Story: Great Gatsby, during Chapter 27
Couple: Brady & Mia
Notes: This one was highly requested! Got a few more planned but keep those suggestions coming :)
Mia
Brady Fuller: Anything sound good for dinner tonight? Thought we could take my mom a plate.
Brady and I have taken to texting each other on shift. There was a close call a few weeks ago where Colton walked in the shower room and almost saw me on my knees in front of Brady—thank God for those half walls. We decided to (try and) stick to sexting after that.
It's going well.
I send him a quick message back: She likes Chinese, right?
I hear him chuckle from across the room, where he's lounging in front of the television while Quil and Aaron play some shooter video game. Seconds later, his response explains why.
Brady Fuller: my mother & I like all the foods. That's why I asked you, Miss I Don't Like Peppers or Squash of Any Variety.
Two more texts come in back-to-back: a heart, then an eggplant.
I shift in my own seat, readjusting the book on my lap. Michelle Obama can wait a few minutes.
Mia Shelton: Seriously?
Brady Fuller: You just look so hot and studious over there, baby. Reading and shit.
Mia Shelton: How hot?
The station alarms start going off, and I slip my bookmark in place before standing.
Brady manages to shoot off one more text: So hot you set fires. Bad girl.
I force myself not to blush. I really like him.
"Not so fast, Shelton," Chief says as I head toward the rig. "You have a physical today."
"Chief!" I protest, as others rush around me and pull on their gear. "I'll just go tomorrow when I'm off."
"You've been saying that for a month. You will not step on this rig until the doctor's note is on my desk."
And then he turns away, and the rig rolls out without me on it.
As much as I hate being left behind, I know he's right. Chief said one month, but it's been closer to three. Firefighters are expected to get annual physicals within one month of their birthday. It's August now, which means I am very late.
I hate the doctor, which is why I've been putting this off for so long.
I spent a lot of my formative years in and out of offices, getting bounced from specialist to specialist in bigger cities like Seattle and Spokane, poked and prodded and scanned, before I finally got slapped with my diagnosis at sixteen: moderate endometriosis.
My uterus was the perfect storm: got my period super early (ten and a half), and both my mom's sisters had it. My periods, when I was younger, were heavy and long and frequent, regular in the way that they were always irregular. Couple that with not having any kids and a slightly abnormally shaped uterus, and boom. Endometriosis. What that looks like for me is super painful periods and bathroom breaks, my lower back constantly feeling like someone took a jackhammer to it, and excruciating sex.
I'd all but given up on the hope that sex could be enjoyable — had all but given up on sex itself — when I found myself in Brady Fuller's bed.
He was considerate and funny, and perfect really, and while he didn't fuck my brains out, by the end it felt like he had. And God, he made me come. I can count on one hand the number of times a guy made me come from his hands alone.
When I told Brady that, mid post-sex massage, he asked me how I usually achieved orgasm. What works best for you, baby?
I'm not a 'baby' kind of girl, unless, apparently, it's Brady's who's calling me it.
I told him about my favorite vibrator, a soft air type I've replaced twice now (once because it happened to be charging during a power surge, and another time because I accidentally left it behind on vacation).
I had it packed in my duffle bag, the one still sitting beside his front door. He ran out of his room buck naked to get it, and when he came back, he used it to the absolute best of his ability.
In the month that followed, I forgot it at his place or mine three times.
The last time, it'd been after a long shift, and all I wanted was to have sex and go to sleep. Midway through, he reached for the nightstand where it lived on the nights I stayed here (which was most nights). Except it wasn't there. I remembered it on my nightstand from a few nights before and got so discouraged I nearly started crying in frustration.
Brady went down on me so long and so vigorously I was chafed the next day from his stubble.
"Got you something," he said when I came over the next time, no more than two days later. He looked pretty smug, and I was already rolling my eyes as he presented me with a box, already opened but folded closed.
I opened the box and looked up at him, confused. "I already have one of these."
"I don't want you to cry when you forget it again," he said, taking a seat next to me. He took the packaging from me. "So you can leave this one here and leave the other one at your place. Problem solved."
"Brady," I said, my confusion morphing to shock. "This is a $200 vibrator."
Having freed the toy, he looked at me smugly and reached for my yoga pants to tug them down.
"Mia," he said back as he slipped my new-but-still-same-toy inside my underwear. "Your pleasure is worth any price. And," he added, "I already charged it."
