Chapter 2
Chapter Two
MYA
T he cold paper crinkles beneath me like a betrayal, echoing louder than the thunder rumbling outside. My legs dangle from the edge of the exam table, swinging slightly like a kid waiting for a lollipop. Except there are no lollipops here. Just fluorescent lights too bright for comfort and a knot in my stomach that feels like it might unspool everything I’ve tried so hard to keep wrapped up.
Dr. Sanders clicks something on her tablet, her brows inching together as she squints at the monitor. Her lips move, but the sound doesn’t reach me at first. The blood whooshing in my ears drowns it all out. Or maybe it’s my heartbeat. Or maybe it’s the sound of every version of my future collapsing like dominoes into one inevitable, irreversible truth.
“You’re about eight weeks along,” she says again, gentle but clinical, as if repeating it softer might dull the blade. Then her lips press together, a small twitch of her cheek betraying a flicker of hesitation. “And… it looks like there are two gestational sacs.”
I blink.
“Two?” My voice squeaks out, thin and foreign in my throat.
Dr. Sanders nods, turning the monitor slightly so I can see the screen. “Twins.”
Twins.
The word drops like an anvil into my chest. Heavy. Final. Cracking something open that might never close again.
I go still. Rigid. Like if I move too fast, the Earth might split in two. Like I might.
That’s… that’s exactly when I ended it with Fletch. Eight weeks ago. When I made the brilliantly masochistic decision to torch our situationship because my stupid heart wanted more than just his hands on my body and his name in my mouth. I wanted him. The real thing. The version he refused to give me.
So I walked.
And now?
Now I’m carrying two rapidly multiplying reminders of him—like a cosmic double middle finger from the universe.
“I know that look,” Dr. Sanders says, watching me with the kind of practiced sympathy that makes me feel like a cautionary tale. “Breathe, Mya. This isn’t a punishment.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” I mutter, voice hoarse with disbelief. My hand drops instinctively to my stomach, like maybe I can press rewind and stop time before it ever started. Two. There are two of them. Like I wasn’t already emotionally constipated enough dealing with the idea of one tiny person calling me Mom.
It was raining that night. I remember because we couldn’t even make it to his bed. I was dripping wet in his hallway, laughing and shivering, and then I was up against the wall with his mouth on mine and his hands doing things that made me forget every reason I had for saying goodbye.
Except I didn’t forget. I just ignored them. Like every other red flag.
I stare at the ultrasound screen like it’s a glitch in the simulation. But no. There they are. Two flickering heartbeats—fluttering in tandem. Like they’ve already decided they’re in this together. Unlike their father and me.
“I can print this for you,” Dr. Sanders offers.
I don’t even realize I’m crying until the tear hits my collarbone.
“Yes. Please.” My voice is barely above a whisper, raw and trembling, but my hands reach out anyway—like maybe holding onto this small, printed proof will help anchor me to something solid in a world that suddenly feels anything but.
* * *
Big Red growls beneath me as I ease the pick-up to a stop, gravel crunching under tires like it’s chewing on the quiet. The sun’s doing that moody-late-afternoon thing, slanting gold through the cotton-candy sky like a promise or a warning—I’m not sure which. Probably both. The cottage Reese and I have been sharing sits stoic and still in the distance, its porch swing swaying just slightly in the breeze like it’s waving me in.
I don’t go to it.
Instead, I kill the engine, shove open the heavy driver’s side door, and hop down from the truck like I haven’t been using it as a panic room for the last hour. My fingers clench tighter around the envelope in my hand—the one that holds the grainy, too-small picture of a future I haven’t figured out how to tell him about yet.
The barn-turned-studio looms ahead, its once-weathered exterior transformed with new siding and soundproof windows that gleam in the dying light. Still smells faintly like hay if you stand too close to the walls, but inside, it’s all cords and coffee cups and the occasional dirty lyric scribbled on a whiteboard.
My boots crunch over the gravel path. The air hums louder the closer I get. Not just with music, but tension—tight and toxic and ready to snap.
Inside, the heat of frustration hits me like a wave.
Benji’s standing between Carson and Fletch like a dark-haired and exhausted referee.
“You’re not even here, man!” Carson’s voice bounces off the soundproof walls, a jagged edge slicing through the bassline playing quietly in the background. “You’re phoning it in! This track needs your soul, not your goddamn voicemail!”
