Break You

by Jennifer Snyder

  “No. You don’t want to be with me, you just think you have to be now,” she said. Her eyes filled with unshed tears.

  I pulled her delicate frame into me, and wrapped my arms around her. “No. The baby just makes me want to be with you that much more.”

  Her arms slid around my waist and she buried her head into my chest. “You mean it? You don’t think that night was a mistake?”

  “Not in the least,” I said. Nothing with Blaire could ever be a mistake.

  “Oh my God, I’m so glad you feel that way.” She exhaled loudly and I smiled wide, grateful I’d given her a sense of relief.

  “So, what time do you get off today? Do you wanna grab a bite to eat?” I asked.

  “Actually, I get off at two and I have an appointment at three,” she said.

  My heart kick-started. “Appointment? For what?”

  “It’s my first appointment with the doctor to see how the pregnancy has progressed up till this point. I’ll get to find out the due date and stuff.” She stepped back and looked me in the eyes. “Do you wanna come?”

  I couldn’t be a chicken-shit now. This was what me being there for her was all about. I had to do this. I had to. I swallowed hard before answering. “Yeah, absolutely.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  BLAIRE

  My mouth could not be any drier. My stomach burned with nerves. I adjusted the seatbelt for the third time since I’d gotten in Jason’s Jeep. No matter how it fell across my chest, it bothered me. Once I told Jason the last turn and the doctor’s office came into view, I felt as though I was going to vomit all over his floorboard.

  “It’s cool. We’ve got this,” Jason said. His hand left the gear shift to squeeze my knee.

  Glancing at him, I wondered how I’d thought it would be easy to do this all without him. He caught my stare when he turned into the parking lot and flashed me a smile. God, he was gorgeous. If I was going to make a baby with anyone, it would be him. He had perfect genes.

  What the hell was I thinking? If I could make a baby with anyone?

  I’d already made a baby with him and it was about to truly sink in. My throat seemed to close up at the thought. I wrung my hands in my lap as Jason expertly pulled into a parking space close to the door. My conversation with Bonnie replayed in my mind. “Dr. Kress is great. You’ll love her. She’s so laid-back and hippy-like.”

  “What are you thinking?” Jason asked. He cut the engine and shifted in his seat to face me. His brows were drawn together and there was a look of unease plaguing his blue eyes. “Are you nervous?”

  “So nervous I could throw up,” I admitted freely.

  He let out a loud breath. “I’m not gonna lie, I’m nervous as shit too.”

  “I can tell. You look as sick as I feel.” I laughed. Opening the door, I climbed out and wiped my hands on the shorts I’d changed into at work. “Let’s get this over with.”

  We locked hands and headed inside.

  Dr. Kress’s office was not hippy-like at all. Walking in and glancing around, I wondered if Bonnie had confused her doctors at some point. This place was too modern and chic to be considered hippy. The Berber carpet was a light cream color and the walls were painted a soothing aloe. White wainscoting lined the walls and dark espresso furniture adorned the place. White flowers of different variations in narrow, marbleized vases sat on all the tables.

  “Find us a seat. I’ll sign in,” I said, motioning for Jason to sit.

  “All right.”

  I walked to the sliding window, where a lady with blonde hair dressed in a pastel pink set of scrubs sat, typing at the computer. Picking up the pen with a large white daisy super-glued to the top, I signed my name on the clipboard sheet. The sliding Plexiglas separator opened and the lady smiled at me.

  “Name?” she asked in a Southern voice.

  “Blaire Hayes,” I said. My heart pounded in my chest so hard it hurt.

  “Have you ever been here before, honey?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “All right.” She nodded. “I’ll need you to fill out a few forms for me and then Dr. Kress will be right with you.”

  “Okay, thanks,” I said. My lips felt too loose, like they weren’t connected to my face. I had never been this nervous about anything in my life.

  “Here you go.” She handed me a clipboard and the pen I’d just put back in the holder. “Fill these out and then turn them in to your nurse.”

  Taking everything from her, I carried it to where Jason sat. I slid into the seat beside him and glanced over the papers, then began to fill them out.

