by Raquel Belle
It occurred to me, way too late, that he said we could keep dating after the class ended. As I got dressed, feeling achy, I replayed our conversation ten times. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d moved too fast in breaking things off. It was a worry that kept poking at the back of my mind. I fed Jerry, who jumped onto the counter, which he never did because he always got in trouble for it, and rubbed his head under my chin. He always knew when I was upset. I picked him up and he let me hold him like a baby in one arm and purred like a small engine.
For some reason, tears sprang to my eyes and a sob welled in my chest. “Seriously?” I said, my voice shaky. It made no sense to cry over Josh, none. But I was, I couldn’t help it because I did have feelings for him, as much as I tried to fight it. Inexplicably, I’d gotten attached.
A knock on the door startled me and Jerry grumbled then dropped out of my hands. I wiped my eyes and walked to the door. Through the peephole, I saw Jess standing in the hall. Confused, I opened the door.
“You guys don’t know how to call me anymore?” I asked. Jess wore light grey tights and a t-shirt for her dance studio. “Don’t you have work?” Jess stepped inside and shut the door behind her.
“What’s going on with you? Were you crying?” she asked. Jess put her hands on my shoulders and looked in my eyes before she hugged me.
“No…” I murmured, lying.
“I heard about the fight,” she said.
“Fight?” I finally wrapped my arms around her and she held onto me longer.
“When you went to Mom’s house. She told me about it, she’s worried you’re still upset,” Jess said. She finally pulled back and then put her purse on the bar. As soon as she turned to me again, my stomach lurched and I hurried to the bathroom.
“Naomi…” I heard her follow me and ran ahead to close the bathroom door behind me. My stomach felt sour, I wondered what I’d eaten. After throwing up again, I felt more settled and my mind was oddly blank again.
“Nao,” Jess tapped on the door. I quickly rinsed my mouth with mouthwash and splashed some water on my face. Grogginess clung to me and I wanted nothing more than to lay in bed.
“I’m okay,” I said and opened the door. Jess looked me over, concerned.
“Did you get food poisoning or something?” she asked. “Did you go to a restaurant?” I walked with her to the living room and sat down, the room spun a little bit around me. Jess waved her hand in front of my face and I snapped out of the slight daze that I was in.
“I haven’t eaten since…lunch yesterday and I was fine last night. Usually I can feel it when I ate something off,” I said and put my head in my hand. Jess’s brow furrowed and she studied me all over again.
“Are you seeing someone?” she said slowly.
“I’m—um…no, not anymore,” I said. Jess blinked at me, waiting quietly for the explanation. “I was…since the beginning of the semester but we broke things off last night.”
“So, it’s what now…halfway through the semester? It’s been six weeks?” she asked. My eyes fluttered as I tried to count the weeks in my head, as I backtracked, I realized that I hadn’t had my period at all since that day in Josh’s office.
“Oh my god,” I whispered.
“Naomi…let’s go to the drug store,” Jess said. She stood up and took my hand.
“Wait, I—I,” Jess grabbed her purse, barely waited for me to get shoes on and we walked downstairs to her car. Once inside, she turned on the car and idled.
“When is the last time you had your period?” she asked.
“I don’t even remember,” I murmured. “I’m on birth control though—”
“It doesn’t matter, nothing is fool proof,” she said. I glanced through the window at the ground. Jess didn’t say anything more. She pulled out of the parking lot and we drove around the corner to CVS. Everything looked like a dream as we got out and walked down the baby isle to get to the pregnancy tests. I studied the chubby smiling faces of the baby models on the front of diaper packs. There was also a lot of formula to choose from. I noticed a selection of cold medicine for babies and stopped to pick up a baby aspirin box. The baby on the front seemed to stare into my soul.
“Come on, Nao,” Jess looped her arm through mine and we walked to the selection of pregnancy tests.