“Okay, let’s take five,” Benji says, palms raised, tone tightrope-walking between calm and for the love of God, shut up.
Fletch doesn’t answer. His jaw ticks. His arms are crossed. His eyes, a storm I’ve drowned in too many times to count, are locked on Carson like he’s one bar away from swinging a mic stand at him.
And then—like he feels me—he turns.
His shoulders jerk, breath flaring through his nose like a bull staring down the red flag he didn’t know was coming.
Me.
I see the shift in his expression—the flicker of guilt, the fracture of panic, and the instant slamming of every emotional door I was hoping to crack open today.
He storms toward me without a word.
“Fletch.” My voice is soft. Shaky. It barely cuts through the cacophony he leaves behind.
He doesn’t stop.
So I do. Right in front of him.
“Fletch,” I say again, louder this time. And then I slap the envelope against his chest.
He stumbles to a halt, staring down at it like it’s about to explode.
“It’s yours,” I whisper, heart hammering like a damn war drum in my chest. “Our future. Right there. On photo paper and hope.”
He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t blink. Just stands there, hand frozen against the envelope like it’s burning him through the paper.
“Say something.” My voice cracks on the edges. “Yell. Cry. Laugh. I don’t care. Just—don’t walk away from this. From me. Not again.”
The silence that falls is thick enough to choke on.
Behind us, someone presses stop on the track. The room stills.
Fletch lifts his eyes to mine. And the look on his face?
It’s not anger.
It’s fear.
Because even the bravest boys can be terrified of tiny heartbeats they never saw coming.
I don’t plan it like some grand reveal. There’s no fanfare, no emotional foreplay. Just me, standing in front of Fletch with my arms crossed and a bombshell sitting heavy on my tongue.
“I’m eight weeks,” I say, voice steady even though my insides are anything but. “And I’m having twins.”
The silence that follows is so loud it could crack glass.
His face does that thing—flat, unreadable. Like he’s made of stone, not skin and blood and bad decisions.
For a second, I think maybe he didn’t hear me. Maybe he needs a second to buffer, like an old video on shitty Wi-Fi.
But then his jaw tightens. His gaze flicks to my stomach and back up to my eyes, and I can feel the storm building.
He’s not in the mood for this.
Too bad. I wasn’t exactly in the mood to get knocked up by the one man whose emotional availability is on par with a locked vault in a sunken pirate ship.
Still, I don’t give him the satisfaction of saying something awful. Because I see it, the twitch in his cheek, the clench of his fists. Whatever cruel thing he’s about to spit at me is curling on his tongue like poison ivy, ready to sting.
So I walk away.
I don’t flinch. Don’t look back. Just pivot on my feet, my oversized hoodie fluttering around my thighs like a tattered cape, and head for the house I once imagined raising a family in.
The moment I step inside, I shut the door on him—and the whole damn world.
Let him stew in the storm. I’m too busy surviving hurricanes to care about his drizzle.
The silence wraps around me like a weighted blanket. Too heavy. Too familiar.
I exhale slowly, count the beats between each breath, and pad into the kitchen like a ghost.
Herbal tea it is.
I grab a packet of chamomile and curse the universe for stealing coffee from me. My kingdom for a triple shot iced mocha with oat milk and a mountain of whipped cream. But no. Now it’s all ginger root and probiotic blends and teas with names like Peaceful Womb and Nurture the Nest.
Yay.
The kettle shrieks like a banshee, and I don’t bother to hush it. Let it scream. Someone should.
While the tea steeps, I settle at the breakfast bar with my laptop and open Reese’s content calendar. Being her social media manager means I get a front row seat to influencer chaos—and the privilege of pretending like my life isn’t crumbling like a stale muffin.
I schedule her next TikTok. Draft captions with emojis that mask my existential dread. Respond to brand emails with chipper professionalism while my heart tap dances on the edge of a panic attack.
Because life doesn’t stop for heartbreak. Or pregnancy. Or men who flinch when you tell them they’re going to be fathers.
My stomach twists—or maybe it’s just nerves—and I rest my hand over it like I’m expecting to feel something. A flutter. A sign. Proof I didn’t imagine all of this. Maybe if I press hard enough, I’ll wake up from the stress dream where I’m pregnant and alone and the universe has a sick sense of humor.
