Chapter 16
BETH
The exhaustion wasn’t getting better. For all of Lisa’s encouragement and promises that it would get easier, it just wasn’t.
And there was something about it, a deep-rooted kind of fatigue, that didn’t seem right.
It wasn’t just from overworking or being stressed.
I knew the difference. This was something else entirely.
Lisa caught me rubbing my eyes after the morning rush one day. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine, just tired,” I said, waving her off like it was nothing. But we both knew it wasn’t nothing. She’d been watching me closely the past week, catching me when my hands shook a little too much or when I swayed on my feet. I thought I was doing better at hiding it, but Lisa wasn’t buying it.
“Go to the doctor,” she insisted for the hundredth time.
“I’m just worn out from all of the changes, Lisa.”
“And the dizziness?”
I hesitated. She had me on that one. I hadn’t told her how often the room spun, or how sometimes it felt like the ground shifted under me when I stood up too quickly.
It was easy to dismiss those things as just being tired or not eating enough, but it was starting to scare me.
Still, I wasn’t ready to admit that maybe it was more than that.
Lisa’s gaze was relentless, her hands firmly on her hips. “I’ve been working you to the bone, I know that. And I’m grateful for it, Beth. But you don’t look good, and the last thing we need is for you to collapse on me during the dinner rush.”
She had a point, and it was hard to argue with the way my body had been betraying me lately. I nodded slowly, knowing she wasn’t going to drop this until I agreed. “Fine, I’ll go,” I finally said, sighing.
“Good. I can handle the rest of the day. Go see Dr. Richards. You remember him, right?”
How could I not remember the doctor who had been with me my whole childhood?
The guy had probably delivered me and Lisa.
He was as much a part of this town as the diner was.
“Yeah, I remember him,” I said with a smile.
But the idea of being examined, of being told I might need to slow down even more, made my chest tighten.
I went, though. Drove the familiar streets, the memories coming at me fast and thick.
The small clinic was just like it had always been, the faded sign hanging out front, the cracked sidewalk leading up to the entrance.
I used to pass this place a hundred times without a thought.
Now, walking through the doors made me feel like a stranger, like I didn’t quite belong here anymore.
I sat outside in the parking lot for longer than I should have before making myself go inside.
The familiar sight of the waiting room greeted me.
I remembered the magazines being old when I was a kid, and they didn’t look to have been updated since then.
But the receptionist, Kathy Richards, the doctor’s wife greeted me with a smile.
“If it isn’t Beth Parker?” she said, using my maiden name. “What brings you back to town?”
“Hi, Kathy,” I said with a shrug and noncommittal wave. “I’m staying with my sister and have been feeling a bit run down. She pushed me to come get checked out.”
“She’s a good sister to have,” the older lady said. She knew us, had for years, and yet there was nothing judgmental about her gaze, even if I was a stranger in her mind. “Go ahead and get checked in and see the doctor. He’s not in with a patient right now.”
It took only a few minutes before Dr. Richards came into the small exam room, his gray hair thinner than it once was but his smile just as warm as I remembered.
He had the same gentle eyes that had looked at me countless times over the years when Lisa had dragged me in for one thing or another, though his brow furrowed with concern the moment he looked at my chart.
“What’s been going on?” he asked.
I gave him a quick rundown. I hadn’t been sleeping, the dizziness was getting worse, and no matter how much I worked or tried to eat, I just couldn’t shake this constant exhaustion.
He listened quietly, jotting things down, but it was the kind of attention that told me I was going to hear something I didn’t want to.
My mind automatically went to the worst case scenarios, the rare diseases and deadly infections that always seemed to pop into one’s mind during doctor’s visits.
I had already convinced myself this might be something worse than I was ready for when Dr. Richards cleared his throat. The look in his eyes softened.
“You’re pregnant.”
I blinked, certain I’d misheard. “I’m what?”
“About eight weeks, give or take,” he repeated, smiling now.
My brain screeched to a halt. Pregnancy.
Of course. Of all things. This was not a diagnosis I had anticipated in the slightest, and yet, it made a twisted kind of sense.
All of it, the tiredness, the dizzy spells, all of it.
I sat there, frozen, while he explained the symptoms that now seemed obvious in hindsight. But it wasn’t real to me. Not yet.
“We can do a urine test or a blood test if you want to confirm it, but with all your symptoms, I feel very confident in the diagnosis. And really, an over-the-counter test will give you the same answer I’m giving you. And it’s cheaper, if that matters to you.”
I had no doubt that Dr. Richards was used to finding cheaper alternatives for his patients. The whole town was made up of families living off the minimum they could get away with, and the medical office was no exception. But I didn’t care. My mind was elsewhere, spiraling into places it shouldn’t.
This changed everything. I was pregnant with Chris’s baby.
The thought of Chris and everything we’d been through flooded my mind in an instant.
This child was a piece of him, a connection I wasn’t ready to think about.
What would he do when he found out? He would want the kid, of course he would.
That much was clear, and I didn’t begrudge him that.
But there was so much between us now. How could we even start to think about co-parenting when we couldn’t even speak to each other without it ending in anger or silence?
The weight of it all settled onto my shoulders like a brick had been dropped onto my back.
Once I was behind the wheel of my car, I just sat there again, unable to move.
The reality of the pregnancy didn’t feel real.