  “Do you have insurance?” Jason asked randomly.

  “Yeah, through work.”

  “Will it pay for all of this?”

  “Some, if not all. I think,” I said. “That’s something I’ll have to figure out.”

  His face fell. “I can see what I can do. I mean, I can pay all or a portion, whatever you need.”

  “Let’s worry about that later, okay? I just want to make it through this visit first.”

  “Sounds good.” He picked up one of the many magazines fanned out on the coffee table in front of us. It had a happy baby on the cover, making it seem so out of place in his hands.

  After filling out all the paperwork the receptionist had given me, Jason and I waited for another twenty minutes or so before we were finally called back by a nurse with a head full of dark curly hair.

  “I’m sorry you had to wait so long, Dr. Kress was called away for an emergency C-section about an hour ago. She should be back any minute now,” the nurse informed us.

  My jaw slacked at how normal she sounded in saying something that seemed extraordinarily scary to me. A C-section was serious business, wasn’t it? Add in the label “emergency” and you had a serious issue.

  “First I’ll need you to step up on the scale so I can weigh you,” the nurse directed.

  I stepped onto it and realized I’d actually lost a few pounds since the last time I’d been weighed.

  “Have you had any morning sickness?” the nurse asked.

  I nodded. “Yes, that’s actually how I realized I should probably take a test. At first I thought I was coming down with something, but after of few days of throwing up at strange times, everything sort of clicked into place.”

  “Funny how that happens, isn’t it?” The nurse laughed. It was a full laugh, one that was infectious enough to make me join in. “Is this your first pregnancy?”

  “Yes,” I answered, feeling as though she’d just hit me in the chest. Why would she think I’d been pregnant before? Did I look like someone who was getting knocked up every few months?

  “I wasn’t being cruel or implying anything, sweetheart. It’s just standard protocol. You’re going to answer a lot of questions today that might seem strange and personal.” She smiled.

  After having my blood pressure checked, peeing in a cup, giving a vile of blood, answering some standard health questions about myself and Jason, and answering a lengthy list of questions regarding both our families’ medical histories, Dr. Kress walked in. My sister had been right on when she’d described her as a hippy. She was dressed in a pair of flowing green gaucho pants, a white tunic top that was embroidered with crazy designs, and a pair of tree-hugger sandals.

  “Hey, I’m Dr. Kress.” She walked across the small room, shook both our hands, and then took the papers from my nurse, Kristen. “So, this is your first pregnancy and you’ve had some mild to moderate morning sickness.”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Okay, so let’s talk about a few things,” Dr. Kress said. She wheeled a little stool over to sit closer to me and smiled. It reached up and crinkled around her hazel-colored eyes, instantly making me like her. Comfort rolled from this woman and straight into me. I was glad Bonnie had recommended her.

  I was given a lecture about the importance of prenatal vitamins and things I should avoid while pregnant, like caffeine and alternative sweeteners. Then I w
as told to strip down and cover myself with a cloth hospital gown, open section to the front, and given a paper cover for my bottom half before Jason and I were left alone in the room.

  “You can wait out in the lobby if you want, or even in your Jeep. You don’t have to be in here for this part,” I said. Heat crept up my neck. “This is the part where they do a pelvic exam.”

  Jason met my stare. “No. I’m fine, unless you want me to leave. Do you? I mean, I’m fine with whatever you’re fine with.”

  “You can stay,” I said.

  I swallowed hard and then began to strip down. My face and neck felt impossibly hot now. Jason moved from the corner of my eye and I glanced at him to make sure he wasn’t staring at me as I slipped my bra off. His head was cocked to the side, as though the illustrated poster on back of the door of a woman’s reproductive system was the most interesting thing he’d seen in a while. I fought the urge to laugh at him.

  After covering myself with what little they’d given me, I folded all my clothes and handed them to Jason. “Could you set these in the chair beside you, please?” I asked.

  He coughed into his hand and then took them. “Sure.”

