No, no you can’t. No one can help me. Collin knows people everywhere! “No! No, I don’t want help. I-I don’t need it.” I laughed uneasily and shrugged. “I just don’t want a, uh, baby, you know? I don’t think I’m one of those women cut out to be mothers, but my husband, he wants this baby, he really wants a baby. He’s so excited.”
She wore a fake smile, one I knew well because I wore it when I was out with Collin, and waited to see if I would change my mind. But I wouldn’t, I couldn’t. I knew I wasn’t doing a good job of convincing anyone lately, but it was hard when my entire world had flipped within the span of a week and a half. Knox showing up, then me finding out I was pregnant after doing everything to prevent it for years.
“Okay then, well I—” She was cut off by a knock on the door, and a nurse came in.
“Hi, I’m sorry. Mrs. Doherty? Your husband is here, and he wants to come in. Is that okay with you?”
“Of course,” I said faintly after a beat of silence. I couldn’t stop the way my body noticeably locked up and my eyes widened, and from the look on the doctor’s face when I turned back toward her, she’d seen it.
The first day Collin had ever left work early in his life, I was with a woman who was trying to see if I needed help getting away from him, knew about my birth control implant, and I’d made plans to meet Knox afterward. And that’s when I realized: Oh my God I have the secret phone in my purse. I quickly reached into my purse and shut the secret phone off, just in case Knox called or texted again, and was waiting for Collin with a bright smile when he walked in.
“Hey, baby.” He gave me a quick kiss, then shook the doctor’s hand and gave her his million-dollar smile as he introduced himself. “Sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to be here for the first appointment.”
Of course, I thought, and held back a defeated laugh when it all made sense. Collin wasn’t here simply because he was excited. He was here because he didn’t trust me to be with the doctor alone. It was the same reason he wouldn’t force me into seeing a fertility specialist even though there was seemingly no reason that I never got pregnant. He was afraid they would find evi dence of our home life—of the toll my body took as a result of my husband turning into a monster.
My doctor glanced at me before giving Collin her attention again. “Not a problem. I was just telling Harlow that we needed to get her in now since we had no way of knowing how far along she is.”
My arms tightened around my body at where this conversation was already going, and if Collin noticed from where he was rubbing my back, he didn’t make any indication.
“Harlow has very irregular menstrual cycles, but that is common with young women like her. Her metabolism is so high that she can’t keep weight on, and then it starts messing with her cycle.”
“Ah, of course!” Collin said, as if her explanation made complete sense.
Another knock sounded on the door. This time the nurse came in, handed something to the doctor, and walked back out.
Collin and I both stilled at her expression.
“Are you okay?” he finally asked her.
Her eyes flicked up to mine, and in the brief second that they met, I could’ve sworn that I saw worry, but didn’t understand why. “Yes, I need to do an ultrasound, though. So if you could follow me down the hall.” Halfway to the room, she said, “It will be internal, so it’s up to you, Harlow, if you want your husband in there.”
Collin’s fingers dug into my elbow, so I quickly said, “Of course . . . I want him in there.”
The doctor held her arm out to show us into the room, and again that fake smile was on her face. “Okay then. Undress from the waist down, and I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Weird woman,” Collin said once we were in the room and I was undressing. He didn’t seem happy, as he had the entire last week; he was just staring at the closed door with a confused look—like he was trying to figure the doctor out. When I was up on the exam table and covered with the sheet left there, he looked back at me and smiled. “Are you excited?”
“I am,” I lied, trying to pass off my fear as the good kind of nervousness. “I was starting to worry we’d never get here.”
“I’m back,” the doctor said as she peeked in. “You ready?”
“We are,” Collin answered, and stepped back so she could come in. With a cold glance in her direction, he came to my side and took my hand as he asked her, “Are you sure you’re okay? You looked worried in the room back there.”
The doctor quickly explained how the ultrasound was going to work, then looked at Collin as she began. “The results from Harlow’s urine came back, and her levels looked low. What we would consider a negative pregnancy test, low. But I was planning on doing an ultrasound anyway to get a good idea of where we were at, so I didn’t want to scare anyone since tests can always be weird.”