Pregnant by My Sister's Boyfriend

by Alice Carina

  It wasn't the first time she'd done that and I'd already braced myself for the impact when I saw her. It was normal and expected and I'd gotten used to it. In fact, I knew that I deserved it for what I'd done to her and I accepted her reaction fully, so I couldn't understand why instead of just walking away, I grabbed her arm as she started climbing the stairs and forcefully pulled her back, causing her to stumble and fall to the floor with a surprised scream.

  She stared at me with wide eyes that mirrored the surprise in my own. Why was I still hurting her? Hadn't I done enough?

  I was about to apologize and try to help her up, but it happened that dad had walked in just as I'd pushed her and he quickly ran towards her, asking her if she was okay and looking at me with eyes just as wide as hers.

  I didn't know what happened to me; I didn't know if it was because I was tired or lonely or in pain, or because I'd been spending too much time on my own and had officially driven myself mad, or because I was worried she was going to seriously hurt my baby soon, or because I missed Chad too much, or because it angered me how dad still cared for her and not at all about me when she'd done so much worse than I ever could, or if it was just my hormones, or because it was the first time in a very long time that either of them had looked at me, but I suddenly started yelling.

  "You're worried about her? You still have a place in your heart to worry about your daughter and she's the daughter you're worried about? What about me? What about all the times she pushes me and puts my baby at risk? What about all the rumors she spread about me at school? What about all the times she hurts me? Why don't you ever look at her like you're looking at me right now when she does all these things to me? Why don't you ever rush to my side and ask me if I'm okay when you see me leaning against walls because I'm in too much pain to stand on my own? I haven't been downstairs in days and it didn't even occur to you to check on me! What kind of father are you?"

  "What's goin-?" My mom came running at the sound of my voice, but stopped when she saw both dad and Josslyn on the floor.

  "I think I finally understand why you hate Chad so much," my whole body was shaking but I couldn't stop the avalanche once it had started. "I've been the best daughter everyone envied you for having for years, and all it took was one night, one mistake for you to drop me out of your heart. All those years I always worked hard for you, I made your job so easy that you never even knew how terrible you were at being a father. Chad isn't even my baby's father, but he already cares about her, about me, more than you ever did. You're my father, my baby's grandfather, and another boy cares more about the both of us than you do. He takes responsibility even when it's not his, he cares even when I don't deserve his caring, he's strong and dependable and loving and everything a father should be but you can't."

  "Katie-" My mom tried to stop me, but I couldn't. I was so cold that my whole body was trembling yet I was sweating in places I never had before.

  "And you!" I turned to my sister who flinched at my attention. "I hurt you and I feel terrible, you don't have to keep reminding me of what I did because there's an actual human being moving inside of me reminding me every single second. And I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry. I get it, okay? I slept with your boyfriend and you have every right to be mad at me, but I didn't know he was your boyfriend. You were with someone else that night for crying out loud. I thought he was just another ex and you looked like you'd already moved on, you always said that I could be with any of your exes because we both know if I wanted to date someone you never have, I would probably have to move to another country."

  "Katie-" My mother tried again, but I couldn't stop. I really wanted to when I saw the tears in my sister's eyes, but I couldn't.

  "You wanna know why I was with him that night? Why I snuck out with you to that party or why I wore that dress or why I decided to be with the first guy who said I looked pretty or why I'm pregnant right now? Because I was trying to be you! This," I placed my hands on my round stomach, "happened to me because for one night I was you, this is something that can easily happen to you any night. All the consequences, everything that you hate me for, is because for one night I was you. So, if you hate me right now, maybe you just really hate yourself."

  "Katie!"

  "What?" I turned my anger towards my mother, ready to tell her how disappointed I was with her as well.

  "Your water broke."

  *

  I couldn't remember much from the rush to the hospital and the phone calls my mom and sister were making while my dad drove or how I was suddenly on a bed in a big, white room. Everything seemed to be happening too quickly; the moment I'd been hoping for and fearing for what I had thought had been a long time arrived too soon and I was not ready.

  I thought I'd be happy to end my pregnancy, but I'd been defined by it for a long time that I didn't remember what I was before it. I thought I'd be excited to meet my baby, but I was suddenly terrified of her; what if she looked too much like her father for me or Josslyn or Chad to ever be able to forget about him? What if she didn't like me? What if I didn't like her? What if I couldn't take care of her? What if I dropped her or lost her or traumatized her by being a terrible mother or by telling her the truth one day? What if I died giving birth to her and never got to see her? Would that be a relief or a disaster by leaving her in the hands of my family who already hated her?

  And then there was the pain... I felt like my body was literally trying to compress my soul out of itself, my back felt as if it had been cut in two and I kept thinking that at any moment the lower half was going to cut through the skin and just fall off, and my throat burned with screams that clogged my ears. I couldn't hear what Patty and the other doctor were trying to say. There was nothing but pain.

  I didn't know how it happened, but suddenly Chad was standing over my head. He was saying something but I couldn't hear him. I wanted to ask him how he knew or when he'd gotten there, I wanted to tell him how much it meant to me that he was there holding my hand when nobody else was, but the wrong – or right – words came out.