“This is crazy, this is nuts,” I said. My heart started to beat a little faster in my chest and a wave of dizziness hit me. “Jess, I can’t be pregnant,” I said, panic creeping into my tone.
“Relax, Nao. We’re going to take the test to find out—first thing’s first.” She grabbed two top shelf electronic tests and we walked to the cash register to buy them. I’d never had so much as a pregnancy scare before. V had one but it turned out that she was just late. Jess had been pregnant before, a few years ago, when she was dating her, then serious, boyfriend. But she miscarried eight weeks in. Then her relationship dissolved a few weeks later, she’d said that he hadn’t been supportive when she was trying to get past the sadness. He couldn’t understand how hard it had been to lose the baby.
No one close to me, apart from my mother, had been through a full pregnancy and birth. I had no idea what to expect if that test turned out to be positive. “Just try not to think about it. I don’t need you hyperventilating, Nao,” Jess said. We drove back to my place and Jess unboxed both pregnancy tests.
“Do you have a plastic cup? It’s better to do it that way,” she said. I had a bag of solo cups in my pantry. I grabbed one out of the pack and then drank two glasses of water. Jess sat on the couch with me, we both had to wait until my bladder had something to give.
“Who’s the guy?” Jess asked quietly. I shook my head adamantly. I couldn’t tell her that I’d been dating Josh, my current professor. Not to mention, we just broke up so there was no more relationship between us. “Naomi, come on.” Jess tilted her head to the side and quirked her brow.
“He was a fling,” I said haltingly.
“What, you wouldn’t want to tell him or something?” Jess asked. I took a deep breath and pushed stray hairs out of my face. Thankfully, my bladder saved me.
“I have to go,” I said.
Jess was surprised. “That was quick,” she said. I grabbed the solo cup and walked to the bathroom, hesitant. My heart was racing, that was likely why the water went right through me. I used the bathroom, careful with the cup, then washed my hands and called Jess.
She set up the pregnancy tests in the cup and started a timer. After a few moments she took the tests out of the cup and then set them down on paper towels. I emptied the cup and tossed it while she set the timer again. Jerry padded into the bathroom and curled around my legs, purring loudly.
“We’ve got some time. Want to find something to watch on Netflix?” Jess asked.
“Netflix?” I asked incredulously. I felt about ready to vibrate out of my skin. Jess left me and Jerry in the bathroom. I heard her turn on the TV in the living room and after a fruitless minute of staring at the tests, I joined her. Jess put her arm around me and I rested my head on her shoulder. My heart felt like a beating drum in my chest. I wanted to pace but Jess must’ve known exactly how I felt because her hold on me was firm.
I stared into space while the show played for what felt like three days. When Jess’s timer went off, I jumped. She let go of me and we got up together and walked fast to the bathroom. Jess beat me to the tests and stood over them to read the results.
“Jess, I’m going to pass out,” I said.
“It’s…they-they’re positive,” Jess said. My body went cold and I couldn’t make myself step forward to look over her shoulder or do anything. She turned around with both tests held in the paper towel to show me the small screens that read, “Pregnant.”
“I know you’re in shock but you really need to figure out now if you want whoever the dad is, in the baby’s life or not,” Jess said. My mouth opened then closed again. I blinked a few times and thought about not telling Josh. It wasn’t like I was going to
stop attending Nova. He’d see me around next semester, he’d see that I was pregnant. Plus, he wanted kids. It would be crazy for me not to tell him that I was pregnant with his child.
“He has to know,” I whispered.
“Well who is he?” she asked. My eyes filled with tears and my chest grew even hotter. How could I tell Jess how much of an actual screw up I was? Someone who had a fling with their professor?
“Naomi, it’s okay. This isn’t the end of the world. We’ll get through it,” Jess said. Her eyes, almost identical to mine, searched my face. “We’re family and I’ll be here no matter what.”
My tears really started to flow then. I’d never heard something like that from my family before. Jess hugged me and I took deep breaths to keep my voice steady. “His name is Josh…we…cut things off yesterday. He’s-um-he’s my professor.”
