I Stopped Asking, He Started Panicking

Vivian's POV

Three years together, and the texts I'd sent Nolan Garrett could probably fill an entire medical chart.

Pasta or salad for dinner. Rain boots or sneakers when it was pouring. I ran everything by him.

Then one night, right in front of me, he muted my texts.

"Can you grow up a little?" He didn't even look up. "Not everything has to go through me."

After that, I really did stop asking.

I signed the papers for my transfer to the Denver office before it even occurred to me to tell him.

My best friend Meredith's wedding invitation said I could bring a plus-one. I RSVP'd for one.

I even found a surgeon for my wrist and picked the date myself.

Not that it mattered. All his patience had gone to his student, Amber Lowell, a long time ago.

The night I found out I was pregnant, I called him. He was with Amber. All he said was to stop making trouble, and then he hung up.

So I never told him he was going to be a dad.

By the time he finally thought of me, I was already on a plane to Denver.

I'd be half a country away, and out of his life for good.

"So you're having surgery first thing tomorrow?"

The orthopedic surgeon flipped through my report and glanced up at me.

"I heard Nolan's flying back from his exchange program any day now. You sure you don't want to wait for him? You'd probably feel better having him there to keep an eye on things."

I took the report back, folded it twice, and stuffed it in my bag.

"It's a minor procedure. I'll be fine on my own."

He pushed his glasses up like he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

Not that I blamed him. Everyone at this hospital knew I couldn't do anything without Nolan.

The last time I'd caught my finger in a cabinet door, I'd dragged him to the ER to sit with me for two hours. The nurses still teased me about it.

I left the exam room, turned the corner, and there he was.

Nolan was stepping off the elevator with a carry-on, a few flakes of snow still clinging to the shoulders of his coat.

He must have come straight from the airport.

Amber was half a step behind him.

She had a gray cashmere scarf wrapped over her scrubs. I recognized it right away.

Last year for our anniversary, I'd gone to three different stores before I found that scarf, then wrapped it around his neck myself.

Nolan saw me and stopped.

"What are you doing here?" His eyes went to my bag. "Something wrong again?"

He said "again" so casually, like he was flipping through a chart he was sick of reading.

Before I could answer, he reached over and pulled the report out of my bag.

He skimmed it, closed it, and made the call.

"Tomorrow doesn't work. I've got plans. It's not urgent, so push it back a week and I'll come with you."

"That's okay, I can handle it. Thanks, though."

I said it politely. He couldn't have found a single thing wrong with it.

But Nolan just stood there, like for a second he didn't recognize the person in front of him.

The old me couldn't nick a finger chopping vegetables without holding it up for him to look at forever.

Before going out on weekends, I'd even send him a picture of my shoes and wait for him to text back one word.

Whether it was changing jobs or what we were out of in the fridge, I never felt settled until he weighed in.

And now I'd scheduled surgery all on my own.

If we hadn't run into each other in this hallway, my own boyfriend probably wouldn't have noticed until I came home with my wrist in a sling.

I reached for the report, and my elbow bumped the paper bag he was holding.

A white box of pills fell out, spun halfway across the tile, and stopped against the toe of my shoe.

The front of the box said: birth control.

"Don't read into it."

Nolan bent down and picked it up, his voice as flat as if he were going over discharge instructions.

"Amber gets really bad cramps. These help regulate her hormones. It's pretty standard."

Amber tugged the scarf up over her chin, her voice small and a little panicked.

"I'm so sorry, this is all my fault. He was supposed to go straight home after his flight. I was in so much pain I could barely stand, so I asked him to come with me to get the prescription."

She paused and looked at me, wide-eyed.

"I wish I was as independent as you. If I could handle everything on my own like you do, I wouldn't have to keep bugging him."

All of a sudden I remembered a night last winter.

I had a fever so high I couldn't stop shaking. I called him to ask whether I should go to urgent care or straight to the ER.

On the other end of the line, the youngest ER doctor in the whole hospital went quiet for a few seconds. Then he said he wasn't sure.

I was close to tears and told him he was brushing me off. He let out a long sigh.

"Can't you just look it up? You're an adult. Stop waiting for me to make every decision for you."

"I'm your boyfriend, not your babysitter. It's not my job to walk you through your life."

Looking back, it was almost funny.

His girlfriend couldn't get one piece of advice out of him. But a student on rotation? He came straight off a flight to walk her in for her meds.

Anyone walking by would probably assume Amber was the girlfriend.

The old me would have started a fight right there in the hallway, in front of everyone, and demanded answers.

Today, I just nodded and said, "Okay."

Besides, that wasn't the only thing he didn't know.

I slid my hands into my coat pockets and pressed one against my stomach through my sweater.

There was a tiny life growing in there, and the baby's father was standing one step away, completely clueless.

Whatever came next, this baby would never have to make a late-night call that nobody picked up.

All they would ever have was me, and I'd be the one who raised them.