Sid shook his head again.“It was a pre-recorded video.I had to have the machine recalibrated so it would play the recording exactly as I needed it to, which was why the ultrasound had been delayed until it was ready.And when the recording ended, I pretended the machine had malfunctioned.”
Holy fuck.
Deep breath.Deep breath.Deep breath.
“But the heartbeat monitor?Was that also a recording?”I asked, my voice damn near breathless.
“Yes,” he answered with a nod.
“All the test results, all the exams…fabricated?”
He nodded again, wincing in the bright sunlight.
More breathing.More fighting to keep my composure.
Fuck, I was going to be sick.
“So…then…my birth control implant?”
Was it actually a dud like I had been told?
“A fresh replacement,” Sid answered.“Darren had instructed me to install a dud to keep you ignorant of his intentions, but I gave you the real thing.”
Fuck, I started to feel dizzy, the ocean seemingly tilting on its side.
This whole time…this whole time I thought I was doomed, thought this child was doomed to a horror I couldn’t stop.I thought I was trapped in a nightmare I had no hope of escaping.And now my system was crashing at the understanding it had all been false.
But then, the most overwhelming feeling of relief quickly washed over me, only to then be followed by a strange sickening wave of mistaken mourning.Mourning for a child I had finally started to accept, but would now never know, because they had never existed in the first place.It was the cruelest biological defense mechanism, but it had been exponentially effective.
But as I came to terms with this new truth, a ray of gratefulness began to replace my remorse.I would never have to watch that child suffer under Darren’s direction.They had been spared, just like I had hoped.
But with everything Sid had just revealed, I still very much needed to know the most important thing.
“You did all this?”I asked incredulously, still in disbelief at his ingenuity.
“Yes,” he confirmed, his voice wrought with shame and guilt.
“Why?”
Sid sighed quietly to himself, rubbing his hand along his jaw as he scrambled for an explanation.
“I thought that if there was one thing I could do to spare you the pain of having to bear that man’s child, then I would do it.So when you came to my office for your cortisol shots or B12’s, I was also actually injecting you with a calculated recipe of hormones to stimulate your body’s response to a pregnancy.Combined with the daily trauma you experience and your fear of becoming pregnant with Darren’s child, your mind was already in the perfect environment to develop the condition.It actually worked faster than I could have hoped for.”
I blinked at him.He had been injecting me with hormones?Sid really was more devious and clever than I had ever given him credit for.He’d clearly been planning this for a long time.
“Yeah, I would say it worked a little too damn well.I was sick for weeks, Sid.”
A breath of regret left his lips as he looked down at me.“I know.I felt awful, but I can’t really control what your symptoms are, Jaden.Your body decides that.”
Well, clearly my body is a fucking idiot.
“So, what, my body is just going to continue to grow and act like I’m carrying a baby?How the hell is this going to work?Will I have to go into false labor too?”I had so many questions that needed immediate answers so I could try to make sense of how any of this was even possible.
“Well, now that you know the truth, it's presumed that your brain will accept this new information and eventually stop producing the hormones that are contributing to your pregnancy symptoms.You may start noticing a difference in just a few days.”
My brows lifted in suspicion.“It’s presumed?”
Sid nodded noncommittally, his eyes softening with sympathy.“Pseudocyesis is a psychopathological clinical syndrome.It’s typically treated just like any psychological condition, so treatment usually consists of emotional support and behavioral therapy, sometimes medication.But the only reason you truly believed you were pregnant was because I told you so, not because your brain convinced you that you were, so I imagine you will recover from this much faster than most.Especially because we both know you don’t actually want to be pregnant right now.”