Page 58 of Ghosted By Texas

Austin sat quietly until I was called back and then he followed behind me as I was weighed.

“Looks like you’ve put on twelve pounds since your last visit. You might want to slow down on the weight gain. The recommended gain for the whole pregnancy is about thirty pounds,” the nurse condescendingly informed me.

That was only slightly embarrassing, considering Austin was there to hear it. Then again, it mostly went to my boobs and my butt, so what the hell did I have to be ashamed of? Nothing. That’s what. If the nurse had been a little more discreet in weight shaming me, it wouldn’t have been a problem.

“Last time I saw Becs, she was underweight. She looks healthy now, what’s your problem?” Austin asked the woman, and it seemed like he was determined to take his bad mood out on her.

“I didn’t mean any offense; she needs to know…”

“Yes, you did, otherwise you wouldn’t have said it like that while staring at me.”

“Is there a problem here?” My doctor stopped on her way out of one of the patient rooms to ask.

“Beyond your nursing staff weight shaming your patients, no.”

Austin’s blunt response caught her attention and Dr. Danvers glanced down at the weight that was written on my chart. “Oh, good. I hoped you put on a little weight before this appointment. This gentleman is right, you were a bit underweight before. That’s something we usually discuss in the privacy of the exam room, though.” She glared pointedly at the nurse. “I’ll see you there in just a few minutes,” she directed as she turned her attention back to me.

“I won’t turn into an ice cube while we wait this time, will I?” I asked as she got ready to enter another patient’s room.

“Oh, I forgot you were here for that last time. No, it will be a normal temperature, and no need to change into the gown this time either.”

That was the first bit of good news I’d heard all day. Austin and I entered the examination room and quickly realized there was only one chair. I took the exam table as my seat and he quickly pulled the chair around so that he was sitting beside me.

“So, what are they doing at this visit, if you don’t have to take your clothes off?” He finally asked.

“No clue. I was pleasantly surprised by that news.”

“Is this one of those times where we’ll get to see the baby?”

“No. That’s why I was going to invite you to the next visit.”

“You’re not going to leave me out of that because I made you bring me to this one today, are you?” The panic in his voice was real and honestly, heartbreaking.

“I wouldn’t do that,” I whispered. “They might be able to tell if it is a girl or a boy next time.”

“Really? That soon?”

“Yeah, that soon.” I shrugged. “Seems weird to me because last time it just looked like a blob with a beating heart.”

“You saw the heart beating last time?” I nodded my head and watched as his shoulders sagged and face fell into a sad little frown that I’d never seen him wear before.

“I missed it,” he lamented to the floor. “She fucking lied to me, and I ended up missing out on seeing my real baby’s heart beating for the first time.”

Aw, man. I would not feel sorry for him. Nope. “She might have lied to you, Austin, but it was your decision to cut me out of your life the way you did that made you miss out. I would have understood, if you’d told me why you were doing it. When I found out I was pregnant, I would have included you, if that’s what you wanted, even knowing we couldn’t be together.”

“Then why didn’t you anyway?”

“Because I can’t trust you to be there for me now. You couldn’t communicate with me and left me in the lurch with no explanation, even when I tried to reach out to you. What would you have done, if I hadn’t run out of your house that night? Would you have left it to Jordan to come kick me out of your bed?”

“No, I wouldn’t have done that. I came to tell you that night, but you’d already gone.”

“Yeah, I did and once again, you didn’t bother to check that I made it home safely, considering you drove me to your house, and it was four in the freaking morning when I left.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I hadn’t even thought of that. Please, understand, I’d just been told that I was having a baby with the wrong fucking woman, and new that meant I had to let you go. Worse, I thought it meant I had to hurt you in the only way I knew would make an impact, so you’d move on and forget all about me.”

“How chivalrous of you,” I snapped as I rolled my eyes and looked away from him. The sad part was, I believed what he was telling me. That didn’t mean I had to like any of it or forgive him for doing things the way he did. It hurt me, tore us apart, and will have a needlessly huge impact on our child’s life as a result. The last part was why I couldn’t forgive him.

We both sat quietly after that. Austin smartly realized that there was only so much I was willing to hear about where he’d gone wrong as we sat waiting to get an update on the life growing inside me.

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