12. Chapter 12
Aspen
Friday comes around, but not quite quick enough.
The desire to call and tell everyone the news is eating me alive.
I’m sure Maverick already blabbed to Ava, and since she gave me the test, there is a ninety-five percent chance she already figured it out.
But Rhett and I promised to keep this secret until we knew more, so unlike my brother, I am keeping my mouth shut.
Having a baby is scary, but the thought of having to tell my brother that I’m having his best friend's baby after we’ve been sneaking around behind his back for years?
I literally get a wave of nausea anytime I think about it.
I’m hoping maybe Rhett and I can just live happily together secretly and never have to tell him. It’ll be fine.
A knock sounds at my door, and I look at the time on the oven; he’s early.
My nerves flutter again at the thought of seeing him.
He was hard to read when I told him, but I guess since he already knew, it wasn’t a shock.
It almost felt like he was holding back; maybe he wants me to be comfortable?
I don’t know. I’m overthinking everything now.
When I swing the door open, the first thing I notice is his hands completely full of groceries, and the second thing is how damn good he looks. Which isn’t out of the ordinary. He’s easily the most attractive man I have ever met in my life. And he’s just so…big.
“Good morning. I ran by the store and got you some things you might need.” He slightly raises the bags to indicate to them.
“Come on in, I love presents.”
“I know you do.” The smile that peeks through melts away some of my anxiety.
He sets the bags down on the counter and I start looking through them. My heart takes off higher and higher with each item I pull out. I look away from him, trying to hide the tears because it turns out, every rise of emotion makes me cry now. Happy? Crying. Mad? Crying with a hint of rage.
“I looked online a lot and it said you might need these things.” He gets to one of the bags and pulls out a few cans of ginger ale.
“These are supposed to be good for nausea, and I got you some chews. And I read that vitamin B6 can help too, so I grabbed some. If it’s not safe for the baby or anything, you can throw it out.
” He eyes his selection, as if he is dissecting it, making sure it is all good.
I get through the rest of the goods: plenty of healthy snacks, but also, there’s two of my favorite candy bars: Paydays, a bag of Cheeto Puffs, and a pill container, but it looks like it’s already filled.
“I filled it with prenatals. If you already have some and want to use those, you can just toss them out. I just wanted to cover all the bases.” He looks almost nervous, and I decide right then that he was the best possible person I could have had this baby with.
If he is this thoughtful now, I can’t imagine how he will be once the baby is here.
I walk to him and wrap my arms around his waist. “Rhett, this was…exactly what I needed. Thank you.”
His hand rubs circles on my back, and I close my eyes for half a second, savoring the way it feels when I’m in his arms. Safe, calm, and seen.
I’ve never really felt like I belonged anywhere. I was always my brothers’ plus one. I don’t really contribute to the ranch business. But when it's just Rhett and me, I don’t know, it just feels right.
I pull back before my wandering thoughts lead me to tears again. “We’d better get going.”
The appointment is an hour away. HIPAA is a thing, yes. But questioning eyes and loud mouths are also a thing, so I made an appointment at a sister facility. When the time comes, I can transfer to the clinic closer to home, but while this is our secret, we’re going to keep our distance.
The drive there goes quickly. While I am still completely unsure of where Rhett and I stand right now, he doesn’t hesitate to grab my hand on the walk into the building. Which is good because I am so nervous I feel a bit off-kilter.
“You nervous?” I ask him.
He doesn’t answer right away, but there’s a small nod, and a flex of his hand around mine.
“Me too.”
After filling out a mountain of forms and waiting, we get pulled into the exam room where countless tubes of blood are drawn. Once I’ve been thoroughly questioned, we finally get to the good part, the ultrasound. The nervousness I feel over it has my heart galloping away in my chest.
Shuffling into the new room, I look down at the sheet they provided to give me the tiniest bit of modesty before.
You’d think since it was Rhett, having seen my body a million times, it wouldn’t feel like a big deal to undress in front of him, but things were different then. We’re just friends now, no benefits.
“Do you mind turning around for a second so I can undress and get the sheet on?”
His eyebrows shoot up in surprise; the nurse had explained all this, but he’s probably a bit out of his element here.
Hell, I work in healthcare and this is all a bit overwhelming today.