Then he turned it on.
There was something wrapped up in that gesture it took me a while to understand, something else I really really liked about Brady. I'd been with guys before who saw it as their mission to make me come, who'd get frustrated if it took forever or didn't end up happening at all. If I took a chance and suggested battery-operated help, they'd get mad. Like my lack of orgasm was directly correlated to their manhood and not just my stubborn biology. I'd always thought it was fitting—everything else about me was stubborn. Why shouldn't my orgasms be the same?
But Brady never did that. Never saw it as a challenge to overcome. He welcomed the help. "You've lived with your body for twenty-eight years," he'd explained. "If either of us is an expert on it, it's sure as hell not me."
Okay.
I really, really, really like Brady Fuller.
When I reach the clinic across the street from the hospital, I make my way to the lab and check in. Chief was kind enough to schedule me an appointment. That son of a bitch.
After a quick wait, the nurse calls me back and takes my vitals.
"So we'll take some labs today, a urine sample, and Dr. Powell will perform the physical. We'll call if anything abnormal comes up on the labs, but no news is good news, okay?" She's much too perky for something so mundane. I'd rather have Quil's snarky sister-in-law as my nurse.
Most of the appointment is typical. I pee in a cup and get blood drawn and do a quick range of motion test with the doctor. I can touch the fuck out of my toes.
Dr. Powell instructs me to lay back on the exam table. "I'm going to palpate your abdomen, alright? I read in your chart you have endometriosis, so I'll be gentle."
"Thanks," I say. I'm glad I'm not still hooked up to the pulse oximeter. My heart is racing. I'm always miserable for a few hours after someone goes poking around below my belt, and I'm not looking forward to it. I'll have to cancel on hanging out with Brady's mom.
The doctor checks all the fun stuff, like my spleen and stomach and bowels, and consults his charts before moving to my lower abdomen.
"It's not possible that you visited your gynecologist recently and I just missed it in the chart, is it?" Based on his tone, I know he already knows.
"It's been a minute. But I did go see the endocrinologist."
"Ten months ago," he says. Not chiding, just noting.
I watch as he moves lower, toward my ovaries. I wince prematurely.
"That hurt?" he says, reducing his pressure.
I take stock of my pain level. "Not really, actually." I release the breath I've been holding. "Guess those meds are doing a better job than I thought of managing everything."
He nods slowly, finishing up, although I can't help but notice his face seems a little more shuttered than it did before. "Well, I think we're just about done here. Hold tight, and a nurse will be by check you out."
"Don't forget my doctor's note, please," I say as he reaches for the doorknob. "Chief will have my head if I come back without one."
He gives me a grin. "You got it."
The normalcy of this all makes me feel silly for having avoided it so long. Part of the reason I hate coming here is because I'm terrified they're going to tell me my endo has moved from moderate to severe. That my best option is surgery, or worse, a complete hysterectomy. I've had exactly one procedure to reduce symptoms and remove scar tissue, but the pain and recovery were so horrible I decided just to live with the pain. I am a strong woman. I can handle it.
And honestly, my discomfort right now is minimal, even after Doc felt around.
There's a quick knock on the exam room door, but it's not Nurse Perky. It's Doctor Powell again.
"Did we forget something?" I say, sitting up straighter. "I can touch my toes again. Could probably palm the floor if that's what you needed?" I'm trying for humor, because there's something on his face I don't like.
My fears go up another volume notch when he grabs the rolling stool and takes a seat directly in front of me.
I'm just about to ask if something's wrong, but he speaks first.
"I was curious about something, so I had the lab rush one of your tests. And, well… Mia. Did you know you're pregnant?"
Turns out, Dr. Powell is even better at humor than me. That has to be why my first instinct is to laugh.
But his face stops it in my throat. I sound like I'm choking.
I might be choking.
"That's not possible," I say.
He gives me a kind smile and flips open the manila folder in his hand to give me the print-out inside. "I ran the test with both the urine and blood samples, and both confirmed."
I take the paper, but I can't read anything on it. I feel my heartbeat in my eyeballs. There is both too much noise and no noise at all.
"I don't understand," I say. My hand is shaking so much I have to lower it to my lap. The paper crumples a bit in my grasp. "This isn't—this isn't supposed to be possible." I had five different doctors tell me by the time I was twenty I would never be able to get pregnant. I would never be a mother to a child I carried inside my body. My situation was "just that bad."
