Monday
To say that I was nervous would be an understatement. My legs wouldn’t stop bouncing, I couldn’t stop twisting the skin of my wrists, my jaw locked and eyes forward as I waited for my name to be called. I wanted to get started on the drugs, desperately, and I knew my nerves stemmed directly from having to discuss that. Not from inevitably seeing Hudson. No, I was far too used to that by now.
“Sophia Mitchell?”
The nurse across the room wore a plain white set of scrubs and held a clipboard to her chest, her small smile trained on me. I rose, grabbing my purse from the chair beside me, and followed her back to what I now knew was Hudson’s—Dr. Brady’s—office.
As she opened the door, an almost calm relief washed over me when we found it empty. That dissipated as she shut the door behind us.
“So, we’ve had a look at your file,” she started, stepping around me and dropping into Hudson’s chair. “Based on the report that you gave us when you first came in, you should be due to start your period this Friday. You track it, yes?”
I nodded. Slowly, I sank into the seat I’d sat in last time, the one I’d nearly tripped over when I tried to storm out.
“We should be able to start the drugs then in approximately two weeks’ time. It’s important that we time it with your cycle. It’s regular, correct?”
I sighed as I leaned back, the realization hitting me. I’d been far too caught up in all the shit going on in my personal life to consider my period and how it would affect my treatment. Stupid. “Yeah, pretty much bang-on twenty-eight days.”
She wrote something down on the clipboard, occasionally glancing up at me. “But you have polycystic ovarian syndrome?”
I nodded. “Yeah. My cycles are regular, though. I just have the cysts and the… you know. The reason I’m here.”
Her tight-lipped smile nearly made me want to cry. I hated having to watch strangers feel pity for me, I’d seen it far too often on the faces of the women in the sperm bank. “Alright. We’ll have Dr. Brady come in to double check your vitals and have a look at your bloodwork.”
As quickly as we’d arrived, she left, leaving me in the silence of my own breathing and winding thoughts. Hudson would be coming in soon, he would look at my file, notice that my period was starting on Friday. I tried to stop my mind from telling me that he’d stay far away for an entire week, that he wouldn’t want to sleep with me again until my period was definitely done.
Stupid of me to forget it even mattered. Stupid of me to want him to fuck me again.
The door cracked open, and as I turned, I caught sight of Hudson’s back as he shut it behind him. “Hey, Soph,” he said, so casually that my spine stiffened, my body already on edge. He walked around the back of my chair, placing his hand on my shoulder as he went, slightly too close to my neck to be nonchalant.
I watched him with bated breath as he took his seat across from me, the rigid cotton of his scrubs tightening around his thighs. “Hey.”
“I heard they’re making you wait because of your cycle. I’m sorry about that.” He gave me a half-hearted smile, the same as the nurse that spoke to me moments ago, and it made my gut twist from the sympathy.
“It’s fine.”
“I just need to go over a few things with you for the interim,” he continued, turning toward his computer and clicking away at the keyboard. “Are you on any medications currently that we should be aware of?”
“I used to take spironolactone for my PCOS, but that’s it. Stopped it nine months ago when I first started trying to get pregnant.” My leg started tapping again, my nerves getting the best of me. I had to separate Hudson and Dr. Brady in my mind—I could tell Dr. Brady all the gruesome, sad details of my journey so far, but then it had to leave my head when I saw him at home. His home.
The clicking stopped for a moment as he glanced at me, that annoying, obvious pity making me want to throw up. “And you were using the sperm bank over in Milton Hill, right?” I nodded. “And you’ve opted for a donation for insemination?”
“Obviously,” I said, my gaze fixed on his, my expression straight. What, did he think I wanted someone I know to impregnate me? The joke was on him; I don’t know enough people to even consider that as an option.
The side of his lips twitched before he spoke again. “And when was the last time you had unprotected sex?”
