Chapter Ten
KENDALL
The waiting room of my OBGYN is a collection of plastic chairs and half a
dozen magazines with headlines that promise self-improvement. The TV in
the corner is blaring some kind of morning news show but I don’t catch on to
anything they’re saying. I’m too nervous for this appointment. My hands are
folded tight in my lap like I can physically hold this together.
Ten weeks gestation.
I’ve been repeating that number like a prayer.
That’s why I’m here. Waiting for a measured, clinical answer. For someone
else’s stethoscope to translate this private chaos into data I can trust.
After taking a handful of pregnancy tests–five, maybe six, plus the one Isla
shoved into my hand, just to be sure–I’ve finally scheduled the appointment
to confirm what all those little plastic sticks already told me.
Each one had the same two pink lines staring back at me from my
bathroom counter.
Now I just need a doctor to tell me they weren’t some late April Fool’s joke
gone wrong.
My phone buzzes giving me a small reprieve from my own thoughts. I
glance at the screen and see the group thread light up: Vivi, Isla, Cammy,
Peyton–my tiny, loud, gloriously nosy tribe.
Vivi: What the hell?? Did you know they took this photo?
A thumbnail pops up. I don’t click on it at first. I already have a hand in my
abdomen, as if the baby’s a small thing I can steady with two fingers. Then I
open the image.
There we are, me and Tarron, at the front of the restaurant when I first
arrived to meet him. The warm glow of the restaurant’s lighting washes us in
flattering light. His hand rests at the small of my back. His lips press the side
of my cheek in the exact angle they used in the photo the paparazzi love to
exploit. My smile is that made-for-public smile, the one that covers a dozen
softer, darker truths.
The nausea climbs like an elevator. I force my breath shallow and even.
The headline reads worse than the picture.
Is Tarron McCoy making a play for the Sentinels? And for his ex-wife?
Cammy: What an asshole. Do you think he planted this?
Isla: She’s at the doctor right now. Don’t stress her out.
Peyton: If outlets are posting this it must be one damned slow news
week. Don’t worry about it. This will be yesterday’s headline by
noon.
I’m about to type something, when the nurse comes out and my stomach
flutters with nerves, but then she calls someone else in the waiting room. The
fluorescent light over the reception area seems too bright all of a sudden. My
knees go rubbery- but I stand, even if the world is tilting just enough to make
me steady myself against the back of a chair.
I knew photos had been taken. I didn’t expect them to have this clarity, this
timing. Cammy’s question circles like a vulture in the back of my skull: did
he plant this? Would he; would he stoop that low for optics? I wouldn’t put it
past him, not after everything. And certainly not if he still has the same agent
who sold me down the river for a commission payday.
Vivi: Oh my God! Can we get rid of this guy? I’m not afraid of jail.
That earns her a grin and a slight chuckle from me. These girls are so
protective and I appreciate it, even if it’s just for a laugh.
Then a new message drops into the thread. Another video link, it autoplays
right there in the preview. It’s a clip from a charity last night, the kind with
cameras, balloons, and forced warmth. There’s Tarron at the mic, the sportsfriendly smile in place. He looks immaculate. He looks, most dangerously,
practiced.
A reporter off-camera asks, “Tarron, the photos of you and your ex-wife
that surfaced earlier today. Do you have a comment?”
He blinks as if surprised to be asked a personal question. For a beat, that
arrogant curiosity of his is soft as velvet. Then he gives his practiced halfsmile. “Kendall and I went through some hard things and a very public
divorce,” he says. “At the end of the day, though, we still care for each other.
Things are new, but—” he pauses, the camera catching the exact second he
chooses his words—“we’re talking again. And there’s a little bundle of news
to share once she’s ready to tell the world.”
My stomach flips over so violently I have to sit down before I fall. I can’t
hear the rest of the clip. The video sounds like it’s coming from behind a
door: distant, tinny, not quite real. My free hand goes hot and balls at my fist.
I should have expected he would do something like this.
I shut the preview so fast my thumb hurts.
He texted me the next day, after we had dinner together, asking if I’d taken
a test yet. I remember the stupid little flutter of relief when I saw his message
because he was someone I could tell, and I needed to tell someone, and I
remember, with a clarity that now makes my heart ache, what I did: I sent him
a photo of the positive test. A bright, stupid smear of white and two perfect
pink lines. I told myself it was safe then, that we were past the ugliness.
Maybe I was trying to be generous. Maybe I just wanted him to know—
someone to know.
Now the gif of his smiling face is tucked at the corner of my vision. The
idea that he can spin this into a narrative—spin me like he did last time when
his team made me the gold digger soon-to-be ex-wife—makes bile rise and
fall in my throat.
The nurse opens the door and calls my name for real this time. I stand, jaw
working, and walk down the hall. My hands are shaking, but only because
there’s so much I can’t control. The click of my shoes on linoleum is loud in
my ears.
In the exam room, I sit on the edge of the paper-covered table and try to
breathe around the panic that wants to swallow me whole. The doctor asks
routine questions: meds, family history, allergies, and I answer in a voice that
belongs to someone watching from a distance.
Then the Doppler warms under the silver strip in the technician’s hand. The
room narrows to the steady hush of machine noise. I’ve heard a thousand
heartbeats in my life, but none of them wrap themselves around me like this.
Then the sound: a tiny, rapid whomp–whomp–whomp. It’s absurdly loud
and impossibly small. Every thread of fear in my body unravels into this
sound. Tears sting the corners of my eyes before I can hold them back. The
nurse smiles like she’s sharing a secret I’ve only just learned.
