She leans into me and I wrap my arm around her shoulders. We've been here for twenty minutes waiting for her name to be called. Twenty minutes of me trying not to think about all the ways this could go wrong.
"Everly Lynn?" A tech appears in the doorway.
We stand and follow her down a hallway to a small exam room. The tech explains what's going to happen, Everly changes into a gown, and then we're waiting again. I sit in the chair beside the exam table and hold Everly's hand.
"You're tense," she says.
"I'm fine."
"Rush, your jaw is so tight it looks like it's going to crack."
I force myself to relax slightly. "Sorry."
"It's okay to be nervous."
"I'm not nervous."
"Liar."
The tech comes back with the ultrasound machine and I watch as she sets everything up. Everly lies back and the tech squirts gel on her stomach.
"This is going to be cold," the tech says.
She presses the wand against Everly's stomach and the screen lights up with grainy black and white images. I have no idea what I'm looking at. Then the tech adjusts something and suddenly there's a rapid thumping sound filling the room.
"That's the heartbeat," the tech says with a smile.
The sound hits me like a freight train. That's our baby. That rapid thumping is our baby's heart. I stare at the screen and the tech points to a small shape.
"There's your baby," she says.
It's tiny, barely more than a blob on the screen, but it's there, real and alive and growing inside Everly. Something breaks open in my chest, something I didn't know was locked. I've felt adrenaline before, the rush of a fight, the relief of making it through something hard. I've felt lust and anger and fear. But I've never felt this. This overwhelming wave of pure happiness that makes my eyes sting and my chest so tight I can barely breathe.
I look at Everly and she's crying, her hand pressed to her mouth as she stares at the screen.
"You're measuring at nine weeks," the tech says. "Everything looks good, strong heartbeat, good development."
Nine weeks. I do the mental math quickly. This baby was already growing when I was spiraling about being too broken, when I was convinced I'd fuck everything up. This baby existed when I was still trying to protect Everly from myself, and now I'm sitting here watching their heart beat on a screen, feeling something I've never felt before.
Hope; real, solid hope for the future.
The tech prints out pictures and hands them to us, then leaves us alone to get dressed. Everly's still crying and I pull her against me.
"We're having a baby," she says.
"Yeah, we are."
"Did you see the heartbeat?"
"Yeah, I saw it."
"Rush, that's our baby."
I kiss the top of her head. "I know."
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah. I'm more than okay."