Was he actually asking me this? My lips parted, my tongue poking the inside of my cheek in annoyance. “This morning,” I lied, happy for the quick distraction as I finally relaxed in my chair a little.
His answering glare told me he didn’t care for my joke. “I’m putting down last Friday.”
“Odd for a doctor to make assumptions,” I mumbled. I found a particularly sharp bit of my filed-down nail and picked at it. “Don’t you think?”
“Don’t bait me into being jealous, Sophia.” He clicked a few more times on his mouse, his eyes darting across the page. “Based on your file, you shouldn’t need to do a pregnancy test between now and your next appointment. We can do one when you come back in to double check, but you should be good to go.”
Ouch. I didn’t think he’d intended for his words to hurt but based on his time in his line of work, he had to know on some level that they would. His sigh was enough to tell me he’d at least realized what he’d said.
“Sorry, I should have worded that better—”
“It’s fine.” I pushed my lips into a flat line as I fisted the fabric of my bag. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow unless your mom is taking Jamey again.” I made a move to stand, but Hudson’s chair rolled over, his hand wrapping firmly around my wrist and pulling me gently back into my seat.
As much as I loved it when he touched me, it just felt forced in his office, surrounded by the images of smiling moms and the guilt-ridden look on his face. “Wait. I wanted to talk to you.”
I narrowed my gaze at him as I sat back once again, his hand still firmly wrapped around my wrist. Does he just like to hold it? “Is that not what we were doing just now?”
“I mean, me to you. Hudson to Sophie. Not Dr. Brady to his patient.”
“O… kay?”
I watched as his tongue glided along the ridges of his teeth, his gaze somewhere past me, through me. “Why didn’t you tell your parents about Jamey?”
Well, I wasn’t expecting that. “Uh.” I bit my lip, sighing as I folded forward, bringing us just a little too close for comfort. “I’m sorry about that. I was just so spaced out, you know? With everything going on. It’s been a lot. Between watching Jamey and my work being spread out all day, and then… whatever this is.” I couldn’t tell him that I was scared of my parent’s reaction. I couldn’t form the words, couldn’t breathe them into existence. Shame settled in my stomach as it hit me that I’d royally fucked up. “I’m sorry. I should have told them.”
His jaw worked as he looked at me, too many thoughts hidden behind the forest of his eyes. “I understand,” he sighed, nodding more to himself than to me. “It’s just that Jamey is everything to me. I know you know that, but he’s an unmovable part of my life. No Jamey, no fake fiancé.”
“I know. I’d never ask for him to not be in the picture, ever. It just completely slipped my mind and I only realized when my dad opened the door with that fucking look on his face.”
Hudson chuckled, slicing through the tension and making me feel slightly better about my lie. “He looked at him as if he had three heads,” he laughed, “and your mom—”
“Oh my god, my mom.” My eyes went wide as realization struck again. I buried my head in my free hand, the other still held in place by Hudson’s. “Fuck, Hudson. She’s going to tell your mom. She can’t keep a secret to save her life.”
His smile dropped, his mouth parting. “Well, shit.”
“You’re going to have to tell your mom before she does.”
His grip tightened on the thin skin of my wrist, the only hint that he was a little frustrated. “That’s going to make this a little bigger than I was expecting.” He turned my hand over, running his thumb across the fake ring I still had on my finger, the little green band forming on my flesh beneath it.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, watching his fingers out of the corner of my eye. “I know it’s a lot. You can tell her it’s fake if she can keep the secret, we just need my mom to buy it.”
“Unfortunately,” he said through gritted teeth, “she’s never been good with secrets either. Maybe that’s why she and your mother get along so well.” He sighed as he turned my hand back over, finally releasing it as he scooted his chair back, away from me and the brief comfort he’d brought. “I’ll tell her.”
“Thank you,” I breathed.
“Take that ring off, though. Wear it for appearances only. It’ll raise suspicion if people see the oxidation from it on your finger.”
