Copyright 2018 by Colleen Hoover

thank god—their pediatrician came by to check on the girls. I closed my eyes,
pretending to nap, but really I was just scared to interact with their pediatrician. I
feared he would see right through me and know I had no idea how to be a
mother to these things.
Jeremy asked the doctor about the scar before he left the room. The doctor
brushed it off, said it’s not uncommon for identical twins to accidentally scratch
each other in utero. Jeremy disagreed. “It’s too deep to be a simple scratch,
though.”
“Could be scarring from fibrous tissue,” the doctor said. “No worries. It’ll
fade with time.”
“I’m not worried about the way it looks,” Jeremy said, almost defensively.
“I’m worried it could be something more serious.”
“It’s not. Your daughters are perfectly healthy. Both of them.”
Figures.
The doctor left and the nurse was gone and it was just Jeremy, the girls, and
me. One of them was asleep in the glass bed thing—I don’t know what it’s
called. Jeremy was holding the other one. He was smiling down at her when he
noticed my eyes were open.
“Hey, Momma.”
Please don’t call me that.
I smiled at him anyway. He looked good as a dad. Happy. Never mind that
his happiness had little to do with me. But even in my jealousy, I could
appreciate him. He was probably going to be the type of dad to change their
diapers. To help with feedings. I knew I’d appreciate that side of him even more
with time. I just needed to get used to this. To being a mother.

---

“Bring me the scarred one,” I said.
Jeremy made a face, indicating he was disappointed in my choice of words. I
guess that was a weird way to put it, but we hadn’t named them yet. The scar
was her only identifier.
He carried her to me and placed her in my arms. I looked down at her. I
waited for the flood of emotions, but there wasn’t even a trickle. I touched her
cheek, ran my finger down the scar. I guess the wire hanger wasn’t strong
enough. I probably should have used something that didn’t give so easily under
pressure. A knitting needle? I’m not sure it would have been long enough.
“The doctor said the scarring could be a scratch.” Jeremy laughed. “Fighting
before they were even born.”
I smiled down at her. Not because I felt like smiling, but because it’s
probably what I was supposed to do. I didn’t want Jeremy to think I wasn’t in
love with her like he was. I took her hand and wrapped it around my pinky.
“Chastin,” I whispered. “You can have the better name since your sister was so
mean to you.”
“Chastin,” Jeremy said. “I love it.”
“And Harper,” I said. “Chastin and Harper.”
They were two of the names he had sent me. I liked them okay. I chose them
because he mentioned them both more than once, so I gathered they were at the
top of his list. Maybe if he could see how much I was trying to love him, he
wouldn’t notice the two areas in which my love lacked.
Chastin started to cry. She was wriggling in my arms, and I wasn’t sure what
to do about that. I started bouncing her, but that hurt, so I stopped. Her cries
continued to grow louder.
“She might be hungry,” Jeremy suggested.
I was so sold on the thought of them not actually surviving their birth with
all I had put them through, what I would do beyond that wasn’t given much
thought. I knew breastfeeding them would be the best choice, but I had
absolutely no desire to do that kind of damage to my breasts. Especially since
there were two of them.
“Sounds like someone is hungry,” a nurse said as she pranced into the room.
“Are you breastfeeding?”
“No,” I said immediately. I wanted her to prance right back out of there.
Jeremy looked at me, concerned. “Are you sure?”
“There are two of them,” I replied.
I didn’t like the look on Jeremy’s face—like he was disappointed in me. I
hated to think this was how it was going to be. Him taking their side. Me not
mattering anymore.

---

“It’s not any more difficult than bottle-feeding them,” Prancing Nurse said.
“It’s actually more convenient. Do you want to try it? See how it goes?”
I couldn’t take my eyes off Jeremy as I waited for him to dismiss me of that
kind of torture. It killed me to know that he wanted me to breastfeed them when
there were so many other perfectly adequate alternatives. But I nodded and
pulled the sleeve of my gown down because I wanted to please him. I wanted
him to be happy that I was the mother of his children, even though I wasn’t
happy about it.
I removed my breast and brought Chastin toward my nipple. Jeremy was
watching the whole thing. He saw her latch on to my nipple. He saw her head
move back and forth, her little hand press into my skin. He watched her begin to
suck.
It felt wrong.
This infant, sucking on something Jeremy had sucked on before. I didn’t like
it. How would he find my breasts attractive after seeing babies feed from them
every day?
“Does it hurt?” Jeremy asked.
“Not really.”
He put a hand on my head and brushed back my hair. “You look like you’re
in pain.”