Except this isn’t a dream. It’s real. They’re real.
And Fletch?
He might not be ready, but I am.
Sort of.
Maybe.
No.
Not really.
But I will be.
Because I have to be.
Because they deserve better than a beginning wrapped in silence and slammed doors.
And if he can’t show up?
I will.
* * *
The second Reese’s face appears on my screen, she’s already sniffling, and I know I’m toast.
“You showed them to me and didn’t warn me?” she wails, wiping her nose with a sleeve that’s way too cute for snot duty. “You ambushed me with their little gummy bear bodies and big heads, Mya! That’s so evil—so evil.”
I blink back tears of my own, which is stupid because I’ve already cried enough today to fill a freaking bathtub. My head hurts from crying. My nose is pink. My heart is all over the damn place, like someone scooped it out with an ice cream spoon and left it to melt.
“They’re perfect, Reese. Like, weirdly perfect.” I hold up the ultrasound picture again because apparently I like watching my best friend sob like she just finished The Notebook on a loop.
She gasps. Loudly. “Oh my god, look at them! Those little blobs are actual babies! Thor, that’s two!”
A blurry hand enters the frame and Thorin leans into view, his expression twisted in this mix of awe and straight-up panic, like he’s trying to process how his wife’s best friend is suddenly growing two humans. “Holy shit,” he breathes. “They look like aliens.”
Reese elbows him so hard he nearly drops the phone.
I laugh, even though my chest feels like it’s been set on fire with a flamethrower of feelings I didn’t order.
“Tell us everything,” Reese sniffs, eyes wide and glassy. “How was the appointment? Are they okay? Are you okay?”
“They’re good,” I say, and my voice comes out soft. Wobbly. “Both of them have strong heartbeats. One kept kicking like they were in a mosh pit and the other just… floated. Like they’re already total opposites.”
“Twins,” Thorin says, like it’s still sinking in. “You’re really doing this.”
“Yeah,” I whisper, resting a hand on my belly even though it’s barely anything yet. Just a bump. A maybe-bump. But it’s mine.
There’s a beat of silence on their end. The kind that’s heavy with words no one quite knows how to say yet.
Reese is the one who breaks it. “And… Fletch?”
Her voice is cautious. Like she’s testing the waters before diving into a frozen lake.
I hesitate. My throat tightens. “He knows.”
“And?” Thorin’s tone is sharper. More protective. Big Brother Mode activated.
I shrug. Try to act like the truth doesn’t burn on the way out. “He hasn’t really… responded. I don’t think he wants to be involved.”
There’s a beat.
Then Reese’s face crumples all over again.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” I force a smile. One of those brittle ones I used to wear all the time, the kind that hides the cracks if you don’t look too closely. “I’ve got this. I’m not scared.”
Lie. But it’s the kind you tell the people who love you so they don’t fall apart on your behalf.
“You shouldn’t have to do it alone,” Reese whispers.
“I know,” I murmur. “But I can. I will.”
Thorin doesn’t say anything at first. He just stares at me like he’s trying to x-ray my soul. His jaw flexes, then relaxes. “We’ve got you,” he says simply. “No matter what.”
That gets me. Hits me low and hard, right in the place where all the walls I’ve been rebuilding wobble a little.
“I know,” I say again, and this time I mean it.
We chat for a while longer—about Reese’s opportunity to open a new store for Simply Reese , about the songs Thorin’s been writing on their honeymoon, about whether my cravings for peanut butter and pickles mean I’m incubating evil—but eventually my body starts betraying me.
I yawn mid-sentence.
“Bed. Now,” Reese orders, holding up a finger like she’s my boss. “No arguing, no protests. I want your butt horizontal and your phone on silent.”
“Yes, Mom,” I mutter, already pushing back the covers.
She grins. “Damn right.”
“Night, Mya,” Thorin says gently. “Get some rest. And don’t be afraid to lean on us.”
“I won’t,” I lie, because old habits die hard, and vulnerability still tastes like vinegar in my throat.
But I smile. And I mean that too.
Because even if the guy who helped make these babies is a ghost with a beautiful face and commitment issues, I’ve still got people in my corner.
And that? That’s everything.