And I'd grieved that. Come to terms with it. Buried it deep, deep down. I twisted it around to fit my own story: I didn't want kids, anyway. I was perfectly happy having this horrible genetic curse die with me. I could travel. Maybe I'd get a dog.
"Sit with it for a day or two," Dr. Powell offers. "I'll have the OB-GYN call you to set something up. And I'll excuse you for the rest of today's shift."
I spend the next twenty-five minutes on autopilot: collecting my doctor's note and thanking the nurse. Climbing in my car and driving home. It's close to lunch, but I'm not hungry. I can't even feel my fucking hands—let alone my stomach growling.
It's only when I push through the door and am greeted by two sets of paws that I realize I went to Brady's place instead of my own.
Betty and Beau, the border collie Brady adopted after Mrs. Delgado died during the wildfires in March, aren't used to seeing me without Brady, so they look back at the door for him.
"Just me, guys," I say, stooping down to scratch them both behind the ears.
But then I stop.
It's not just me, is it?
The walls close in, squeezing me tight, and I press a hand to my stomach and look around.
I've hung out here by myself before, on the off-chance Brady has to run out for an errand or something. He gave me a key about a month ago. Today's the first time I've used it.
I don't know what it says that I came here. That even though he isn't here with me, just being in his space helps to calm me down.
I also—and maybe more importantly—don't know what it says that I haven't even told Brady I love him, and I am carrying his baby.
I look around his space, at all the little changes that add up to big feelings. My favorite blanket folded across the back of his loveseat. My oat milk in his fridge. My Hulu on his TV. His key on my keyring. My vibrator in his nightstand drawer.
Holy shit. Do I live here now?
Brady
I'm expecting to find Mia back in her chair after our call. There was a nasty three-car pileup by Lake Pleasant, and it took about two hours to get the scene clear.
But Mia's chair—everyone knows it's Mia's chair—is unoccupied. Her book is still on the table next to it.
I pick up the book and go find Quil. He's somehow already in the kitchen. Respect.
"Have you heard from Shelton? Accidentally knocked her bookmark out of place." I wiggle the book at him. "Thought she'd be back by now."
Quil blinks at me suspiciously, but he must decide he doesn't care to know the details. "Chief said the doc gave her the rest of shift off," he says, shrugging. He holds out the bag of chips. "Chip?"
"I'm good," I mumble, then head to the locker room.
I text Mia a few times over the next few hours until shift is over, and all but my last go unanswered. Even then, her response is short and sharp: I'm fine.
Red flag.
After the next crew relieves us and everyone has cleared out, I stop by Mia's locker after my own. Her bag is still inside, which means she was planning to come back after the appointment. Her plans must have changed. I grab her bag and slip the book inside.
Once I'm in my truck, I call her, but it rings out.
Getting Mia to open up is a little like pulling teeth, but I've learned how over these last few months. But the key to that is being able to talk to her in the first place.
I call her again. This time it goes straight to voicemail.
What the hell happened at her physical today? I know her dad's had kidney problems since he was about Mia's age—maybe some of her numbers were off. Maybe she's curled up in the fetal position after the doctor went poking around. She said that happens sometimes. Or, fuck—what if he told her she was severe now?
Home or her place? Home or her place? Home or her place?
Her place is closer, so I start there.
It's a good thing I don't pass any speed traps, because they would have gotten me big time. But I make it without incident to Mia's, the right half of a duplex out by the Bogachiel River Boat Ramp. Nobody answers the door, and I call her again. I listen intently, my ear pressed to the door, but nothing stirs inside.
Please call me, I text her again. Still nothing.
"Haven't seen her in a few weeks," someone says behind me.
It's her neighbor—Mr. Lockman or something or other. He's checking his mailbox.
"Okay. Thank you, sir," I say, even though it's unhelpful. I already know she hasn't been here. She's been at my place for three weeks straight.
I go home, fueled by bright-burning hope. She'll be on the couch, curled up with a heating pad, watching our show without me. The dogs will be on either side of her. She will have already decided what she wants from the Chinese place even though we won't eat for another few hours.
But she's not on the couch.
When I find her, she's on the bedroom floor, a bag laying open in front of her. The drawers I cleared for her are splayed open, spewing their contents, spilling over onto everything. A tornado swept through this room, and her name is Mia Shelton.
"When were you going to tell me I moved in?" she says, hastily folding a shirt. When she looks up at me, I can instantly tell she's been crying.