  "I love you," I whispered, or screamed, and my eyes instantly shut with the pain.

  I didn't know what was happening, but the ceiling over my head changed. I was moving through the pain.

  Then, suddenly, things began to quiet down. My back somehow slipped through my body and fell away and I couldn't feel it anymore.

  "Is it over?" I mumbled as I felt my body melt into the bed.

  "Baby, we're putting you under," Patty's voice was so low and I strained to hear it as a nurse dabbed a towel at my face. "You need a C-section."

  "Oh," I sighed without understanding anything and stared at the white light until it turned black.

  Light

  There was some sort of haze covering everything when I opened my eyes. Everything was warm and quiet and light. I didn't feel heavy or sick or anything at all.

  "Good morning," Patty's face appeared over my head.

  "Morning," I smiled back at her. Everything was so warm and quiet and light.

  I was about to ask her where I was when a strange sound had me sitting up so quickly into another world where everything felt cold and noisy and dark. To my left, there was a small bed next to mine, a little transparent crib with something pick stirring inside of it.

  "I-is that...?"

  Patty smiled as she bent down and picked a little baby in her arms. "Do you want to hold her?" She asked me as she brought her over to my bed.

  I didn't respond. I didn't think my arms could hold her. She belonged inside me with too many layers of too many things keeping her apart from my arms, but suddenly she was in my arms and everything was warm and quiet and light. When I finally managed to look at her and found her looking at me with her small, sleepy eyes, I couldn't make myself breathe out anymore.

  I'd been waiting for her like the light at the end of a very long tunnel, and finally reaching her blinded me. She was so beautiful, the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, the most beautiful thing in t
he whole world. I did that. I created the most beautiful thing in the world and gave it to the world and nothing the world could do could ever repay me for her. Then, she smiled, and I was repaid for every day in that tunnel.

  "Do you want to see your family?" Patty asked while placing a tender hand on my shoulder. "They've been anxiously waiting for you to wake up all night, but I thought it'd be better if you didn't wake up to everyone here."

  "Who's everyone?" Was my dad really still there? Was my sister?

  "Your mom, dad, sister, Chelsea, and a really cute boy who practically glued himself to the door,"

  "They're all outside... together?"

  "I might have exaggerated a little bit and told them you were about to die and stuff like that. Made them all bond." She winked at me, but I quickly turned back to my baby, unable to believe that the tiny person in my arms was mine.

  She gave me a few more minutes alone with my baby, but I couldn't get enough of her if I stared at her for nine other months. She was too beautiful, too perfect, too real, and I wouldn't have minded being pregnant with her for nine more months all over again and again just for a few more minutes of just her.

  Everything felt like a dream as I looked at her. Was she real or was I dreaming? Had everything been a dream? Had my pregnancy been a mere dream? Would I wake up again to her or to painful stirring inside of me or to nothing at all?

  Chad quickly rushed to my side and kissed me. I was terrified of how my parents would react and it suddenly occurred to me that they might still be angry with me and take my baby away, but when I looked up, they were both crying as they looked at me and my baby.

  Everything was so hazy and I felt myself drifting back to sleep as they tried to talk to me.

  "What are you going to name her?" Josslyn was holding my baby with a smile.

  I hadn't really thought about that yet. I always referred to her as my baby or my mistake, but I never imagined her as her own person existing outside of me with a name other outside people would need to refer to her with.

  My body felt so light as I looked at my family, happily gathered around me for the first time in so long, it was as if a huge weight had been dropped from my shoulders and back and stomach. The light in the room was too bright, and I could never again imagine myself in darkness as I heard my baby make a sound so unfamiliar yet so natural to me.

  "Light," I smiled tiredly with my eyes already closed. "I'm gonna name her Light,"

  "Well, that's um... unique?" I heard Chelsea's voice but it quickly got lost in a buzz of other voices as I fell asleep.

  *

  For a couple of months, I could not be separated from my baby; it was as if she was still physically attached to me. It surprised me how before all I wanted was to get her out of me so that I could go outside without her, but now that she was there all I ever wanted to do was be inside with her.

  The general atmosphere in our house was always joyful and bright and light, just like my baby. Everything was so much better than it had ever been before her. She seemed to remind my parents of their early days as parents, and that somehow brought them closer together; they were back to having date nights and laughing and talking to us.

  Whenever dad came back home from work tired or upset, he just had to look at Light to smile as if nothing at all was worth worrying about. Mom often forgot to cook and asked us to order something from outside because she couldn't leave Light's side.

  The tears and pain and sadness had apparently all been my own, or had possibly immunized her to any, because Light was the most cheerful baby I'd ever seen. She smiled a big, toothless smile at everyone who looked at her, tried to push herself towards anyone who extended his or her arms towards her, was just as friendly with strangers as she was with my family – our family, and was just a bundle of light.

  However, there was one thing about her that often distracted me. While she looked a lot like me and Josslyn that dad often called her one of our names instead of hers, she had Kyle's eyes.