  We waited for Dr. Kress to come back in silence. When she finally did, I underwent the entire process of humiliation I’d expected with Jason watching. I cast quick glances at him every now and then, taking in the horrified look that remained on his face throughout the entire spectacle of my exam.

  After Dr. Kress rolled her stool away from me and told me I was allowed to pull my legs from the stirrups and sit up, all the tension from my muscles released. I wrapped my open hospital gown over myself tighter and made sure the thin paper in my lap covered everything else.

  “Okay, now I’d like to do an ultrasound. This way I can verify your due date and check for the baby’s heartbeat. Normally I would use what’s called a Doppler, which is a device that uses high-frequency sound waves to allow us to listen to the baby’s heartbeat, but because I’m guessing you’re around six to seven weeks along, I don’t think we would be able to hear anything. Usually it can’t detect a heartbeat before ten to twelve weeks, and I don’t want to alarm you two by us not being able to hear it with that machine,” Dr. Kress said. “Lie back, please. I’m going to rub some cold goop on you, and then we’ll be able to see your little peanut on the screen.”

  After being rubbed down with the goop and feeling Dr. Kress press the little machine to my stomach with a slight amount of pressure, I focused my eyes on the screen, waiting. Jason moved to stand beside me so he had a good view of the monitor. I glanced at him. His jaw was tense and tight, his face pale; he looked like everything was sinking in finally for him, in a big way.

  “And there you are,” Dr. Kress said. I snapped my eyes from Jason to the monitor, but couldn’t see much of anything. “There’s your little peanut.” She pointed to the screen.

  I followed her finger and noticed something in the shape of a kidney bean. A fluttering sound filled the room and Dr. Kress reached for the volume, turning up the noise.

  “And there’s the heartbeat,” she said.

  My breath left my lungs. My hand flung to my chest as the heat of love radiated through my core. That was my baby’s heartbeat.

  Our baby.

  “Wow,” Jason said. His eyes glimmered with happiness as they shifted to meet mine. “That’s our baby’s heart we’re hearing.”

  I smiled at him, so glad he was here for this moment with me. Jason took my hand into his and grinned like a kid in a candy store.

  “I know,” I said. “That’s our little peanut.”

  My eyes shifted back to the screen. Dr. Kress zoomed in and measured areas of our baby. She clicked and double clicked while typing and muttering to herself aloud.

  “So, everything looks good,” Dr. Kress said. “And it looks like we were right on target. You’re about six weeks, which means your due date is around February sixteenth.”

  February sixteenth. The date seemed so far away, yet so close at the same time.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  JASON

  “I’m gonna have a bacon cheeseburger and fries,” I said to Blaire. After we’d left her appointment we went to grab something to eat. It was only quarter till five, but I was starved. “What do you want? Get anything, I’m buying.”

  She glared at the menu like it was written in some foreign language. “I don’t know, nothing really sounds good to me right now.”

  “What do you mean? They have loads of great options here,” I insisted. Mutton’s was one of the best places to eat in Coldcreek, she couldn’t be serious. “There’s burgers, hot dogs, steaks, pulled pork…take your pick. It’s all good.”

  “Yeah,” she said. A look of total disgust crossed her face and for a split second I wondered if she was about to be sick right here at the table. “I’m just not into eating loads of meat right now. Mutton’s might have been a bad idea.”

  “Oh.” I glanced at the menu again. Shit, I really wanted a burger. “Well, if you want, we can go somewhere else.”

  She placed her fingertips to her lips and drew her eyebrows together, like she was trying hard to find something, anything, on the menu that sounded good so we wouldn’t have to leave. She was so cute when she was concentrating hard. I cracked a smile.

  “Find anything?” I asked.

  “Umm…I think I might try the grilled chicken salad. Chicken might not be too bad,” she said. She laid the laminated menu down and propped her elbows up on the table to stare at me. “What’s so funny?”

  “You, you’re cute when you concentrate like that.”