Jess pulled back to hold my shoulders at arm’s length. She took a breath but nodded and there wasn’t any judgement in her face. Something in me clicked and I hugged her again, really grateful for her reaction. “So, if you plan on telling him, are you prepared to keep it? I’m assuming he’s a bit older than you?” she asked.
We walked out of the bathroom to sit on my bed and Jess kept an arm around my shoulders. I looked at her, at a loss, “I…I don’t know,” I said. Jess nodded, she rubbed my back absently and I imagined getting an abortion. It would be simple and my life would go relatively back to normal. But the fact remained, I knew that Josh wanted kids and it was hard for him to have them. If he ever found out about an abortion, he’d…well would it matter how he felt since we weren’t together anymore anyway. I lowered my head and rubbed my temples.
“I don’t know,” I said again.
Chapter Eighteen
Josh
I finished setting up the PowerPoint on the big screen in class. Naomi had missed Friday’s class but Monday’s session I called for mandatory attendance since it was a review lecture for the upcoming midterm. When time for class came around and she still hadn’t come in yet, I was confused. Was she really going to start slacking on her grade because she didn’t want to see me?
“Alright everybody, let’s start.” I said. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, thanks for sending in questions before class. That helps us maximize review time and I’m going to open up my office hours a little bit to get in any additional questions after today,” I said. I ignored the murmurs that resulted after I said that and gestured to the PowerPoint. “Chapter’s one through three happened to be everyone’s strongest unit based on the papers I got so we won’t spend too much time on it. I thought we could go straight to the questions I received about a few of our theorizers,” I said. Just as I hit the key to change the slide, Naomi quietly slipped into the class room. She wore a loose, lightweight sweater over shorts I could barely detect underneath. Her hair was piled in a messy bun and she looked tired.
I continued to read off the first question and answer it with context from the textbook. My eyes couldn’t help darting to the back of the class where Naomi sat, typing away on her computer. She barely looked up and when she did it was only to look at the slide, not me. Her eyes were more than tired, they were sad. I wanted to pull her aside after class to ask her how the divorce between her parents was going. I wanted to ask her to reconsider her decision to stop seeing each other.
“Dr. J?” her friend, Jacob, rose his hand. He had a mischievous smirk on his face that I wasn’t sure he was aware of.
“Yeah?” I said, annoyed he was asking something when I’d been clear on the whole question thing. But, in the pursuit of not looking like an ass, I called on him.
“Is there something on my head or are you staring at the clock behind us?” he asked. The class chuckled, I didn’t really get the joke.
“I guess I look forward to the end of class just like anyone else,” I joked, calling more laughs. “But seriously, let’s get through this guys,” I said to keep everyone on track. I glanced at Jacob for a split second and wondered how often he noticed me staring at Naomi…and how long had he noticed it?
By the end of class I’d just managed to get through the entire review. Not as many people as I thought stayed behind to ask me questions. Naomi was in the line though and even though she tried to catch me before everyone else left, I kept skirting around her until we were the only ones left in the class. Through the classroom door window, though, I saw Jacob waiting for her outside the hall and his eyes were zeroed in on her.
“Hey,” I said. “How are you?”
“I’m fine. I just had a question about the midterm’s format,” she said quickly.
“Okay, sure,” I said. I told her how many questions there’d be and basically what kinds of questions and she tightened her hand around her bag and stepped towards the door.
“Thanks,” she said dully.
“Wait,” I said and glanced into the hall again. Jacob was still manning the door. “How are you holding up?” I asked.
“I’m fine, really,” she said and hurried out of the room to walk with Jacob. I closed my eyes briefly and sighed in frustration. It had to have been her family that was bothering her so much. That had been the only reason for her to look so distracted before. I doubted our split had anything to do with it since that had largely been her choice.