It was like I was watching my life unfold from the outside, an observer instead of the one living it.
The longer I sat, though, the more real it began to feel.
I had a tiny life growing inside me. I hadn’t asked for this.
I wasn’t ready for it. But here it was, and I knew I needed time to wrap my head around what that meant.
The first thing that came to mind, before anything else, was how Chris would use this.
He could come at me with lawyers and money.
And that thought twisted something deep in me.
This baby was mine too, and I would die before I let him control something so personal and so vulnerable.
I clenched my hands on the steering wheel, determination hardening in my chest.
No one was going to take this from me. I might have left the world of money and power, but that didn’t mean I would let it pull me back in. Not now. Not like this.
I eventually pulled out of the parking lot, intending to go back to the diner.
I wasn’t even sure how to tell Lisa. But the pharmacy drew my attention.
Without even thinking about it, I pulled off the road again.
Going in to buy a pregnancy test, I felt a little like I did when I came into the same pharmacy to buy condoms many years ago.
There was a nervousness in my actions that made no sense considering I was a grown woman.
The small box in my hand was proof that my body was going through something profound.
I went to my car, locked the door behind me, and stared at the box like it held all my future choices.
I felt oddly numb, like I was still processing how drastically my life was about to change again.
I’d left Chris for a reason, and I didn’t regret it.
But this complicated things more than I had prepared for.
“This is silly,” I finally said as I started my car and pulled back onto the highway.
A minute later, I was back in the diner parking lot, pulling around back to keep the main spaces available for customers.
I didn’t know how to tell Lisa what Dr. Richards had diagnosed me with, but she would know something was up the moment she saw my face.
I opened the door of my car, hesitating before grabbing the test, and stepped inside through the back kitchen.
Lisa was working the counter up front. I ducked past her without a word and hurried upstairs, needing space.
I closed the door to my bedroom and locked it, not wanting to be interrupted right now.
I pulled out the test, staring at the instructions like they were written in a language I didn’t quite understand.
My hands were trembling as I opened the package, the plastic crinkling in the quiet of the room.
I’d taken pregnancy tests before, in the early days with Chris when we were first figuring things out.
It had been routine back then, just another part of our lives together. This time, it felt terrifying.
The moment of truth came all too quickly, the little window of the stick staring back at me, waiting for me to look.
My heart pounded, my breaths coming shallow.
I forced myself to glance down, then looked away again, my hands shaking.
It felt surreal to see the plus sign. There it was, the confirmation of something that had already upended my entire world again.
I stared at it for a long moment, still unable to believe it. And then the floodgates opened.
Tears slipped down my cheeks, though I didn’t know if they were from shock or fear or just the overwhelming realization of what this meant for everything.
I collapsed on the bed, clutching the test in my hand like it was some kind of talisman.
My mind spun in too many directions to keep track of.
I wasn’t ready for this. I hadn’t planned for this. But there was no undoing it now.
The knock on the door was soft, and Lisa’s voice came through a second later. “Beth? You okay in there?”
I wiped at my face, trying to steady my breathing. “I’m fine,” I called back, but it came out shaky and unconvincing.
“Open the door, or I’m getting the spare key.”
I sighed and stood, unlocking the door before she could follow through on the threat. Lisa stepped inside and immediately knew something was wrong. She glanced from my puffy eyes to the test in my hand, then back to my face. Her eyes widened in realization. “You’re pregnant?”
I nodded, the reality sinking in even deeper now that someone else knew. It felt like a weight and a relief at the same time. “Apparently,” I whispered, sinking back onto the edge of the bed.
Lisa stood frozen for a moment, then moved toward me, sitting next to me with a worried frown. “Have you told Chris?”
My stomach turned at the thought. “No. And I don’t know if I should.” My voice trembled slightly as I said the words.
She placed her hand on my shoulder, squeezing gently. “Beth, he has to know. This isn’t just about you anymore.”
“I know that, Lisa,” I shot back, a little sharper than I meant to, but she let it slide.
I could feel her eyes on me, her concern as palpable as my own.
“But I don’t know if I should. I don’t want the baby to be the reason we patch things up.
The baby isn’t a bandaid in our relationship.
I’ve seen too many parents have a baby and it only delays the inevitable. I can’t do that.”
Lisa nodded slowly, understanding. “So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.” The honesty in my own words stung more than anything. “I just... I need time to figure it out, to think about how to do this without it becoming about him, without it pulling me back into his world.”
“Okay.” Lisa stood, rubbing her hands together as if she could help me solve this. “We’ll figure it out. I’ll help you, okay?”
I looked up at her, gratitude and fear all tangled up together inside me.
This was just the start, I knew that. The journey ahead was long, complicated, and I had no idea how I was supposed to handle it.
But at least, for now, I wasn’t alone. Lisa’s presence, the warmth of her offer to help, gave me a tiny bit of comfort in an otherwise overwhelming moment.
“I need to lie down for a little bit,” I said, the exhaustion already starting to creep in, heavier now that the shock had begun to settle. “Will you tell the customers I’m not feeling well?”
“Of course,” she said softly. “Get some rest, and don’t worry about anything else right now. We’ll handle the diner and everything else one step at a time.”
I nodded, and the tears came again. Not from fear this time, but from the strange relief that at least someone was with me, even if it wasn’t the person I once thought would be.