Page 33 of Silver Fox's Intern Dilemma

"Go," she said, swatting me away, and I smiled at her.

"Guess I'm going to HR," I told her with my eyebrows high, and she smiled and wiped her tears again.

"Send them in," Sophia said, and for a moment I thought to stay with her and help her give her parents the news, but she raised her eyebrows insistently. It appeared she wasn't quite ready for that much.

So I wandered out of her room with my head reeling, both in shock and in happiness. My God, this was going to mess things up in such a beautiful way. I had to call Howard. Whatever happened with Leah and Dana, I couldn't let a surprise like this affect it. Life just got a whole lot more complicated.

25

SOPHIA

Jack rushed out and Mom and Dad walked in moments later. I didn’t even have time to think about Jack's reaction or what it meant for us. He seemed happy, though, not angry or anxious about it like I feared he may be. With everything going on with his custody hearing and how his ex-wife was trying to steal his little girl away, I figured he'd have had a stronger reaction, but I was wrong. And maybe this wasn't a horrible thing after all.

"Oh, baby," Mom said, rushing to my side. She sat on the edge of the bed where Jack had just been, and Dad followed her in. He stood on the other side of the bed. The nurse picked up the tablet Jack had dropped and glanced at me.

"I'll leave you alone to visit for now. When that IV bag is done, we can get you out of here, but you need to go home and rest. I'll make sure Dr. Hinkler is okay with that. Probably put you on some multivitamins too."

I was so glad the nurse used the word multivitamin and not prenatal. I made it clear to everyone the minute I came to and found myself in this bed that they were to keep their mouths shut. Jack finding out was inevitable, but I had hoped to tell hima bit differently. Mom and Dad, however, were not going to find out today or anytime soon.

I still had to figure out how to tell them about Jack and about the possibility of a change in my residency because of dating him. If I told them I was pregnant, they’d think he had complete disregard for me and my future. But the truth was that it was completely mutual, what happened, and it wasn't supposed to happen this way.

"You passed out during surgery?" Dad asked sternly, and I felt ashamed. I knew I'd been feeling weak, but I didn’t think it was that bad. I figured a bit of caffeine would help pick me up once the surgery was over. I didn't know I was so anemic.

"Yeah, I've been sick and?—"

"It's true," Mom told him. "I was at her house the other day and she was very ill." Mom turned to me and frowned. "I told you to rest. Now you just went and made yourself sicker. It's good they prescribed the vitamins. Are you even eating? You look pale."

Mom doted on me, checking my temperature with the back of her hand on my forehead and clicked her tongue. My insides were all tangled up. If I just told them I was really pregnant and anemic, I wouldn't feel the guilt of lying, but there were so many complications. I couldn’t just blurt it out. Besides, I didn't think I could handle the emotional toll it would take on my heart right now to see my father's disappointment.

"I'm fine," I said, swatting her hand away. "I'm under a lot of stress." I bit my lower lip and thought of how she walked in on me throwing up. My mom was a very smart woman. Too many more instances like this and she'd figure it out.

"What is so stressful? If you think residency is stressful, you might want to rethink a surgical career path." Dad was so practical, so no-nonsense. I found it hard to relate with him at times. He was black and white. If I couldn't live under the high-stakes pressure of emergency surgeries, I'd never amount to anything and I might as well go for a lesser career goal. I hated that mentality—that I couldn’t stretch myself or grow.

"If you didn’t keep pushing me to do better, be better, go farther…” I felt my bottom lip quiver as his eyebrows rose. I could see the frustration in his eyes, that he wanted to snap at me. But I was here in a hospital bed and Mom was seated next to me holding my hand. He let me continue without correcting me.

"Mom shows up at my apartment to pack my things without asking me. You line up jobs for me that I don't want. If your parents did that for you, you'd never have come to this country. You insisted it was what was best for you, but you don't always know what's best for other people." I was huffing, ready to cry, and Dad's forehead relaxed and then he looked sad.

"You really don't want to go to Baltimore?" For the first time in my life, my father was asking me what I wanted. I didn’t even know how to respond.

I shrugged my shoulders and blinked back tears. "I want to stay here. I've been saying how much I like being closer to you and Mama. Baba, it's not that I don't trust you or that I don't see how prestigious Johns Hopkins is. I do. But I need my family close to me. And I want to do things on my own, make my own choices, even if life is more difficult that way."

This conversation had been a long time coming. I was just glad they were actually listening to me. All it took was me collapsing at work and winding up in a bed in the ER for them to notice, but at least it wasn't something more serious. It was a run-of-the-mill case of anemia. A lot of pregnant women developed it, and it was easily treatable with a healthier diet and vitamins.

I yawned and blinked slowly and glanced up at the IV bag. I had at least another hour of this, but I was so drained. "I think I need to rest. Is that okay?" I asked, and Mom nodded.

"Of course,qian jin," Dad said softly. "You rest." He tapped the arm rail of the bed and sighed. "If you feel so strongly and it's causing you so much stress that you collapse at work, perhaps you're right. Being closer to your family is the best for you…" He looked thoughtful, then added, "You will stay with us while you fully recover, and your Mama and I will make sure you're eating properly."

He left very little room for argument in that statement, and I knew I wasn't getting out of it. Even at twenty-eight, I would be forced to stay with my parents for a few days while this blew over. But I conceded with a small frown and a nod. I had won the greater battle, so it was okay to wave the white flag now.

"Thank you, Baba," I told him, and he kissed my forehead before they walked out.

If I had to stay with them for a few days to appease his need to control things, it was about as good of a trade off as anything else. I lay my head back on the pillow and shut my eyes.

My secret was out. Partially. Jack knew, and while his opinion was what mattered most, I knew it was just the beginning of the drama. They say you can only eat an elephant one bite at a time, and I felt like this monster of a revelation was one I had to spoon feed my parents. I'd taken the first step by putting my foot down, and now I was definitely staying in Denver. The next step was working through whatever challenging emotions Jack had regarding a baby and making our announcement to HR.

I hadn't even gotten to the part of Jack telling his daughter, or the lawyer, or even his ex-wife. I was the one who needed to pace myself now. Because if Jack wasn't as thrilled as I was about having this baby, things could go sideways very quickly. And now, with my parents hovering, I knew I wouldn't get the opportunity to speak to Jack for a while. I just prayed his initialresponse of happiness wasn't faked simply because I was lying in a hospital bed.

26

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