“Is that a kidney bean?” Silas leaned closer to the screen. “See, I always knew you’d have real ugly babies one day.”
Through clenching my jaw to keep me from crying, I scoffed and let go of his hand, giving him a hard nudge in his side.
“At seven weeks, there’s not much to see yet,” Doctor Garcia continued. “But this little pulsing line we have here is the heartbeat. Let’s see if we can get some sound.” The doctor turned a dial on the machine, the room filled with a rapid pulse. A heartbeat. The sound of life.
“There it is. I’ve been doing this for over forty years, and I can tell you nothing beats the sound of that tiny little heartbeat. Beautiful, isn’t it?”
My hand reached toward the screen; all my racing thoughts gone. And all I focused on was that little blip on the screen and the sound of a heart beating with life. Something shifted inside me. Everything changed.
“Yes,” I replied softly, my fingers caressing the screen as if I could somehow touch the little black shape. “It’s beautiful.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off it. It seemed unreal, looking at the life currently growing inside me. A life Noah and I had made. This baby was the only thing I had left of him. I was so fucking scared of the daunting reality mere minutes ago, and all it took was one image and the most beautiful sound I had ever heard in my entire life for me to realize that I wanted this. I wanted this baby, no matter if Noah didn’t love me enough to stay–I now loved this heartbeat more than I loved anything in the entire world.
“Oh my God.” Silas leaned closer. “That’s a baby.”
“Sure is. And so far, everything looks good. We will need to get a full panel of blood work done.” He removed his gloves and stood while the nurse wiped the excess gel from my stomach. “I’ll give you a script for some prenatal vitamins, and then I’d like to do an ultrasound scan at twelve weeks to get a clearer picture of what’s going on. Okay?”
I nodded.
“Nurse Gillian will help you set up your next appointment.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
“And if you experience any type of nausea, try some ginger snaps and eat something before you get out of bed in the morning.”
“I will.”
He walked out, and Silas helped me up. “You okay?”
“Yeah...um,” I placed a palm on my forehead, “I’m fine.”
“You know I’m not a sentimental bastard at all, and the thought of babies makes me consider cutting my own balls off. But that...that was fucking surreal.”
“Yeah. It was.”
Silas left the room, and I got dressed. I couldn’t get that sound out of my head. It was already imprinted on my soul, the image carved into every bone in my body. And I couldn’t stop repeating the same sentence over and over inside my head.
I was going to have a baby.
We walked out of the doctor’s office on our way to the lab to get the blood work done and stopped in front of the elevator. Silas turned to me. “What are you going to do?”
My gaze locked on his. “I’m going to have this baby.”
“And Noah?”
“What about him?”
“It’s his baby, Sienna.”
“I know.” I crossed my arms and looked down. “But he made his decision when he left.”
“Yeah, but he didn’t know you were pregnant. This changes everything. He needs to know.”
“And how do you suppose we do that, huh? I don’t know where he is. I don’t even know where to start looking for him.”
“We should at least try.”
“No.” My voice cracked as it echoed down the empty hall. “No,” I repeated, this time lowering my voice. “No, Silas. Noah didn’t love me enough to want to stay. And I would rather be a single mom and do it all on my own than have him in our lives, not because he loves us but because we’re a responsibility his conscience tells him to take care of.”
Silas’ eyes softened with understanding, and he placed his hands in his jacket pockets. “I get it. I do. I just don’t think Dad or Spencer will.”
“They don’t have to get it.” The elevator opened, and we got in. “It’s my decision. And this is my baby.”