“That’s the baby’s heartbeat,” the tech says softly. “About one hundred
forty-five beats per minute. That’s great—a strong little heart this baby has.”
You’ll have to have a strong heart, baby.
Because your mom’s heart feels like it’s in a million pieces. Pieces I hope I
can mend into something whole before you get here.
For a ridiculous second, I feel guilty for letting myself be found by
something so tender. And now the truth settles heavy and real–this little life
exists. And I carried it into all this chaos.
I’m sorry sweet baby. Mommy will get it all fixed. I promise. You won’t
grow up like I did.
My phone buzzes again in my bag. I don’t check it. I don’t want to invite
the world into this room.
I press my palm to my abdomen, feeling the hollow where a future is
hidden. My heart is both breaking and mending in the same motion.
When I stand to leave, the group thread explodes again with plan-making
fury and half-jokey rage. But I walk out of the clinic with an ultrasound photo
in my hand, a paper rectangle that is both a promise and a verdict.
In the elevator, I finally open my phone.
Vivi: SOS. We’re assembling plan evil.
Isla: Call us when you’re done being heroic.
Cammy: We’ll kill a man for you.
Peyton: PR spin doctors on speed dial.
I stare at the messages, thumb hovering over the keyboard. The nausea is
still there, but under it is something else: the faint, steady echo of that tiny
heartbeat that will not be negotiated with headlines.
I type nothing. Instead I snap a photo of the ultrasound and send it to them
before I talk myself out of it. Then I tuck the phone back into my bag and
walk into the rain-streaked world, the city suddenly both too loud and too
small for the fact that my world is now wrapped around a tiny little thing that
my body has kept from me like a secret for so long.
By the time I get to my car, the rain has picked up again. I sit there, the
ultrasound photo balanced on my thigh.
Then my phone rings.
Tarron.
For a few seconds, I just stare at the screen. The part of me that still wants
to believe the best in people—the part that’s too tired to fight—answers.
“Hey,” I say flatly.
He exhales. “Kendall. I’m sorry.”
I close my eyes. “For what, exactly? The photo? Or implying on national
media that we’re getting back together and expecting a child?”
“I didn’t plan that,” he says quickly. “The paparazzi were there for a movie
couple who never showed at the restaurant. They used us instead, and at the
charity event… I got cornered. I didn’t know what to say.”
“You didn’t know what to say,” I repeat, my voice sharp. “So you made
something up.”
“I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true,” he insists, and that quiet, practiced
sincerity almost works—almost. “We are talking again. I do still care about
you. And you are…” He trails off, lowering his voice. “You are pregnant,
right?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Tarron, you don’t get to make
announcements about my body. You don’t get to say anything about this. I
haven’t even decided what I want to do yet.”
There’s a pause. His tone softens. “You’re right. I crossed a line. I just…
panicked. I wanted to say something that made sense.”
I don’t believe him, but I want to. I want to believe that his days of hurting
me are over. That putting me first is something he’s capable of once in his
life.
“Then next time, try saying no comment.”
He sighs, and for a heartbeat, I hear the version of him I once trusted—the
man who’d bring me dinner when I pulled overnight shifts, who’d talk about
our future like it was a sure thing. “I get it,” he says. “No more media, no
more comments. I’m sorry, Kendall.”
I almost believe him. I want to.
Then he adds, “Come over tonight. We’ll talk privately. No press, no
cameras. I’ll order in. Just us.”
I stare at the ultrasound photo still sitting on my lap, the faint white blur of
something that shouldn’t already feel like everything.
“That’s a bad idea,” I say, knowing that his charms obviously still work on
me at some level. No matter how much he’s done to me, there’s still a part of
me that wants to trust him. “I have a lot to do before the players come back
next month. I don’t want to make this mess any bigger than it already is.”
He’s quiet for a beat. “You’re really not giving me a chance, are you?”
“Tarron, we had our chances. You burned through all of them and you’re
still doing it. I can’t trust you. Can’t you see that?”
Silence stretches, heavy and strange. Then he exhales, defeated. “All right.
No more media. No more statements. I promise.”
“Thank you.”
“Just don’t write me off yet. I’ll show you that you can trust me. I’m going
to prove it.”
“We’ll see.”
I hang up before he can say anything else.
The car is silent again except for the drumming rain. I glance down at the
ultrasound photo one more time, thumb brushing the glossy edge.
He says he’s sorry. He might even mean it this time.
But believing him now would mean trusting the man who taught me what it
feels like to fall for the wrong kind of love.
And I’m not making that mistake again.
This baby will never feel that kind of loss or pain. I have a chance to do
what my mother and her mother never could. I’m going to shower this baby
with every ounce of love I have.
I will protect my baby’s peace.
No matter the cost.
Now that this is real, I have the thought to text Aleksi. But what would I
say.
“Hey, funny story…”
Or…
“Remember how you offered to help me with my quarantine regret?
Surprise…
How about…
“I know I said to give us space but co-parentings going to bring us closer
than ever.”
Then I remember his beautiful girlfriend, his smile, her bonding with the
family.
I can’t do this to him. I can’t ruin his plans and his new life.
I know I can’t keep this from him either but I can’t tell him just yet. Not
when it could destroy his new happy life.
I’ll find a way to tell him once I come up with the right thing to say, but I’ll
plan to raise this baby on my own.
I can do it.