“Sorry, I guess I should have thought of that when she talked about it all. Yeah, I’ll turn around.
” He doesn’t hesitate, and spins on his heels.
Immediately I take off my bottoms and fold them up, tucking my underwear in my pants. It’s silly that I feel weird about it, considering the doctor is about to do a very thorough exam, but I’d like to keep some of my dignity.
I hop up on the bed and toss the sheet over my bare thighs. “Okay, I am decent.”
He turns around and tries to give me a smile. “Sorry, I am a bit out of my wheelhouse here.”
“This is my first time, too, Rhett. It’s okay.” I do my best to make my smile reassuring.
Doctor Norris, our physician for the time being, knocks twice before she comes into the room as soon as we are settled.
We met her briefly as we were playing fifty questions with the nurse. She’s young, bright, and cheery, which somehow helps ease my anxiety.
It’s weird to be on the other side of this.
To be the patient. I’ve never been critically ill, just coughs and colds growing up.
And unlike my dumbass brother, I didn’t take too many unnecessary risks, which means no sutures or frequent ER visits.
This is the first time I've ever been scared in a doctor’s office.
The thin sheet covering my exposed lower body rustles as I reposition myself.
“Alright, hon, let’s get your feet up in the stirrups and get that due date figured out.”
Rhett scootches his chair closer to mine, interlacing our fingers.
My heart immediately begins to race. This isn’t at all what I had planned, but now that it’s here. I want it. I’ve seen first hand how touch and go the first few weeks of pregnancy can be. I close my eyes tight and pray that I’ll see a healthy little baby on that screen.
The doctors speaks up, voice soft and soothing. “Alright, you’re going to feel my hand, and then the probe. We use warm gel, so hopefully that makes it a bit more comfortable for you. If anything hurts, or you need a second, don't hesitate to speak up, okay?”
“Okay,” I answer, squeezing Rhett’s hand. He squeezes it back and my heart warms.
The discomfort of a transvaginal ultrasound completely dissipates when I see the screen. There is a whole baby in there. Which of course there would be a baby; that test was very positive. I just know how fast that can change.
I study the screen, noticing just how big our baby is. It’s been a while since I’ve seen an ultrasound, but I know this isn’t a six-week fetus. There is a distinct head and body.
“I’m going to get a read on the heartbeat,” she says.
I squeeze my eyes shut, hoping to hear the whooshing sound. Time feels like it’s moving in slow motion as I prick up my ears, waiting for that sweet sound. Within seconds it fills the room and settles into me. I’ll remember this sound for the rest of my life. It’s a strong heartbeat. It’s my baby.
“Heart rate is great and very strong. How far did you think you were?” she asks, moving the probe to get better images.
I turn to look at her, seeing the puzzled look on her face as she draws her eyebrows together as she looks around more.
“I wasn’t sure maybe six or eight weeks? My cycles aren’t regular on my birth control.”
She smiles. “I’m going to switch to an abdominal ultrasound, baby is a bit big for what we're working with.”
I try to make sense of it all. How the hell did I miss being pregnant for what looks like at least three months? I look to Rhett for the first time and his face is ghostly white. “Are you okay?” I whisper.
“Yeah, you?” He tears his eyes away from the screen to look at me. He tries to give a smile, but I have received so many of his real smiles in our time together that I could spot his fake, polite smile a mile away.
I nod as the doctor puts the gel on my stomach and starts again. “I’m just taking measurements, but from the looks of it, you’re at least twelve weeks, maybe even fourteen. Once the radiologist reads your scans and I get his report back, I will have my nurse call you.”
“Okay,” Rhett and I answer in unison, fingers still laced, as we watch our little baby on the screen.
“I’ll get all the measurements and then the lab work so we can know more for our follow-up appointment in a month. Did you guys opt in for genetic testing?”
“Does something look wrong?” Rhett asks, his voice laced with worry.
“Oh, not at all. Your baby looks great. I’m just making notes so at your twenty-week ultrasound, they’ll know if they need to be on the lookout for anything.” She smiles warmly at us and I nod.
“Yes, we opted in for testing. Aspen and I both gave our samples this morning; I don’t like the idea of taking any risks with our baby. If there are any other tests or things I can do, I’m happy to.” Rhett sounds wildly confident, considering how nervous he just was a few seconds ago.
