Chapter 6
I couldn’t wait to see the look on Beau’s face once he realized how much of an asshole he is.
The silence of my apartment’s parking garage amplified my anticipation for the doctor’s appointment. I drummed my fingers on my steering wheel, ignoring the painful rumbling in my stomach.
Not even when I was poor did I have such a long streak of bad luck.
Not only did I drop my contacts down the sink drain this morning, my car wouldn’t start when I tried to grab breakfast before the appointment.
I texted Beau about my car trouble, but he responded that he would meet me in the parking garage and jump my dead battery.
He probably thought I was lying to get out of the appointment, just like he thought I was lying about having an IUD and about him being the father of my baby.
The only thing stopping me from murdering the next person I saw out of sheer hunger was the thought of Beau’s embarrassment once he learned I was telling the truth.
Maybe he’d even apologize. Oh, how I would love to see him grovel.
Once I got that bit of satisfaction, I would walk out of the doctor’s office and never see him again.
The low growl of a diesel engine echoed through the parking garage and a huge white truck pulled into the empty spot next to me.
I rolled down the window as soon as Beau stepped out of the truck. I met his eyes and then gave a pointed glance to the behemoth he had just driven up in. “I thought you didn’t have to compensate for anything.”
“It’s a farm truck—a rolling tax deduction,” he responded dryly. He tapped the hood of my Jaguar. “All right, open her up for me.”
I pulled a latch and the hood popped. As soon as Beau lifted the hood, white smoke billowed out.
“Get out of the car!” he shouted.
I fumbled with the door handle and flung myself out of the driver’s seat. He grabbed my hoodie’s sleeve and dragged me a few steps across the garage.
As soon as we were safely away from my car, the smoke thinned until it finally stopped.
My eyes dropped to a large puddle below the front of my car. “The hell was that? Is my car going to blow up?”
Beau silently walked over to my car and peered under the hood. “No, but you’re gushing coolant…and oil. The battery is the least of your problems.”
My stomach dropped. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but it didn’t sound good. “I swear to God, Beau, if you think I messed with my car just so I wouldn’t have to go to this appointment—!”
“I don’t think that.” He shut the hood and looked back at me. “You’re a lot of things, Adams, but you’re not stupid. This car is toast.”
I suddenly felt dizzy. “T-toast?”
He shrugged and tossed a glance at the car. “If you’re still under warranty with the dealership, they might be able to fix it without costing you five figures.”
Five figures. I was going to throw up. “I-I don’t have a warranty. I bought the car from a guy off the internet.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose and took in a deep breath. “Mon dieu.”
“Wh-what?” I asked. “Was that French?”
He looked up at me. “Do you know French?”
I hated the snobbish undertone of his question. “No. Not all of us got to go to Paris for the summer.”
“I summered at an island resort, not Paris.” He flashed me a cocky grin. “But now I know what language to use when I don’t want you to understand me.”
I flipped him off, but he ignored me. He pressed a button on his key fob and unlocked his truck. “Get in. We’re going to be late.”
Beau walked around to the driver’s side of his truck, but I stayed frozen as I stared at the front of my car.
I pulled up a spreadsheet in my mind, calculating the cost to repair the car versus buying another one and weighing the need for a car against my monthly rent, and groceries, and bills, and… and…
The heavy slam of Beau’s truck door jolted me back into the moment.
I couldn’t panic, not when I was about to go to my first prenatal appointment and definitely not when Beau was relishing in my despair.
I took a breath and mentally gathered all my worries and put it in an imaginary sack, tying it shut with a pretty satin bow of denial.
With that imaginary bow double-knotted and secure, I silently climbed into the passenger seat of Beau’s truck.
As I settled into the leather seat, I stared out the window and a strange sort of numbness settled over me.
I was suddenly reminded of when I stared down at the city from the window of my mom’s hospital room, submerged in that paradoxical state of being both empty and too heavy all at once.
The darkness of the parking garage turned into daylight as Beau drove, but my eyes stayed fixed on the same nondescript location as we passed by revolving doors and the darkened voids of storefront windows. Two voices from some podcast played over the truck’s speakers, but I couldn’t really listen.
At the doctor’s office, I sat silently on the pink couch in the lobby as Beau checked me in. I wrung my hands on top of the swell of my belly, using all my strength to hold my feelings behind that imaginary satin bow.
