Page 126 of Ink Me Three Times

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Nope.

Nope.

I stare at her. Then at the screen. Then back at her. “What?”

Her voice drops to the kind of tone people use when they’re trying to be gentle about telling you your goldfish died.

“There are three heart beats.”

The words don’t land. They float in the air, confetti at the wrong party. My brain grabs at them but can’t get a grip. Three heartbeats. Three. That’s… no. That’s a typo. A computer glitch. A prank, maybe? Is this some reality show?Am I being Punk’d?

“Triplets?” I whisper, like saying it too loud might make it more true.

She nods.

I laugh.

Not a cute laugh. Not ahaha what a funny jokelaugh. This one scrapes up from deep in my chest like a busted garbage disposal.

“Okay,” I say. “Okay. Nope. That’s not… I mean, no. That’s not possible. I’m not a Duggar.”

She offers a small, almost apologetic smile. “It’s rare, but spontaneous triplets do happen. You’re very early, so we’ll need to keep monitoring things, but…”

“I don’t even know which one of them…”

I clamp my mouth shut before the rest spills out, my words barreling toward confession, they’ve got no brakes. I sit up too fast and almost pass out, the gown rough on my skin, my hands shaking as if I’ve been electrocuted.

Three.

Three babies.

Three heartbeats.

Three guys who could be the father.

My uterus is hosting a damn roulette wheel.

“Are you okay?” the tech asks.

I nod. Lie. Smile. Lie harder. “Yep. Totally fine. Just... little surprised.”

“Do you want a photo?”

I almost say no. I almost bolt straight out the door, leaving behind a perfect Ivy shaped hole in the wall. But instead, I hear myself say:

“…Sure.”

Because if I don’t take it, it’s not real. And if it’s not real, I don’t have to deal with it.

But it is real. So I nod again, a malfunctioning bobblehead, and watch as she presses a few keys. The machine whirs, and then out it comes, this tiny square of thermal paper that now contains the rest of my life.

She hands it to me carefully.

“Congratulations,” she says.

I don’t respond. Can’t.

I stare at the blurry grain of rice blobs floating in their little black space capsule. Three of them. Three pulsing dots. Three heart beats.

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