7. Ellie
CHAPTER SEVEN
ellie
IWAS SITTING BY the toilet, contemplating my life choices and wondering if my nausea was ever going to evolve into something, when my phone rang.
I considered ignoring it, but then saw it was Delaney, who I’d been in an ongoing game of phone tag with.
“Hey!” My attempt at sounding enthusiastic was stilted, given the vise my stomach was in, but at least I tried. “Sorry I didn’t get back to you yesterday.”
Grimacing, I tried not to think about everything else that had happened yesterday.
Namely, the pacing in front of my car while I debated going to the drug store.
And then the pacing in the aisle of said drugstore—a bodega in Mission Bay.
And finally, of course, the pacing I’d done in my kitchen while deciding if I was ready to rip open the package of pregnancy tests.
I hadn’t.
Not yet.
“Oh, no worries. I just figured I’d try you again since I’m between patients, and Blake and I have a dance class after work, so I’ll be busy later.” A laugh got stuck in my throat, the end result of what was a strangled wheeze. I could hear the smile in Delaney’s voice when she added, “What?”
“Sorry.” I coughed out the rest of my laugh and pushed myself off the ground. I needed a glass of water. “I thought you just said Blake was going to a dance class.”
The Blake London I knew did not dance. That was far too, I don’t know, lively for him.
“I did, actually.”
She sounded overjoyed about that fact.
“I love that,” I said honestly, grabbing a cup from my cupboard and filling it up in the sink. “You know, he seemed so happy at the engagement party.”
“Yeah.” The wistfulness in her voice made my chest ache. It was inexplicable, and I tried to wash it away with a gulp of water. “We both are.”
“I’m so glad.”
They were honest words, but they came out a touch despondent, and Delaney homed in on it immediately.
“How are you?” she asked.
Shit.
The question took me so off guard that all I could do was blink and stare at my empty kitchen—at the half-dead plants I always forgot to water on the windowsill and the dirty dishes from my untouched breakfast in the sink below it. A long moment went by before I came back to life again.
“Oh, me?” I shook myself out of it. “I’m good. Fine. Great.”
Jesus Christ, I was a mess.
“Are you…sure?”
“Yeah, you know.” I shrugged, even though she couldn’t see me. “Just some…” I clutched my stomach. “Funky health stuff.”
Funky.
That was how I decided to describe the possibility that I was pregnant with my ex-boyfriend’s baby? As funky?
“Okay.” Delaney hesitated and then cleared her throat. “You know, I am a doctor. If there’s anything you, you know, wanted to talk about.”
Right. Right, right, right. Probably shouldn’t have mentioned anything about my health when I was talking to a literal cardiologist.
“Oh, I don’t want to be one of those people,” I said, waving away her kind offer. “Someone who befriends a doctor just so they can send them unsolicited questions about their health after experiencing the onset of, like, the common fucking cold.”
I forced a laugh, and Delaney chuckled.
“Well, it’s not unsolicited,” she reasoned. “I am quite literally soliciting my services as a health professional to you. Although I suppose you do have Natalie for that.”
“Yeah, but—”
I swallowed my words.
I wasn’t ready to go to Natalie with this.
First of all, the court date for her custody trial was next week, and she had more than enough on her plate at the moment.
Second of all, it was possible that I’d never be ready to go to Natalie with this.
Because there was no world in which I would tell Natalie something that I expected her to keep a secret from the rest of her siblings—from Sully.
That wouldn’t be fair to put her in that position.
And I didn’t know…I just didn’t know about Sully yet. I didn’t know what was happening—hadn’t wrapped my head around it.
I’d spent the last couple of weeks doing everything I could to not think about Sully or the things we had done in that hotel room.
And now, come to find out, that it might be very possible that I’d never go another day without thinking about Sully.
And that night. And the consequences of it, which were—
Oh my God.
My breathing quickened, and I realized that I was gripping the edge of the countertop, digging my nails into the laminate.
It wasn’t that I was scared of the idea of a child. Of Sully’s child. Because God, while my thoughts about children and pregnancy were complicated, there was no one on this Earth whose child I would want to have other than his. Which was…wild to admit. But true. Undeniably true.
No, it wasn’t necessarily the end result that I was scared of.
It was the process—the pregnancy.
“Delaney?”
Her name hiccuped out of me.
“Yeah, Ellie?”
“What do—” I had to stop to clear my throat. “What do you know about women who have a history of blood clots, like ones in their lungs, that were caused by the side effects of hormonal birth control, and what happens when they…become pregnant?”
Delaney didn’t miss a beat.
“Oh, Ellie. How long since a missed period?”
“Just…a few days.”
“So conception—”
“Like…around three weeks,” I squeaked out.
Delaney did pause this time. Calculated it out. Likely realized what it meant.
“Have you confirmed?”
“Not yet. I have some tests, but…”
“You should probably take one,” she said, softer.
“Because if it’s positive, you should schedule an appointment soon.
It’ll be okay. You’ll be okay. I’m not a hematologist or an ob-gyn, but if you choose to remain pregnant, my guess is that your doctors will likely want to start you on a blood thinner, and they probably won’t want to wait too long to start. ”
“Okay.” I could feel my heart beat in my throat, thumping against my windpipe. “Okay. Alright.”
“Do you have anyone who could come over, maybe?” Delaney ventured, her voice still incredibly patient.
“Not really.”
