'Strangers

Killing my lonely nights with strangers

And when they leave, I go back to our song, I hold on'

(☝︎ ՞ਊ ՞)☝︎

Today we have an appointment with my obstetrician which will be the first time seeing the baby and hopefully hearing its heartbeat.

"I can't find my bag," Ace comes in the room annoyed. If anyone was more excited than me, it would be Ace.

"What bag?" I ask, putting on my socks.

"The hospital bag that I prepared for every visit to the doctor," he explains. trying to remain calm.

"Honey, you don't have such a bag," I stand up and clutch onto his hand to calm him down.

"I have a camera, though. Where's my camera?" He changes the subject.

"Ace, we don't need a camera just yet. We don't know what she'll show us so please just go put on your shoes and let's get going," I say, trying very hard not to laugh. It's hard to believe the first time I met Ace was when he looked like a big tough guy with nothing to shake him.

"If we miss something because you didn't let me look for my camera," he starts a sentence that sounds like a threat so I raise an eyebrow daring him to continue it.

"Yes?" I stand still waiting to see if he'll say anything, but he realizes what he said and quickly saves himself.

"I will be totally fine because at least we experienced it first hand together," he laughs awkwardly.

"I hate the smell of hospitals," I say, ironically. Ace looks down on me and intertwines his fingers with mine.

"Maybe this can change your experience," he comforts me.

When we find the room we're looking for, I knock and walk in first to see a nurse finishing some work up.

"Hi, the doctor will be just a second," she says politely and leaves when I thank her.

I sit on the bed while Ace sits in the chair right next to me with his leg bouncing up and down at sonic speed. Once the doctor walks in, he stops his childhood behavior and stares emptily as she introduces herself.

"First baby, you must be very excited," Dr. Hart says.

"Yes, I just hope it's smooth sailing," I laugh.

She puts the cold gel on my stomach and moves it around until she gets a clear shot of the uterus. She says some measurements to the nurse next to her, checks the heartbeat and leaves the room for a bit to get my medical history chart.

"I can't see it," I hear a whisper close to me when I'm close to shedding a tear.

"What?" I whisper back even though the nurse isn't paying attention to us.

"Our bean, I can't see it," he clarifies.

"It's right there," I hold up the probe stick thing, even though fetal medicine isn't my forte, and point to the screen.

"I can't see it," he sounds defeated.

"Babe," I hold both his cheeks with one of my hands, determined to show him, and point to the screen once he's close enough.

It takes him a few seconds of squinting his eyes when slight tears appear, which made me finally let down a few tears.

The doctor walks in looking a little more serious than before and starts talking about my weak heart.

She warned us about heart attacks and more medical things which made Ace clench up against me and we soon left the office in silence.

"Let's go eat food," I suggest to lighten the mood that Ace was in but he only nodded, his eyes heavy with worry.

Arriving to Olive Garden, he seats me in a chair before sitting himself and I couldn't help but feel the tension.

"Ace, it's nothing to worry about. She was only making sure we knew what we were in for," I comfort him. "I will tell you if I ever feel weird and you'll always be by my side."

"I know," he trails off.

"The stop pouting," I sass. "I'm not going to die on you so don't act like I might slip any second."

"Okay," he shortly responds, surprised at my confidence.

We eat our food and the tension slowly fades away until it's only laughs and jokes.

As we head out, I bump into people walking to get in and quickly apologize. When I hear them say the same thing, I look up to what makes my stomach turn.

"Ray," Danielle calls out, "oh my god it's really you."

I step back and put a protective hand around my stomach, daring them to make a move.

I try to step away from them until Ace notices I'm not next to him and comes rushing back. Daniel's face pales as he urges his wife to move o but she's so set on telling me how worried she was.

"How are your studies?" She sweetly asks, making me sick.

"Fantastic," I coldly say, grabbing Ace's hand for comfort.

"What's with the attitude honey?" She steps forward and I have to force myself to not laugh and spit in her face.

"Honey, don't call me that," I say with confidence, but internally I'm screaming in fear even with Ace beside me.

Before she could say anything, Ace steps forward and pushes me behind him, whispering threats to both of them until they go back to their car. They hurry away and in a minute, they left as if they were never there.

"What did you tell them?" I worry. Ace looks at me for a second before he continues walking, my hand still in his.

"I was just whispering sexy things to them, but I guess I'm not their type," he jokes, earning a slap to the shoulder by me as he laughs to himself.

"My leggings keep getting tighter around my belly by the second," I complain, trying to get comfortable by the second. "How about we go shopping?"

*

Hello everyone... I'm finally back. It took me forever but I am officially out of school (still have summer courses tho) and ready to update. My goal was to finish this story by July so I will be updating as often as I can to get it to where it can be closed off. During this month that I wasn't writing anything at all in, my entire writing style changed and I began to detest this story even more. However, I'm too far in to back down now so I will be finishing this to the best of my abilities. There will be no sequel to this so I will take that time to rewrite and edit every chapter posted. I want this story to be something I'm proud of and right now it's not really. I wrote it for me and didn't expect it to blow up but I can't complain because it's so awesome so thank you all for reading. And thank you for waiting but the wait is over so expect many more, hopefully, better written chapters!