I drop to my knees in front of her. "Baby, what happened? What's the matter?" I reach for her.
She crab-crawls backwards, on hands and feet. "Oh no you don't. Stay away from me."
I hold up my hands and freeze. "Okay, okay, hey." I sit back on my heels.
Mia looks like a caged animal right now, one wrong move away from either collapsing in on herself or biting my head off. Probably both if I know her as well as I think I do.
"Did something happen at the doctor?" I ask tentatively.
"I don't want to talk about the doctor. I want to talk about how we let this happen!" She lifts her hands to the mess around us.
Despite the warning sirens going off in my head, I grin and raise an eyebrow. "We?"
She bolts to her feet, plucking loose clothes and shoving them into her bag. "Don't fuck with me right now, Brady. I'm serious! I've got shampoo in your shower and shoes in your closet, and it's freaking me out!" She is a little yell-y right now.
"Can I ask why?" I give her a wide berth, noting everything she touches so I can put it back later after I've calmed her down.
She goes into the master bathroom and shuts the door in my face. Then I hear the lock click.
"Whoa, whoa. Mia, unlock the door." I jiggle the handle even though I know it's solid. I installed the damn thing myself. "What's going on? What happened?"
"I'll tell you what happened, Brady!" Great. "I got done with my appointment and came here on autopilot." Okay, maybe not so great? Situation remains unclear.
"And that's a problem because…?"
"Because it is!" she yells, and then a sob breaks through her façade.
And I understand.
She isn't angry.
She's scared.
"Mia?" I say, resting my forehead against the door. "Will you let me in?"
"That's the problem. I already did," she says to herself. I hear her tear off some toilet paper and blow her nose. Louder, she says, "Go away, Brady."
I do, but not very far. I sit down, back braced against my bed, and stare right at the bathroom door. The dogs trot in and curl up, Beau in my lap and Betty on the bed behind my shoulders.
I could break down that door if I wanted, but it wouldn't do either of us any good. She's the kind of person who only gets madder when you press in before she's ready.
Fifteen minutes later, the lock unlatches, and the door swings open. Mia is still on the floor, too, and I watch as she scoots back until she hits the shower door.
"That wasn't nearly as long as I was expecting," I say, chewing my bottom lip to assuage some of my nervousness. "I was prepared to wait hours. Days. Teach the dogs how to fetch pizza and beer."
Even from here, I can see her cheeks are wet with tears. But she still gives me a little laugh. "I forgot my phone."
"Did something happen at the doctor?" I say before I lose my nerve, before she has a chance to put her walls back up again. I inch forward, and Beau huffs at me before reluctantly stepping off.
She nods, crossing her legs in front of her and looking down at them. She's changed out of her uniform and is now wearing sweats and one of my fire station t-shirts, the gray fabric billowing out around her and making her look tinier than she already is.
I take a scootch closer. "And are you going to tell me what happened?"
"Eventually," she says, and since she's still looking down I don't think she'll notice me Red-Light-Green-Light it two big spaces in her direction.
"Great," I say, my heels breaching the threshold. "I'm all ears."
She pulls something from her lap. A… paper airplane? I'm so confused. I didn't even know she could make paper airplanes.
"Here," she says, a quick flick of the wrist sending it my direction.
I manage to snag it before it flies past my shoulder and look at her from under my lashes as I unfold it.
"Making me work for it, I see. Well—"
I cut myself off. I read it again. And again.
"Mia, what does this say? I—I don't—" My eyes burn, my heart, my throat. Everything is burning, yet somehow I am frozen. Suspended in this second that stretches into years.
She finally looks up at me. The bottom halves of her eyes are pooled with water.
"I'm pregnant."
"Baby," I say, clutching at my chest. Because I feel like my heart is bursting inside it. Because this is Mia fucking Shelton.
Mia buries her face in her hands, and her shoulders start to shake with silent sobs.
I scramble across the remaining length of floor and slide her onto my lap, wrapping up her body in mine. "Hey, it's okay. It's okay. Shhh, I've got you." I can't quite tell where Mia's head is at, but I can't help but feel like her heart is breaking as she cries in my arms.
We've never talked about kids. Not concretely. I asked her once if she was on birth control (because I'd stayed up that first night after she went to sleep in my arms and read on my phone about endometriosis and what helps with it. I then ordered two wireless heating pads, a set of nice bath oils, a TENS machine, a value-sized bottle of ibuprofen, and a yoga mat. Had to cover all the bases).