All of my friends were part of the same family that I’d purposefully distanced myself from.
I probably shouldn’t even be talking to Delaney right now.
“Would you want me to stay on the phone while you take a test?”
My stomach tied itself in knots at the idea of knowing for certain.
I didn’t feel confident that I was ready for this.
Poor Delaney would probably just end up sitting on the phone, listening to my heavy breathing as I stared at myself in the mirror, too afraid to look down at the pregnancy test after peeing on it.
“No, no, it’s okay,” I managed. “We should probably be talking about the reason you called.”
“That’s really not urgent. That’s all…hypothetical stuff. Just me complaining about PEQs. It’s not important.”
“Yeah, but I can fix it,” I said, and I hated that my voice cracked on the last two words. “I can fix it for you, Delaney. I can create something that would fix it, and I need—”
I stopped talking when my voice started to shake, dropping my elbows to the kitchen counter and pressing my forehead into my palm.
“Okay,” Delaney said gently, voice full of understanding. “If you want to talk about it, we can. Of course we can.”
“I want that,” I assured her. “I’d really like to talk about patient-entered questionnaires with you, Dr. Delacroix.”
“Alright, I have about twenty minutes until my next appointment. Let’s chat. And then afterward, just know you can always text me if you need anything. Okay?”
I nodded, my head still pressed against the palm of my hand, my eyes squeezing shut. “Thank you.”
It was possible—probable, actually—that I was about to be sick. But I had no idea if that was just the nerves or the—
“Of course. But, hey, Ellie?”
I had the feeling that if I opened my mouth, I might vomit, so I just hummed my response and hoped she heard me. “Mm?”
“Before we talk about anything else, I just want you to know that I won’t mutter a word to anyone about this. I won’t tell Blake. Or any other London. Even if I, you know, never hear anything about this again.”
My stomach unclenched ever so slightly at her promises, and I opened my eyes.
“I really appreciate that, Delaney.” I attempted to take a deep breath, but it felt like it only filled one side of my lungs, which only made me more anxious.
Because I’d felt that sensation before, and I had to remind myself that this wasn’t that.
This wasn’t that. “I’m just…still figuring some things out. ”
“Of course.” Her voice forcibly brightened. “So, PEQs?”
I finally closed my laptop around ten at night after spending a few hours playing with some ideas for Delaney’s interface. I would have kept working on it, but my stomach had started screaming at me, and not in the same way it had been this morning.
I needed to eat.
I hadn’t been good about that lately. There were too many nerves and strange feelings that were making it hard to find an appetite. Though maybe there was another reason for that, too.
I made a bowl of ramen before dropping onto my couch and turning on The Fellowship of the Ring—the extended edition, of course—hoping that Howard Shore and the plucky string sounds of “Concerning Hobbits” could lull me into a reality where I lived in the Shire with curly-haired, barefoot neighbors instead of in an apartment building full of tech bros.
A reality where the world was simpler.
Yes, fine, maybe Frodo wouldn’t appreciate me saying that, considering everything he went through to drop that damn ring into the fires of Mount Doom, and maybe he would go as far as to say that I was being a little insensitive—I mean, he did almost become spider food—but nevertheless, his mission was clear.
There was good, and there was evil, and one had to triumph over the other.
I would love some clarity right now.
I needed someone to tell me what to do, even though I knew what the first step was. I knew what I needed to do before anything else. Before I could puzzle out the rest.
The problem was…the thought of actually doing it had me frozen to the couch.
When I reached the break in the two discs of the extended edition of The Fellowship—because yes, I did find it extra comforting to watch LOTR on DVD—I forced myself to the bathroom to rip the metaphorical Band-Aid off, my stomach churning with every step.
After many deep breaths, I peed on three separate brands of pregnancy tests, and then I barely even blinked when I found all three to be…positive.
Positive.
Positive.
Positive.
I was pregnant.
I stood in the bathroom, a little numb and a lot terrified. My vision blurred, my current reality fraying at the edges.
No wonder I hadn’t been able to shake Sully after leaving Boston. A part of him had stayed with me. A part of him was always going to be with me, but not in the way I’d grown used to in the last five years. No—in a very real, tangible way. In a human, living way.
Oh my God.
My breaths came to the surface in short staccatos.
I’d spent so many years being haunted by these plus signs. By even the idea of them. My health history had ingrained fears in me that had been impossible to shake. For months and months, I tried to shake them but couldn’t, and it had ruined so goddamn much in my life.
But tonight, even with everything that was on the line and all the reasons I should be considering every option I had at my disposal, I…smiled.
I was smiling.
With reality staring me in the face, no longer a swirl of possibilities in my brain but concrete with evidence in the form of a stick I’d just peed on…I realized that maybe my mission was clear.
Because I couldn’t imagine a world where I was pregnant with Sullivan London’s child and I didn’t love them for eternity.
I couldn’t imagine a world where I was pregnant with Sullivan London’s child and I didn’t tell him.
Where I wasn’t there with him, back at the start, where we’d begun so many years ago, where Sully had looked at the sky and wondered what it would be like to raise his kids in the same place he’d grown up, on the same soil.
I knew we couldn’t really go back to the start, not like that. Too much damage had been done that wouldn’t mend easily. He’d told me, in very explicit words, that he’d never be able to forgive me. And I could accept that.
But I didn’t need Sully hating me more than he already did.
Which meant I had to tell him.
And I had to move back to Minnesota, too.