I went through the rest of my classes trying not to think about Naomi but it was hard to stay on track with her face popping into my head every few minutes. After my classes and office meetings were done, I drove to Amy’s house. She’d asked me to stop by for dinner, apparently Kaden missed me.
I pulled into her driveway, parked and walked to the front door, which was unlocked. When I stepped inside, the dogs started barking and ran at me full steam.
“Hey guys,” I chuckled and patted them on the head, scratched them behind the ears and glanced around the front room. “Anyone home?” I called.
I walked to the family room and found Kaden entranced by some kid show. He looked at me as if shocked to see me, processed that I was really there and then grinned like the sun. “Unca Josh!” he squealed and ran at me. I picked him up, lifting him over my head, and he giggled like a little maniac until I pulled him down for a hug. Then Amy walked into the room.
“Hey, sorry I was in the dark-room,” she said. I kissed her on the cheek when she reached us and then tossed Kaden into the air a few times. I held him on my hip and walked into the kitchen with Amy. I did smell rice cooking and saw a few pots on the stove, simmering.
“It smells good, what’s on the menu?” I asked.
“Seafood gumbo, rice, and some greens,” she said. “I was feeling in a comfort food mood.” Kaden pointed to the floor and I let him down. He ran back to the couch to finish watching his show.
“Same,” I muttered and sat at the kitchen table.
“You’re really bummed that Naomi broke things off?” she asked. I shrugged. “Very expressive,” she murmured and uncovered the gumbo pot to stir it. The fragrance that filled the kitchen was mouthwatering and my stomach growled.
“She didn’t come to class Friday and she was late today—she looked like crap,” I said. I stood up and walked to the stove. I reached into the utensil drawer for a spoon.
“Did you talk to her at all?” Amy took my spoon and scooped a little bit of the broth for me to taste. As soon as the mix of spices and the taste of seafood hit my tongue, my stomach growled as if it would jump out of my mouth.
“Is it done yet?” I asked, Amy laughed at me.
“Almost.”
“I tried to talk to her. It didn’t really go well. She wanted to get out of the class as quickly as possible and her friend kept staring at me. Tried to call me out during class for looking in their direction, it was weird,” I said. Amy’s brow furrowed but she didn’t comment.
Chapter Nineteen
Naomi
My blaring alarm startled me out of my sleep and like a maniac, I grasped around the bed for my phone to turn it off and check the time.
I had the clinging fear that I’d woken up late and missed my midterms for the day. I had one in every class and I felt horrible. Fatigue clung to me and my stomach felt sour. I didn’t even want to drink water for breakfast.
I forced myself out of bed and got ready for class. Before I made it to my car, I threw up twice. I drove with watery eyes while taking deep breaths to keep from throwing up all over the steering wheel. I couldn’t miss my midterms though because my appointment with the OBGYN wasn’t for another week. I pretty much had until then to decide if I wanted to keep the baby or not, I still wasn’t sure.
I was grateful when I got to campus without incident. Before going to Josh’s class, I had to run to the bathroom and throw up bile. Nothing was in my stomach which made matters worse but I was afraid to eat or drink anything too. I walked into class just in the nick of time. Josh watched me walk to my seat as he always did. There was already an exam and short answer booklet on my desk.
“Like I said, once you have your paper, feel free to start,” Josh said as I got settled. I fished a pen out of my bag and started the exam. I was on my second essay question when my stomach heaved again. I eased out of my seat and hurried to the front of the room to leave. I made it to the bathroom stall just in time to puke. Thankfully there was no one in the bathroom to witness me practically dying in the far stall.
I rinsed my mouth and washed my face before going back to class. One glance at the clock told me that I’d lost nearly ten minutes. I tried to hurry through the simpler questions and saved the other essay question for the end. Before I got to it, though. I had to run to the bathroom again. By the time I got back, I had under ten minutes to write an entire essay. I wrote as fast as I could, not really caring about legibility and finished it at the last second. When I closed my essay book, I sat back and exhaled deeply.