Someone handed me a plastic cup to pee in. I followed instructions.
I stepped on a scale and didn’t bother to read the measurement. I felt the squeeze of a blood pressure cuff on my arm.
A woman in purple scrubs asked me the date of my last period. I mumbled that I couldn’t remember.
When she left, I finally realized that I sat in a small examination room on a strange table beneath a circular golden lamp.
The table was positioned diagonally in the corner of the room, making me look like a specimen about to be studied and the star of a miniature stage show all at once.
My one spectator, Beau Fontaine III, sat in a nearby chair and scrolled through his phone.
I balled my hands into loose fists on top of my lap and heard the soft crinkle of paper. Oh, I supposed I had taken off my sweatpants and underwear at some point. Maybe I should have felt embarrassed since Beau would have been in the room, but what dignity did I have left to preserve?
The door opened and the same nurse from before wheeled in a tall machine with a big screen and a wand attachment.
A woman in black scrubs followed her and sat down on a small circular stool.
She introduced herself as Dr. Ornelas and asked me some questions that I vaguely remembered already hearing from the nurse.
Dr. Ornelas glanced at the laptop she balanced on a counter near a small sink. “You’re not sure of your last menstrual period, but you’re confident the date of conception was September 26th, right?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Allegedly,” Beau added as he lounged in his chair.
I slowly turned from Dr. Ornelas and gave Beau a look, silently begging him to not be a dick for once in his life.
Dr. Ornelas glanced up from her laptop at Beau. “Are you the father?”
“Allegedly,” Beau answered with a smirk.
Dr. Ornelas waved a hand vaguely in the direction of my left side. “Well, Mr. Allegedly, go stand over there if you want to see.”
Beau slowly rose from his chair as the nurse flicked off the lights. I reclined back on the cushioned table and Dr. Ornelas warned me of an incoming uncomfortable pressure.
My brows pinched together as she inserted the ultrasound wand, but my eyes were too glued to the flickering gray lines on the screen to care.
There was the head, the body, the tiny hands and feet—my baby. My baby. The baby fluttered its itty bitty limbs as it swam around its little bubble inside me.
Dr. Ornelas shifted the wand ever-so slightly and the screen shifted, revealing a bright white “T” shape above my baby’s bubble.
Dr. Ornelas pointed a gloved finger at the white shape. “There’s your IUD.”
She shifted the wand again, but I pulled my eyes away from the screen and looked up at Beau. Where I had wanted to catch him in a state of contrition as he realized he had been wrong all along, I instead found a man who looked like he was falling from a hundred feet.
His wide eyes made something behind my ribs flutter, so I turned back to the ultrasound screen.
My heart stopped. I blinked to make sure I was reading the screen correctly but…two. Two heads, two bodies, two sets of hands and feet.
“Well,” Dr. Ornelas said with a smile, “would you look at that.”
Twins. I was carrying twins.
The satin bow of denial broke and all my worry spilled out of that imaginary bag.
My heart raced as spreadsheets monopolized my brain, each calculating the cost of two cribs, two daycare tuitions, and two sets of clothes.
Double the diapers, double the jars of baby food, double the doctor visits, double the school supply lists…
The lights flicked back on but my internal calculator didn’t stop. I stared up at the golden lamp as my brain ran through all the data of how badly I was fucked. My hands shook as they rested on top of my belly.
Dr. Ornelas explained that I had to get my IUD removed immediately, and all I remembered was heavily nodding my head. A quick pinch and it was over. I could barely feel it. I could barely even breathe…
I mentally traced the edges of that golden lamp in a counter-clockwise spiral.
I heard Dr. Ornelas talking to Beau, but the sound hit my ears as if I were stuck inside a glass fish bowl.
I could only process bits and pieces of their conversation as my internal system whirred with numbers on a balance sheet and sorted through the acronyms of all the government assistance programs I could remember.
“…measuring at eleven weeks gestation,” Dr. Ornelas said.
“…never done this before, but…with twins?” Beau asked.
Twins. Twins. Twins. The word was an echo in my fish bowl as I drowned.
“…needs more help,” Dr. Ornelas replied. “…mobility concerns…more water…rest…”
Rest? Who could rest in my position? I needed to get another job, needed insurance, needed a babysitter, needed two cribs, needed to call the county health department, needed my mom—