn’t happen the first time.” That’s for sure.
“That’s why they call it chance, like rolling the dice, you don’t know what you’re going to end up with.”
He’s right about that. He puts his hands in his pockets with a sad smile. I give him a weak smile of my own slightly averting my eyes toward my lap. I wonder what he’s thinking. Probably how utterly ironic and sad it is that on the night he lost one child with my sister, he created one with me.
“We have a lot to talk about. I can’t believe you’re having a baby,” he states flatly.
“I’m having a baby?”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
I know what he must be thinking. It’s my fault it’s in his head as both things happened at almost the same time. “Let me be clear,” I say, my eyes not leaving his, “I didn’t sleep with Matt.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“But you were thinking about it. I’m letting you know. I didn’t have sex of any kind with Matt on New Year’s Eve; you were the only one.”
“If you had doubts about who the father is I know you would tell me. I’m glad you told me, but I didn’t ask.”
“I know you didn’t.” I also know how your mind thinks. Like most men, I’m sure there was a degree of doubt. I haven’t had sex with Matt but I am leaving out the part where I’m still seeing him and we’ve gone on a few dates, which I don’t think he needs to know about yet. Things have been pleasant between us so far and I can’t handle any more stress, I have enough.
“Did they do a sonogram?”
“No, the doctor said everything looks and sounds fine.”
“He knows this without doing a sonogram?”
“Yes,” I say at the same time he turns and walks toward the door. “Where are you going?”
“Stay here, you’re not stepping one foot out of this hospital until you have a sonogram. What kind of slipshod operation are they running here, you have a concussion, find out you’re pregnant, you can’t leave without someone escorting you home, you have to be monitored for the next forty-eight hours and they’re letting you leave without a sonogram?”
“Nick, please don’t make a scene. I’m sure the baby is fine. I hit my head, I didn’t fall on my stomach. It is early in my pregnancy.”
“Like I said, don’t move, you’re going to have a sonogram.”
They better give me a sonogram, or heads will be rolling if they don’t.
Fifteen minutes later a nurse comes into my room.
“Ms. Reed, I’m here to take you for your sonogram.”
“That was fast.”
“There was a very persistent gentleman who insisted you have a sonogram immediately. If you didn’t things were going to happen.”
“What kind of things?” I ask her, groaning inwardly.
“Legal things the chief of staff doesn’t want any part of.”
She helps me into the wheelchair and I put my hand over my face. I can’t believe he did that. “How embarrassing.”
I lie on the exam table and wait for the sonogram tech.
“Cat?”
“I’m in here,” I say, hearing Nick call my name.
“Are you okay?”
“Did you threaten the hospital with a lawsuit?”
“I told them I was your legal representative and it would be in their best interest before you walked out of here to give you a sonogram.”
“Uh, that’s all you said?”
He holds his hands up with a lopsided grin. “Yes.”
I turn my head straight ahead. I’m going to see my baby on that little monitor. I wonder if this brings back any memories of him and Kate; must be like déjà vu for him. This is strange and weird, this was him a few short months ago with Kate.
He’s standing next to me at the exam table by my head when he asks me, “You nervous?”
“No, just thinking.”
“About what?”
I’m saved from answering the question tugging at my heart when the tech comes in. “Good evening, Ms. Reed, my name is Victor. I’ll be doing your sonogram.”
“Okay,” I tell him, smiling back at him, but Nick doesn’t look too happy. I hope he doesn’t say anything.
“How far along are you, Ms. Reed?”
“I think about two months.” He looks at my chart and puts it down on the table beside the sonogram machine. He does a few things with the machine then holds up a long white large ice-pop-looking thing.
“Can you please put your feet in the stirrups and slide down to the end of the table,” Victor says to me.
What the hell is this—a GYN exam? I thought a sonogram was a little rolling machine they used over your stomach.
Nick turns his head to me with raised eyebrows and I shrug my shoulder. I don’t know what Victor’s going to do, I’ve never done this before. Wasn’t he in the room when Kate was doing this?
He turns back to Victor with a nod of his head at the ice-pop-looking thing in his hand and asks him, “What is that for?”
“It’s a transvaginal ultrasound wand. The baby’s too small to see with a regular handheld probe.”
“Transvaginal.” Nick looks at me and says it slowly, sounding out every syllable.
Oh man, here we go.
He turns back to Victor and puts his hands in his pockets. A sure sign things are going to go bad real fast. “You’re going to do it? Isn’t a nurse supposed to be in here?” His eyes close a bit and he bites the middle of his bottom lip as he openly glares at Victor.
Geez, he’s making the poor guy uncomfortable.
The tech clears his throat and puts the wand down. “I could have the nurse come in if it would make you feel more comfortable?”
I give Nick a hard look for him to cut it out. He’s not even looking at me, he’s staring at Victor so hard. “Victor, it’s fine, that won’t be necessary,” I say.
His head goes back and forth
between Nick and me. I give him a reassuring smile and he turns back around hesitantly.
I yank on Nick’s jacket to get his attention. “Nick, you’re being rude,” I whisper up at him.
“No, I’m not. I’m asking questions. I need to be informed.”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“He’s going to put that thing in your most intimate body part and me asking a question is embarrassing you?” He squints his eyes at me. “A total stranger, he’s not even a doctor.”
Tight-lipped, I shake my head and unable to keep quiet I tell him, “Keep your voice down. You put something in my most intimate body part and I wasn’t this embarrassed.”
“And look at you now; let me ask my questions.”
My mouth pops open. Did he really say that to me? “Really, Nick, really!”
“Really.”
Oh my God, he turns back around at the exact same time Victor’s rolling a condom on the wand. All I can do is cover my face when I see the look on Nick’s face.
“Ms. Reed, scoot your butt down to the end of the table and lift up your gown.”
“HELL NO!” I hear Nick explode. “I’m sorry, but you go out there and tell them you need a female technician in here.” He looks at me eyes blazing. “Put your legs down.”
I can’t believe he did that. I’m so furious and upset with him I can’t look at him. I don’t say a word. We wait in silence until the female technician comes in. A middle-aged African American lady named Debra comes in with a smile and introduces herself as our new sonogram technician. She smiles at Nick when she sits down. He barely smiles back. But she doesn’t seem intimidated when she says to him,
“I heard about you. You’re a piece of work.”
Before he can say anything to her I grab him by the hand and stick my finger in his face. “Be quiet or I’m hopping off this table and marching out of here.”
“I didn’t say anything,” he says, his lips slightly pressing together.
“Great!” I whisper, lying back and trying to snatch my hand back from him, but he’s holding on tight so letting go is not an option.
Debra holds back a smile and turns around with a wink to me before she fully turns around to the machine. I can see it already. This man is going to drive me crazy for the next seven months. Finally the tech is ready. With Nick still holding my hand, she pushes the wand inside me slowly. It’s a little uncomfortable; I’ve never used a vibrator before but I guess this is what it feels like without the good vibrations. “Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh, swoosh.”
Imperfections Come To Light (The Imperfection Series Book 2) Page 2