Grip Trilogy Box Set - Kennedy Ryan Page 0,323

are numb. Tears swim in my eyes, suspended but refusing to fall, frozen there by the chill creeping into my bones and through every cell of my body.

“We’ll take the amniotic fluid today to test,” Dr. Wagner says briskly, standing. “And discuss . . . next steps once we have those results. It typically takes about ten days for NTDs, neural tube defects.”

She’s moving on, and I’m still dazed, shaken, shocked.

“Is the . . .” The word “fetus” stings the tip of my tongue. “Our baby, what is it?”

Dr. Wagner frowns, shaking her head.

“Until you decide how you want to move forward,” she says, “I think knowing the gender will only make it more difficult.”

“Let me get this straight.” Grip tilts his head and runs his tongue over his teeth in that way that means he’s nearing the end of his tether. “You give us a death sentence for our child—”

“Mr. James—”

“No, I get it,” he cuts in. “It’s not your fault. You’re just doing your job, but if you think us knowing whether it’s a girl or a boy is going to make this decision any harder, you’re wrong.”

“It . . . humanizes the decision in a way that only complicates it for the parents.”

“You think the semantics of this situation complicate our decision?” I ask hoarsely. “They don’t. What complicates our decision is that we love this baby as if he or she is already here, already ours. What complicates it is the roomful of nursery furniture we’ve bought, every piece chosen with . . .”

My voice breaks, tears dampening my words.

“With love,” I resume. “What complicates it is that I feel flutters in my stomach, and I’ve been waiting any day now for them to be kicks. This is our baby, and it’s been the center of our world for months, and now you say I may have to end its life or carry it to term and then watch it die in my arms. Please. Just tell us.”

I raise my eyes to her, and a tiny portion of my torture is reflected in her stare. She nods, resignation on her face when she says, “It’s a girl.”

Grip’s sharply drawn breath matches mine, and my eyes, my hands, my heart—every part of me seeks any part of him I can get to. With our fingers tangled together in my lap, we just nod, both of us too cut up to speak, the moment so raw we hemorrhage in the silence.

In a daze, I submit to the needle slowly drawing fluid from my belly. I don’t even hear the things Dr. Wagner and her staff say from then on. Agony unimaginable rises over my head, disbelief muffling all the words around me, muting my responses. My lungs constrict painfully as I go under over and over, drowning but unable to die.

And I want to die. I think I could die without complaint if it meant avoiding these “decisions,” accepting one of these impossible options, if it meant not breathing and living for the next four months growing this child only to watch it die before it’s ever even lived, a manifestation of our malformed hopes.

When we get to the car, Grip and I just sit there for a moment, steeping in hot water, boiling alive in our suffering.

“Fuck,” Grip finally mutters. I glance at him from the passenger seat, unable to even curse. I am a curse. I feel cursed—how can I not with the things the doctor said?

“Fuck,” Grip repeats, slamming his hand on the steering wheel again and again and again. I flinch at the percussion of his fist into the unyielding leather and plastic, flinch every time he strikes it.

“It can’t be . . . we can’t . . .” He stops abruptly, and one tear streaks down his handsome face, the face I dreamt would stare back at me in a little boy or a little girl.

“It’s a girl,” I whisper.

Agony ripples between us where our fingers intertwine, and Grip brings our hands to his lips.

“We can’t give up yet, Bris. There’s still the test. Maybe she’s mistaken. Anything’s possible,” he says, his mouth settling into that firm line I’ve seen every time he’s faced and conquered a challenge.

But this isn’t a tough industry, a ladder to climb. It’s not bias based on the color of his skin. If the tests confirm what Dr. Wagner suspects, this is insurmountable. There’s no climbing out of it or working our way around the impossible choices we’ll