Art & Soul

I missed her sounds the most.

30 Aria

I was twenty weeks pregnant, sitting in the doctor’s office with Mom on my left and Simon’s parents on my right. It wasn’t completely official with paperwork and all, but I knew what I wanted to do: I wanted to give the baby to Keira and Paul. I also knew there was no way Keira was going to miss this appointment. Even though Paul never missed work, he’d taken the day off to be there. Paul was the grownup version of Simon with his red hair and freckled face. He didn’t wear glasses, but that was only because he popped contacts into his eyes every morning. The main difference between Paul and Simon was that Simon was a lot more emotional than Paul. Paul had much thicker skin than Simon and things didn’t get to him as much. He never talked much, and mostly all I received from him were smiles when I went over to their house, but they were always nice smiles.

The room was silent except for the ultrasound machine humming. The technician rubbed the cool gel on my stomach before they slid the transducer back and forth over my belly. She studied the ultrasound with a smile on her lips. “This one has a strong heartbeat. At twenty weeks they’re about the size of a—”

“Cantaloupe!” Keira clapped her hands as she smiled wide with excitement.

The technician nodded. “Yup! The size of a cantaloupe. You know your stuff.” I knew that, too. “And we want to know the sex today, right?”

“Yes!” Keira shouted, and then she quickly covered her mouth. Her eyes moved to me. “I mean, only if you want to, Aria.”

“Yes, we do,” I replied.

“It’s a—”

“Boy,” I whispered, already having a feeling.

“A boy.” The technician smiled toward me. “It must have been that mother’s ESP. Congratulations. I’ll have the pictures printed off and pass them to the doctor who will be in to speak with you afterward.”

We thanked her as she left the room.

Paul pinched the bridge of his nose and sniffled before wrapping his arms around Keira and pulling her into a tight hug. He kissed her forehead and they cried together. “Thank you, Aria. Thank you so much for this.”

Mom was crying too, squeezing my hand every now and then. Everyone cried except me.

I was numb.

It’s a boy.

31 Levi

Early Friday morning, I awoke to knocking at my window. My eyes moved over to the alarm clock on my nightstand. I rubbed my palms over my eyes, trying to focus on the numbers.

3:31 A.M.

What the hell?

Pulling myself up from the bed, I dragged myself to the window. I was shaken awake, seeing Aria standing there in her long nightgown with monkeys all over it and matching monkey slippers.

I swung the window open and gazed straight into her eyes. “Art, what’s wrong?” Panic raced through me as I stared at her tear-filled eyes.

“Sorry to wake you. I know we aren’t talking right now, and normally when I have nights where I can’t sleep, I go to Simon’s, but he’s too happy about getting a sibling and I wouldn’t want to make him feel bad. If you want me to go I can. I just…I have no one to talk to.”

“What’s going on? Come inside and talk to me.”

She climbed inside the window.

She wiped her hands across her eyes to remove the tears that were now falling and chuckled softly. “I’m sorry. I’m just emotional and…” Her shoulders rose and fell. As if by instinct, I moved my fingers to her face and wiped at her tears. If she knew what it did to my heart when she cried…

“Talk to me,” I said again, guiding her to my bed.

“It’s silly,” she warned, sitting. I sat beside her. She’d never been in my house. This was a first for us.

She must’ve been really broken.

I wanted to inch closer and hold her against me.

But I wouldn’t.

I couldn’t.

“It’s not,” I promised. If it was bothering her, if it was making her cry, it wasn’t silly. “Talk to me,” I repeated for a third time.

“He moved,” she whispered, placing her hands against her stomach. Her head rose and her chocolate eyes smiled with her beautiful lips. “He’s kicking. Before it was just small flutters, but now he’s full-blown kicking.”

My eyes widened and without a thought my hands went to feel her stomach, but then I remembered. I paused, uncertain if I should. She took my hands into hers and placed them against her stomach. I felt it, too. The movement. The life. “Jesus,” I muttered. I’d never felt anything so magical, so real.

“Give me a word to describe it. It feels like butterflies, and stomach flips, and stomach knots all at once. What’s a word for that?”

“Happy.”

“Happy?” she asked.

“Happy,” I replied.

She nodded. “I can’t stop crying.”

“I think that’s okay,” I said. “It’s a boy?”

“We found out today.” She cried harder. “And I’m a terrible person because I thought about keeping him when I heard that. I thought about what I would name him and who he would grow up to be, and then I wondered what I would say when he asked about the guy who called me cute but didn’t really mean it.”

“You’re beautiful,” I said, handing her one of my T-shirts to blow her nose in.

She cried even harder, because she knew I meant it.

“You’re not a terrible person because you think things like that, Art.”