Lexi, the Ticking Bomb

"There's no easy way to say this, so I'm just going to be straight with you. You won't have an easy birth. If I'm being generous you have fifty percent chance of dying giving birth..."

He was still talking, but I wasn't listening anymore. Medical terms and reasons why a C section wasn't an option and excruciating details about my defective reproductive system...

I just couldn't focus. Blake was holding my hand. He was squeezing it, but I couldn't squeeze back.

Fifty percent chance of dying giving birth... My head was completely empty. The doctor only caught my attention again when he got up.

"I'm going to give you a few minutes, to process this. I just want you to know you don't have to decide anything right away, but the clock is ticking. The further in your pregnancy you get the more dangerous it will be to terminate. We can talk options once I get back."

Options. Terminate.

The doctor left us in the room, but we stayed silent. Blake was just holding my hand, stroking it with his thumb. I had no idea what I was supposed to say. I had no idea what I was supposed to do.

And then I just blurt, "We haven't traveled."

"What?" I wasn't looking at him, so I had no idea how he looked right now. I was just staring out the window. At the city behind it. At everything I still hadn't seen.

"We haven't traveled. Sure, we went to see your family in England but we didn't stay long. I didn't go to study abroad because I wanted to stay with you, but I've wasted time. We should have gone to see the world. I always kind of wanted to just drop at the airport and buy plane tickets to wherever..."

"Lexi..."

"I barely saw anything. I've barely lived..." Sure, I had a nice life so far, I couldn't actually complain, I had found the love of my life, I had an amazing family and incredible friend. But it wasn't enough. I was nowhere near close to being ready for it to be over. I finally looked over at Blake and he looked absolutely miserable. I bit the inside of my lip to keep myself from crying. "Is this how it felt, when you thought you were going to die? Did you feel like this for years?"

"I don't think it was quite like this, no."

"I'm not ready for it to be over so fast," I admitted. Barely twenty two years old. I wasn't even done with school yet. 

"Come on Pumpkin, this isn't a death sentence. People still think they'll win the lottery with even less odds."

I wanted to be a glass half full kind of person, but with my life in the balance it wasn't the most obvious state of mind I could turn to. I wasn't even a mom yet, but I was already a bad one. I was a bad one because there was a part of me that thought about taking the way out. This pregnancy was an accident. It wasn't something we wanted right now. We were still so young. We were nowhere near ready to be parents.

Maybe this was just the universe's way of telling us we shouldn't be parents right now. Or ever really. If we didn't have a baby now, we wouldn't have a baby later. The thought was so piercing, so painful that I felt a sharp pain in my chest.

I couldn't keep this thought to myself. I didn't think this was a time were we should be keeping anything to ourselves.

"If we don't have this baby, that's it for us then," I tell Blake. "No mini-Blake. No mini-Lexi."

We turned our chairs so that we were facing each other now and Blake held both sides of my waist, his thumbs rubbing the side of my belly and pressed his fore head against it. I barely had a baby bump yet. It just looked like it was taco night and I had overindulged as always.

I ran my fingers through his hair and I could see his shoulders shaking ever so slightly. He was crying. I raised my eyes to the ceiling but it wasn't enough to stop the tears. I dropped my head forward and pressed my lips against Blake's head. 

"If I died, would you be able to look at him or her?" I whispered against his hair. It smelled nice. It was a comforting smell in a distressing time.

"What?"

"Would looking at our babies face just break you apart? Would you still be able to love our kid, even if it killed me?"

Blake raised his head slightly, his eyes locking with mine. "What are you saying?"

I kept my hand in his hair, like the physical contact with him was an anchor. "You know, in stories when the mom dies at birth then the father can't even look at the kid because he reminds him of her, and he doesn't take care of the kid, he doesn't love the kid because of everything he's reminded."

Blake pressed his forehead to mine, his hands going behind my neck. "Nothing in this world could make me stop from loving our child. Anything that comes from you, I would love with all my heart."

"And you'd be okay, right? You wouldn't blame yourself?"

"Why are you talking about this like it's a done deal? It's not a done deal Lexi. You're not dying, not on my watch."

"I just think it's better to be ready for the worst here."

I could see how much the thought hurt him, just as much as it did me. "Whatever you decide, I'll support you, a hundred percent."

I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I needed my mom right now. I needed to go back to yesterday, when Blake and I had gone to see baby stuff when we went shopping and we were already thinking about themes for the baby's room.

"What do you want me to do?" I whispered.

            "I can't choose between my wife and our baby, Lexi. I can't imagine ever losing you, I always figured I would go first so I wouldn't have to go through life without you, so if you want to make sure you don't leave my side just yet I'm okay with that. But losing this," he presses his hand against my belly and his eyes fill up with tears again, "losing this, I just... I don't know how we'll bear it, how we'll deal with everything it means."

            I sighed heavily. This wasn't fair. People our age worried about passing their midterms. They didn't worry about dying during childbirth. Hell, people in the twenty-first century weren't supposed to worry about childbirth. "I guess we've been too lucky so far... This is the universe trying to balance itself."

            Blake chuckled without humour, his hand rubbing the tears from his eyes and cheeks. "Yeah, I don't think lucky is the best way to describe us."

            "But we found each other," I pointed out.

            "I had to wait seven years for you and I almost died two times. As a matter of fact, I kind of died once on the operating table, so yeah, not so lucky," he reminded me.

            Alright, sure when you looked at it that way, that wasn't lucky.

            "The fact that you survived through all this, now that's lucky," I pressed.

             "It's not luck, it's sheer stubbornness. I wasn't going to die to let you date anyone else." Blake said and rolled his eyes. He made me chuckled through my blurry eyes.

            I sadly smiled at him. He did too. "Sheer stubbornness, I prefer that."

            "Me too. I don't want to put my faith in our luck. I'd prefer put it in our common pig-headedness. We're unyielding when it comes to being together." I had to agree with that.

            "Nothing's going to get us apart..." I said softly.

            "Exactly."

            I held the hand Blake was pressing against my belly. "The three of us."

            "The three of us..." Blake repeated and pressed his lips to mine, our tears mingling.

            Yes, it was going to be the three of us. The three of us or nothing.           

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Hey guys! I hope you enjoyed this adventure, and that it didn't make you too sad. They have Jayden, and then they have Lilibeth. THEY'LL BE FIIIINE! ;P haha

Alright, so I have a couple of things to say because I know you guys will be reading this! Soooo! First off, you might have noticed that I've been uploading a story called Eight-Point Arc a little bit more often lately. That's because there are 3 chapters left to it now. And when I'm done with it, I'll start uploading Weird and Weirder, which is Daph's and Josh's story! YAY! So hopefully, I can get around finishing 8PA by the end of the week and I can start uploading W&W next week! *fingers crossed*

Also, I mentioned this before but would you guys want me to do a live video where you can ask questions and I can give excerpt and just chat about what's going on with all of my stories? And if you do, which platform would be the best? I have an instagram (kaygiard) so that'd be easy to do, but I could do it on youtube or skype or whatever might work better. So yeah, tell me what you think! :D

So, I think that covers it for now... if you want more of Blake and Lexi, you can always read The Virgin and the Whore. They make appearances in there. And the next chapter, you might even see more of the old gang! 8D

Alright, now I'm done! Thanks for reading! :D