Mia told me she couldn't get pregnant, which prompted her to share about getting diagnosed at such an early age. She didn't cry—I could see on her face the time for that had come and gone—but I was so sad for her, could still hear the wistful tone hiding behind her words, that I had to wipe my eyes a few times.
"It's like I'm grieving in reverse," she gasps now, her head nestled in my shoulder. "And I don't—know—how."
"We'll do it together," I say, smoothing her hair. She's still got it in the bun from work, and I gently pull it out. It gives her headaches if she leaves it in too long. Because this is what I do. I take care of her in the little ways, so she can take care of the big ones. I can't carry her pain for her, but I can lessen it.
"We've only been together for five months," she gasps.
I swallow around my heart, which has relocated to my throat. "I've been with you for a lot longer than five months. I've been with you for years, Mia. I've just been waiting for you to catch up."
My words start a new round of sobs, and I stand, her still in my arms.
"Out," I say to the dogs. Betty responds obediently, but Beau is more hardheaded. He takes more encouraging, and finally a friendly-but-firm shove in the ass. He came into my life the same day Mia did. I'm sure there's some symbolism there if I dig deep enough.
I shut the door with my foot and walk us to the bed.
She curls into me the moment she can, and I do my best to hold her together. Her sobs turn to whimpers, and eventually to sniffles. There is snot on my shirt; I do not care.
"Why were you packing?" I ask. "Do you want to go home?" This is a gentler way to ask what I'm really getting at: is this the end of us?
She clutches me tighter in answer. "No."
I have to temper my reaction, because it's physical. My heart swells inside my chest, like in the fucking Grinch. And my eyes prickle, and I hug her closer.
She falls asleep like that, holding on to me.
Mia
I open my eyes to darkness, Brady's sweltering arms and legs entangled with mine. I crane my neck to see he's sleeping, too, mouth slightly open, which lets out the cutest little snore.
I glance at the clock and grimace. We usually nap after shift, but not this hard. The dogs are probably hungry.
"Bray," I say, nudging his leg with my toe before sitting up. "Brady, wake up. We were supposed to be at your mom's an hour ago."
He does this thing when he wakes up, this routine: he scratches his stomach, then rubs his hand up his face and into his hair. He gives his head a scratch of its own, then lets his hand fall back to the mattress with a sigh. All before opening his eyes.
"I texted her to cancel after you fell asleep," he mumbles somewhere in the middle of it all.
"Why?" I ask.
He does a shift that could be considered a shrug, in the right light. "When you have bad days, you don't want to be around other people. If you want me to go too, just let me know. I'll crash at Aaron's or something. Or if you changed your mind from earlier, I could drive you home."
And, just like that, I know. Know it down to my bones. This man, my heart says. Forever.
And he deserves to know, too.
"No, I don't want to go home," I say, forcing my eyes to stop watering. Gah, they're so sore. But I have to see him clearly. "I think I already am."
His eyes open wider, and his mouth does too, but I can tell he's still drowsy. "What do you mean?"
"I want your 'I love you' words," I say, echoing his phrasing from that fateful first night five months ago. "And I want you to have mine."
He pushes up on his elbow, looking me square in my eyes. "Give them to me, then." A challenge.
And I guess that's fair. After all, I've been challenging him for years now.
"I love you," I say. I've never said that to anyone before. He knows that. The events of the day come rushing back to me. It's probably a trick of the mind, or maybe not eating lunch and sleeping past dinner, but I am a little nauseated. "And it still feels like a dream I'm going to wake up from tomorrow, but Bray—" I rest my hand on my stomach. "I think I love this, too."
His grin makes the sun come out. How did I not realize it before? Maybe I haven't loved him for as long as he's loved me, but I'm starting to think it was a little longer than five months.
"It's so early," I continue. "And something could go wrong—"
"Baby," he interrupts, reaching for me. "We're having a baby?"
And I do the only thing I can do. I nod. "We're having a baby."
He jumps up to his knees, and I do the same, to be that much closer to him. We reach for each other at the same time, my arms around his neck and his around my waist. I'm laughing, still a little in disbelief.
But it's overwhelmingly relief. Joy. I'd called it grieving in reverse earlier, a dream I thought I'd killed come back to life, come true.
Except I'm pretty sure that's just what happiness is.
