He stared up at the ceiling as silent tears streamed down his face. It was joy, mixed with devastation, mixed with something altogether unfamiliar. Why was his life like that? Happiness tainted by sadness. Joy soured by anxiety. Couldn’t he just have one fucking thing to hold on to? One thing that was his own.
But then he thought of Matteus, and Julian. Nancy, Blake and Pember. And all the friends he had standing behind him. Then there was Lucas. An alpha, who had wantedhimdespite everything. Chosenhimeven when he shared some dark,darkthings about his past. But Lucas had dark things in his life as well. They all did. Perhaps it was what made them human.
He didn’t hear the front door open, or Colin’s drunken laughter. All he heard was a soft knock on the bathroom door, and the gentle creak as it opened.
“Reed?” Lucas said, slipping his fingers in-between the gap.
Oliver could have hidden it. But he didn’t. Instead, he gripped the stick tightly in his hand and said, “Come in.”
TWENTY-SIX
THIS LITTLE LIFE
Oliver’s knee bounced as he stared up at the posters advising him to take his vitamin D. He shifted in the overly-comfortable lilac seat inside the private clinic. Two women sat opposite, one clutching the other’s swollen belly. He felt sick. Not because of the women, but because of the pit of dread that was swallowing him whole.
The receptionist offered him an iPad to pass the time, and Oliver nearly laughed at the casual affluence of inner-city life. If they were in West Newton, the receptionist would have made him stand with nothing but a dirty look to pass the time. He declined the iPad but took the pot she’d asked him to piss in.
Continuing to stare up at the posters, he tried to block out the muffled sobs coming from the nearest examination room. It was torture, and his knee bounced even faster.
“Here,” Lucas said, slipping a cup of water between his fingers. “I asked the receptionist if there was a tap for vodka, but I don’t think she saw the funny side.”
Oliver appreciated the alpha’s attempt to ease his nerves, but nothing was going to fix how he felt. So, taking a sip of water, he continued to stare up at the posters. Lucas’ warm hand folded around his own, squeezing it as he entwined their fingers. Oliverwas vaguely aware of him pressing his forehead to his temple, whispering something in his ear, but… the posters.
“Mr Reed?” A cheerful voice called.
Lucas’ fingers twitched, and Oliver felt the plastic cup being gently tugged out of his other hand. He looked up and saw a small man dressed in pink scrubs, his hair pulled back into a messy bun. Oliver drifted, more so than walked to the examination room, and at one point Lucas’ palm was on his lower back, easing him over the threshold.
“Lie on the examination couch, Mr Reed, and Mr, er?—”
“White,” Lucas said.
“Mr White, you can take a seat in the chair next to him. I’m Michael. I’ll be your sonographer this morning. ”
Lucas nodded, but Oliver only stared at the pot of urine on the sonographer’s desk. Michael had written Oliver’s name on the white label, and a cardboard tab stuck out from the top. He felt Lucas’ hand wrap around his again, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at anything else.
The last seventeen and a half hours had been some of the most tumultuous of his life. One minute he was fine, the next he was disassociating from everyone and everything. Lucas had stayed at his side, whispering gentle words of reassurance. Sometimes it helped, sometimes it didn’t. But if there was one thing Oliver couldn’t get out of his mind, it was the look on the alpha’s face as he dropped to his knees in his parents’ bathroom. He’d buried his face in Oliver’s lap and gripped his hands as he held the positive pregnancy test.
Oliver had been okay then. He’d been able to explain what the doctor had said. But as time went on, and the look of hope in Lucas’ eyes grew brighter, he felt his own hope growing dimmer.
The sonographer pulled on a pair of blue gloves and plucked the cardboard strip out of the sample pot. He examined it for the briefest of moments.
“Lovely,” he said, putting it in the bin. “Could you roll up your top, please? I’m going to pop a piece of tissue paper into the front of your jeans, to stop the jelly from getting on your clothes, if that’s okay?”
Oliver nodded, and he heard Lucas let out an unsteady breath. Guilt crashed over him then. Lucas was anxious too, and Oliver had practically ignored him all morning. He tipped his head up, meeting the alpha’s eyes for the first time in several hours. Lucas smiled and kissed his forehead in response.
“Just a bit of cold jelly, Mr Reed, if that’s alright?”
Oliver’s gaze drifted back to Micheal, as he held a bottle over his stomach with an expectant expression. Nodding, he glanced up at the blank screen in the corner of the room. He felt like a fraud, lying there on the examination bed. Like it should have been happening to somebody else, and it shouldn’t have been him holding Lucas’ hand. Shutting his eyes, he did his best to push down the feelings of self-loathing.
Cold spread across his belly, as Michael began talking him through the procedure. When he opened his eyes and looked down, he saw Michael pressing the grey ultrasound rod against his midriff. He glanced up at the screen, which had been a mistake because the first thing he saw was a big, empty black circle in the centre of the monitor. He knew what it meant. It meant there was no embryo. Just a little empty sac containing all of his hopes and dreams. He’d prepared himself for that, but the pain bit at his heart all the same.
He closed his eyes again, bringing Lucas’ hand up to his nose as he let the alpha’s scent wash over him. Michael was still talking in his gentle, sing-song voice, but Oliver stopped listening.
“Reed,” Lucas whispered, pressing his mouth to his ear. “Reed, look up at the screen.”
“No.”
“Please.”