  One night, Josslyn and I were sitting alone with Light while mom and dad were on their weekly date when she mentioned that. We ended up talking about everything for the first time, how I'd broken her heart and how she'd broken mine and how all along all we'd ever wanted was to be each other but ended up being the complete opposite. We talked for hours, making up for the long months and years of keeping things inside. When our parents came back, they found us sitting in my room, hugging and crying while Light laughed at the musical figures going round and round above her crib.

  She brought all of us closer together. We'd all been living in our own darkness and couldn't help but be drawn to the light at the end of the tunnel. We'd all been walking down the dark tunnel next to each other unable to see each other until she shone for us and made us shine for each other.

  Going back to school was too hard. Mom said I used to cry all the time when I was younger on the first days of school. I couldn't remember what I felt like when I first started going to school, but I imagined it was a lot similar to what I was feeling when I had to say goodbye to my baby that first morning.

  I felt like I was abandoning her, like I was leaving my safety and taking away hers, I was terrified that I wouldn't find her when I came back and didn't know how to walk from class room to classroom, through one door and the other without finding her in any of the rooms.

  But, aside from that, school was a lot easier than it had been the year before. Since the evidence that proved I was just like them but separated me from them was gone, people were a lot more tolerant of my situation. Suddenly, Chad and I made a 'cute couple' and 'such a cute little family.'

  Chad got along with my parents amazingly after I gave birth. He was always around after school either helping me with homework because I'd barely focused on anything the year before or dotting over Light. My parents liked and trusted him so much that they even let us go out on dates late at night after Light had fallen asleep so that we could have somewhat of a normal relationship.

  Chad was just as addicted to Light as everyone in my family, and she had a particular preference to him probably since she was inside of me. Whenever she was crying – from her teeth coming out or a stomach ache – and I couldn't get her to stop, all Chad had to do was hold her and she'd instantly smile. He had the same effect on her he had on me and sometimes I did believe that we made 'such a cute little family,' but we never talked about it.

  He loved me and I loved him. He loved my baby and she loved him. But she was my baby with someone else, not his. He had every right to get up and leave whenever we had a fight or simply whenever he wanted to, I had no right to expect anything from him and let my daughter get attached to him. He was so good to her though, always buying her stuff and talking about her and treating her as if she was truly his own like everyone in school believed that sometimes I believed it too and was utterly scared when it suddenly hit me that he wasn't and how easy he made it to forget.

  We acted like a family, talked like a family, got on like a family, but we weren't one. Sometimes, I wanted to ask him if he wished we were normal and I didn't bring up my daughter every single day, or if he wanted to go somewhere after school and not immediately to my house because I'd missed my daughter too much, or if he could really see us staying together for a long time, long enough for my daughter to grow up and stop being so tiny and helpless and ask questions, but I couldn't say anything and he never did, until one day my daughter decided to voice her own opinion about him.

  We walked into my house one day after school and I instantly made my way to Light who was surrounded by cushions and stuffed animals.

  "Mama!" She giggled and fluttered her arms for me to pick her up.

  She'd learned to call me mama for over a month by then, but my heart still dropped and I felt like crying every time her sweet, high voice squealed for me. I picked her up and kissed her cheek while she tried to bite into mine like she did to everyone who held her close enough to their faces.

  Then, wh
en I pulled her away to look at her – because I could never look at her enough, she saw Chad walking up behind me and instantly squealed for him.

  "Dada!" She giggled and reached her chubby little arms out for him.

  My whole body stiffened and so did my mom's who was still sitting on the floor next to Light's toys. She'd never referred to Chad as anything before. She always squealed and giggled when she saw him, but she never named him. Dad had been trying to teach her to say dada for him because she called me and Josslyn and mom mama; she saw all as her mama, but Chad... I was always worried that she'd grow up thinking he was her father if we stayed together and never ask about her real one which would make telling her the truth at some point all the much harder, but that was happening too soon.

  Chad, on the other hand, didn't seem to notice the terminology or the effect it had on me and mom and took Light from my numb arms with a smile.

  I thought that it could pass on as a onetime thing and that I would later spend hours teaching her his full name so she'd never call him that again, but she said it again as he held her, again as he kissed her cheek, and kept on repeating it like she did with every new word. I couldn't ignore it.

  "Um..." Was I supposed to apologize and promise him that I'll try to keep her from saying it again or ask him if he wanted her to say it again?

  I wanted to ask my mom what to do but she was awkwardly looking at the floor as she got up, making some excuse about dinner and leaving us alone.

  "Dada, dada, dada, dada, dada," my daughter kept giggling mercilessly.

  "She's probably trying to say Chad..." He turned to me with a raised eyebrow as she tried to eat his cheek. "Um... Chad and dad kinda rhyme, you know?"

  "Does it bother you that she calls me-?"

  "Dada, dada, dada," Light piped in again and Chad chuckled at her attempt to get his attention.

  "No, but..."

  "It doesn't bother me," he said in a finalizing tone, and we never talked about it again.