  Her cheeks turned a slight pink color and she went to move her hands into her lap, only her elbow was stuck to the red-and-white plaid tablecloth by the juicy remnants of someone else’s meal. There was a loud sticky sound as she pulled her elbow free. I laughed out loud, not only at the situation, but at the look on her face. Her lip curled as she attempted to rub the sticky mess off her skin with her hand. I reached for a wet-nap from within a silver bucket tucked against the wall I was sure was intended for use with Mutton’s BBQ ribs. I’d had them before, a few times; they left your hands a sticky mess.

  “Here.” I opened the little packet and folded out the wet-nap for her while trying to contain my laughter.

  “Thanks,” she muttered. The look of disgust was still present on her face and I was sure this would be the one and only time we would eat here together after this. “I can’t believe I stuck my damn elbow in barbecue sauce.”

  “It happens to the best of us,” I said as I watched her clean it off the table cover.

  Our waitress came with our drink orders, finally. She placed them in front of us, oblivious to Blaire wiping off the table, and asked if we were ready to order yet while rolling her eyes as she spoke. I hated habitual eye rollers. If I had to name one single pet peeve, that would be it.

  “I’ll have the grilled chicken salad with ranch dressing, please,” Blaire said.

  Ruth, our waitress, scribbled on her pad of paper and then shifted her eyes to me. “And for you?”

  “I’ll take the bacon cheeseburger with fries.” I picked up Blaire’s menu and placed mine on top, before handing them both to our eye-rolling waitress.

  “It’ll be right out,” Ruth said. She snatched the menus from my hand and walked away. Obviously she wasn’t one to kiss ass for a tip.

  “So,” I said. “You don’t eat a lot of meat or is this just a pregnancy thing?”

  “Just a pregnancy thing, I guess. All I’ve wanted lately is vegetables, fruit, and bread.”

  I leaned my elbows against the tabletop and held her stare. “Well, you’ll have to eat more than that stuff if you want to make my baby healthy.”

  She flinched at my words. “Your baby, huh?”

  “It is mine.” I smirked. “And I can’t believe it. I’m a dad. Hearing that peanut’s heartbeat today was somethin’ else.”

  Blaire smiled and bit at her bottom li
p. “I know. It made it all seem so much more real, you know?”

  I nodded. “I’m so sorry I reacted the way I did, Blaire. I really am.”

  “I know. It’s fine.” She shrugged. “I sort of dropped a huge bomb on you over dinner that night.”

  “Even so, I should have never let such dickhead things slip from my mouth.”

  “It’s okay, Jason, I get it.” She flashed me a sweet little grin and my heart swelled in my chest.

  How could she be so understanding? She had to have been petrified thinking some asshole had knocked her up and she was going to have to raise this kid all on her own. I never wanted her to think that way again.

  “Marry me,” I said. The words had barely filtered through my mind before I’d said them aloud.

  Blaire choked on her lemon water. “What?” she coughed.

  “You heard me, marry me. Let’s do this how it’s supposed to be done,” I insisted.

  “You don’t want to marry me.” She smiled. Her face shifted through too many shades of red to count, making me realize how incredibly beautiful she actually was.

  “I do,” I said. I’d never been surer of anything in my entire life. “I want you to know that I plan to always be there for you and this baby of ours. I don’t want you to ever doubt for a second I won’t be. If you marry me, then you’ll know. You’ll always know.”

  Her eyes were nearly popping out of her head. She inhaled sharply, and then let the breath flow from her slowly. “We can’t get married, Jason.”

  “Why not?” My heart sank.

  “Because, we aren’t even in a real relationship. I mean, would we really be sitting here, eating together, if I weren’t pregnant right now?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Of course.”

  “How can you be so sure?” she asked. She shook her head. “I’m not. I honestly don’t know if we would be. I probably would have continued to ignore you, because of those pictures with Marla. You would have forgotten about me and we both would have moved on.”

  She was serious. There was not one single word she’d just said that she didn’t mean. What she’d spoken was the honest truth to her.

  Maybe she was right.

  “But we are, right now we’re together. Right now, you’re pregnant with my child. If you don’t want to get married right away then fine, we won’t, but please realize that right here with you and that kid is exactly where I want to be.”