Page 102 of Making Choices

It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her that I can make myself scarce any time she wants me to. In fact, my mouth is open and my lips have started to form the first word when Slash chooses that moment to undo all my hard work. Like an idiot—or the long-term single man with zero game that he is—Slash shakes free of Bebe’s clutches and slings his arm over my shoulders instead.

His breath washes over the top of my head, then his lips are pressed to my hair an instant later. I stiffen, unsure how to explain that he means nothing untoward by his behaviour. It’s just how we are—how we’ve always been.

If Bebe would hang around more often, she’d see that I’m the same with all of the club brothers.

“Let’s get a move on.” Slash compounds his mistake. “Don’t wanna keep the doctor waitin’.”

“I can go by myself. Take Bebe for coffee.”

“Harrumph,” he inarticulately grunts, ignoring my protest in typical Slash-in-denial fashion. Before I can object, he removes his arms from my shoulders and, after threading his fingers through mine, tugs me in the direction of the clinic. I trot alongside him as he tells me, “Told you I’m gonna hold your hand through it... ain’t nothin’ gonna stop me followin’ through on that promise.”

Leaning in close, I mutter, “Take your girlfriend for coffee, dumbarse.”

He juts his chin and remains silent until we reach room three.

His fingers tighten around mine. “You ready for this?”

My desire not to get between Slash and Bebe dies as the full impact of what I’m at the obstetrics clinic for hits me hard. I’m about to have my cervix dilated and the remains of my baby scraped out of my body. My biggest dream, one that I thought was close to unobtainable, will be officially ended by the time I leave here today.

This procedure is the final full stop to denote the demise of my relationship.

And I don’t like what I see in my future.

No Zeke.

No baby.

No wedding.

No marriage.

No plans.

No hope.

If it wasn’t for Slash, I’d be floating in the air like an out-of-control hot air balloon.

Misgivings aside, I strap on my big girl boots. “I’m ready.”

He pushes open the door. “I’ll be with you the entire time.”

“And so will I,” Bebe offers. All signs of animosity toward me are gone, and in their place sits the calm, professional façade I recognise from the night she stitched me up after Alex’s attack. “While we wait, why don’t you look over contraceptives so you can get that sorted today as well.”

I accept the pamphlets Bebe hands me and settle into the single chair. Slash perches on the arm of the double seat opposite me, frowning when his girlfriend takes the cushion closest to him. My aloneness mocks me. Only single chairs fill my future. It’s a solitary emptiness, a countdown clock to the end of my life as I know it.

After leafing through the contraceptive options, I decide to have an IUD inserted.

“I’m leaning toward an IUD,” I tell Bebe when I realise she’s staring at me.

In the wake of my gynaecologist’s diagnosis that it would be next to impossible for me to conceive due to the damage done to my insides during Alex’s attack almost five years ago, I’ve never bothered with contraception before now.

That turned out to be both a blessing and a curse.

I now know that I can get pregnant.

I also know the pain of losing a child.

And, since I don’t plan on having sex any time soon, choosing the tried and tested, no-fuss method that Nadia suggested seems the easiest avenue right now.

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