Page 71 of Only ever you-Ana & Byron
But he stopped when he noticed the tears streaking silently down her cheeks.
"Ana."
Never had he seen Ana cry.
"Ana, why did you leave, if that wasn't it? You know... You must know I didn't mean it about breaking up."
She inhaled, shaky.
"Oh God, it's a long story..."
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
"I have time. And I'm not leaving until you tell me what's going on."
She seemed to take in a deep breath. And then-
"I'm pregnant."
His expression didn't change for a long minute. He blinked as if digesting that new piece of information. Then he seemed to pull inward, his face guarded.
"And how do you... feel about that?", he asked in a carefully neutral tone.
She shook her head. "Let me tell you the rest first."
She was silent for a moment while she seemed to gather her thoughts. What followed was not at all what he had anticipated.
"Do you remember that accident in Yemen five years ago?"
He nodded slowly.
"I told you most of it," Ana began, her voice barely a whisper now. "The PTSD, the blackouts...it was all true. But I didn't tell you everything. When I was in the hospital after the blast, they found a piece of shrapnel on the scans. It was lodged near my cervical spine."
She paused, inhaling through her nose before continuing.
She took a breath.
"It wasn't immediately life-threatening, but the location made it risky. Too close to the spinal cord. The doctors in Saudi said the same as the team at Walton when I got back-because it wasn't causing any neurological symptoms, and there was no spinal instability or leak of spinal fluid, the safest thing was to leave it in."
She saw Byron frown slightly, absorbing the details.
"The fragment has been there long enough that it was encapsulated, completely walled off by scar tissue. It’s like the body sealing it away. It happens sometimes, they said. They call it a chronic inflammatory response. It looked stable on the scans-I have one every six months. And it can stay like that for years."
She took a deep breath and wiped her tears with her sleeve, "The doctors offered surgery, but they were honest there was a real risk ofparalysis. I could've ended up completely dependent on someone else for the rest of my life."
Her fingers tightened around the throw blanket.
"So, I chose to wait. As long as it wasn't causing any symptoms, it could be monitored. That's what they said. I just wanted time before... I mean if things went wrong during surgery."
She swallowed again, visibly working to keep herself together.
"But after this last injury, when I was in the hospital, they ran some scans. They think the fragment shifted. I've started getting tingling in my fingers. Some numbness, too. If it migrates any further... catastrophic is the word the doctor used. I might not get another warning."
Byron didn't move. His whole body was still.
Ana's voice wavered, but she pushed on.
"And now I'm pregnant. Which, I know, isn't ideal. But I want this baby, Byron. I want it so much. And I'm terrified. I don't know what to do, because every decision feels like a risk."
