I hurt everywhere from the dance yesterday. Plus, I'm really cold and my fingers are freezing. So, while I go raise the thermostat, please enjoy this chapter of Words Left Unsaid.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Fang
I felt very awkward sitting in Dr. Martinez's van with her and Max in total silence. Usually I didn't mind silence so much, but this was awkward silence. I could tell that Dr. Martinez was avoiding talking to me personally. I think she was mad because I'd gotten her daughter pregnant at eighteen.
Then again, that wasn't really her problem, was it?
In any case, I wasn't really in the mood to talk about my screw-ups, so I didn't say anything either. Max seemed uncomfortable, but that might have just been because she was huge with that baby in her stomach.
When we finally got to the clinic, we got out of the car and walked through the doors, still in silence. It wasn't until we got into Dr. Martinez's office that something was finally said.
"So, um, what's this whole 'ultrasound' about?" Max asked. Dr. Martinez continued to bustle about the room while she answered Max.
"Basically, it's a little device that sends sound waves into your body and bounce back, and that gives us an image of the baby, so we can see how it's progressing," she explained. Max looked disturbed by the thought of having sound waves bounce around inside her.
"And what's the point of doing that?" she asked.
"Well, we can tell whether or not it's like you two, in the sense that it has part avian DNA. It can also tell us if it has any defects, and it can give us the se—gender of the baby."
Max looked up at me. "Do we want to know what the gender of the baby is?" she asked me. I shrugged.
"I don't care really. I don't really want to know, I guess," I said, knowing I wasn't going to get away without giving her an answer.
"Well, I don't really want to know, either," she said. Dr. Martinez nodded.
"Alright, then. Let's get started," she said. She helped Max to lie down on the little operating table and I was given horrible flashbacks from when we'd come in years ago to get that stupid chip taken out of her arm. I stood by her, holding her hand tightly in mine. Dr. Martinez rolled up her shirt to expose her stomach. She grabbed a bottle of blue-ish liquid and opened the cap.
"Now, this is going to be a little bit cold on your skin, but it won't hurt you," she said. She squeezed the bottle and, with a disgusting blorp, it poured onto Max's stomach. As it hit her skin, Max's grip on my hand tightened. I looked down at her.
"Are you okay?" I asked her. She nodded.
"I'm fine. It's just…really cold." She laughed a little. Dr. Martinez brought over a little machine and took a thing attached to the machine and put it on Max's stomach. When she did, a little image popped up on the screen near the table. At first, it was just blurry, confusing lines. Then, after she moved it around a bit, I could actually start to see something. At first it was just another blob, only it was moving around. Then, when I looked really carefully, I could see that it wasn't just a blob, it was an actual, living, thing. Max was watching the screen vigilantly.
"Look," Max said, pointing at the screen. She looked over at me. "Do you see it?"
"Um…" I said, squinting my eyes a little, "I think so." Dr. Martinez pointed to the screen as well.
"Here's it's head," she said, pointing toward the bottom. "That's good. It's in the position it should be in right now." She moved her hand along the screen. "There's its arms and legs…and…" She paused, obviously looking for something in particular. "Oh, my goodness!" she gasped. Max almost jumped right to her feet.
"What?" she gasped back. "What is it?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, Max. I didn't mean to surprise you," she said. "I was just surprised myself. See," she pointed to the screen again, "here are your baby's wings"
I looked where she'd pointed and I could just see the two little shapes on its back that looked like, as she'd said, birds' wings.