My heart soars with the way he is already stepping up.
I knew in my heart he would be the best dad.
The rest of the ultrasound goes smoothly; she shows us what she’s looking at and talks us through it the whole way.
It’s utterly life-changing seeing your baby for the first time, hearing their heartbeat.
So much so that I don’t think I will walk out of this office the same person. Now, I’m a mom.
We schedule our next appointment and make our way out to the car. We get in, but Rhett doesn’t start the car right away; he sits grasping the steering wheel for dear life. “Aspen, I am so sorry. But there is something I need to tell you.”
My stomach drops as I unbuckle my seatbelt and turn to him. “Okay…” I try to sound calm, but “I need to tell you something” rarely means good news. It’s always bad news.
He swallows and flexes his hands around the steering wheel. “No one knows about this outside of my family. I’ve never told any of my friends, Weston and Mav included. I have a family history of Becker Muscular Dystrophy.”
I try and rack my brain for what that is. There are so many dystrophies out there, some more severe than others, that I try and remember what this one means. “I’m sorry, Rhett, I don’t know what that is,” I say quietly.
He avoids my gaze. “My grandpa on my mom’s side died from it when I was eighteen.”
I look to him, his insistence on genetic testing making sense now. “Is it inherited?” I question softly.
He again answers with a nod.
My heart breaks at the thought of that, at the thought of this being something Rhett is going to have to go through. “Do you have it?”
“I…I don’t know.” He finally looks at me. “But it’s why I never wanted a family or a wife, because God forbid if I do have it, it’s bad and it gets ugly.”
It all makes so much sense now, why he was only available to a certain degree, why he never dated not just me, but anyone. I think the last girlfriend I remember him having was in high school.
Trying to keep my composure, I swallow down the emotion that starts creeping its way up. “Okay, if you do have it, what does that look like?”His eyes meet mine, and he looks so defeated, so hopeless, and it breaks my heart. He thinks hard with small, slow nods of his head.
“Worst case scenario, I become so weak I can’t care for myself, and everyone I love around me has to do it while watching me wither away to nothing.
”Hearing those words makes my heart shatter into a million sharp little pieces, piercing me in such a way it's hard to breathe.
Rhett is strong for everyone, and right now, I need to be strong for him.
“Okay, and what’s the best-case scenario?”
He looks pained, afraid to imagine that life. “I don’t carry the gene at all and our baby is safe and I can live a long and happy life without having to worry about being a burden.”
The fact that he thinks he can ever be a burden to me is like salt on a wound. All this time he didn’t think he deserved happiness, or love, simply because he wanted to protect everyone else.
Taking in a deep breath, I center myself. “Okay. Until we know more, we are going to plan for the best-case scenario. Is there a way to be tested?”He nods. “Yeah. I’ve been too afraid, but now it looks like I don’t have much of a choice.”
“It’s okay to be afraid, Rhett. Everyone is sometimes; you don’t have to have it all together all of the time.”
Tears fill his eyes. “Are you afraid?”
I heave out a breath. “I just found out that I am significantly farther along, and I’m having a baby with my brother's best friend, which means I am going to have to tell said brother about us; that alone leaves me terrified.”
He pales. “Fuck. I am not looking forward to that.”
“I’ll make you a deal: we won’t talk to Weston about this until we know more. Let’s get you an appointment with a specialist, get tested, and we can figure out what’s next after, okay?”
He nods, but his eyes look so damn sad. So much worry and weight is floating around.
I pull him into me, needing to make him feel okay even for just a second. He is everyone else’s strong and steady. My hand gently rubs his back and I feel him sink into me, into the embrace.
A large part of me wonders how long he has carried this around. How long he has drowned himself with worry and the fear of being a burden. Even if he wasn’t the father of my child, he is so much more than that. He is my favorite person.
A warm teardrop splashes onto my shirt and I hold him tighter, letting him unravel. Letting him fall apart. “Rhett, I want you to know that I will be here no matter what. You could never be a burden to me.”
His exhale is shaky, and more drops wet my shirt. I hold him like this, holding onto him for dear life. Hoping that if I hold him long enough and tight enough, he will see himself the way I do. Strong and kind and none of the awful things he’s conditioned himself to believe.