by J. H. Croix
“I think if you think you want to have this baby, you need to tell him. Same goes if you decide you don’t want to have this baby, but you want a relationship with him, or frankly even a friendship. That’s a massive secret to keep, no matter what you decide.”
“Oh, my God.” I uncurled my fingers from the mug handle and put my face in my hands. After several deep breaths, I lifted my head, letting my hands fall flat to the table. “I can’t hide this, it just won’t feel right.”
Zara surprised me by reaching over and curling one of her hands over mine. Her grip was firm and her hand warm. She squeezed before releasing. “It will be fine. You’re going to feel like you’re flailing. No matter what. I got through it with a lot of help from my family until Dave came back to town. Even when they’re planned, babies are not easy. It’s definitely a fly by the seat of your pants life experience. For me, it’s when I finally grew up. It seems like you’ve already walked through a fire or two in life.”
Her observation made me wonder what she knew about me, but I didn’t feel defensive. There was something about Zara, a clear-eyed lack of judgment about people. On the one hand, she would be quick to call someone out on their bullshit. On the other, she was kind and funny, and I sensed she’d faced her own challenges beyond what I knew.
The sense of panic spinning inside started to recede. I took a breath, letting it out before draining my tea. “Wish me luck then.”
“You’re going to tell him today?”
“I might as well. I’m not good at keeping secrets. I never was.”
“Are you two serious?”
I sighed and shook my head. “I fucked up, and he broke it off.”
“Pregnancy tends to be a defining experience. It’ll be okay. You have my number, right?” she asked suddenly, just as another customer came into the café.
“I don’t know.” I lifted my phone, scrolling through my contacts. I shook my head.
Zara took my phone from me and quickly entered her number. “If you need to chat, just text me, and I’ll call.”
28
Ty
It was late evening, and I was tired. I wanted nothing more than a few hours with Belle, tangled up skin to skin. Instead, I clomped up the stairs alone after spending an hour sanding the beams downstairs for the sole purpose of keeping myself distracted.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I slipped it out. The second I saw Belle’s name on the message banner, I stopped at the top of the stairs.
I need to talk to you. Can I come by tonight?
Questions raced through my thoughts, but I was tired of missing her, so I acted on impulse. Sure.
She replied that she’d be on her way in a few. I was relieved I didn’t have long to wait. I didn’t know why she needed to talk to me, but I wanted to see her more than I wanted to wonder.
Moments after she arrived, it was obvious she was nervous. She was standing in the kitchen, her fingertips drumming restlessly on the counter.
I slid my hips onto a stool by the counter and spun to face her. I almost reached for her, but I caught myself.
When I looked over at her, an unfamiliar sense of protectiveness rose within me. Her face was pale, and her freckles stood out. She seemed out of sorts, and I wanted to fix it for her even though I didn’t know what was wrong.
The sound of her swallowing was audible as she looked up at me and blurted out, “I’m pregnant.”
I blinked, not comprehending her words, even though there were only two of them. “What?”
She cleared her throat. “I’m pregnant. Obviously, I didn’t expect this.”
I simply kept staring blankly at her. “Are you sure?” I finally managed.
“I’ve taken three pregnancy tests. They all came back positive. I scheduled an appointment with the doctor next week.”
My brain felt filled with static. “Uh, wow. I don’t know what to think,” I said, being flatly honest.
Belle’s eyes were glistening, and she blinked rapidly. She cleared her throat again. “I understand. I’m not sure what I’m going to do.”
I tried to get my brain into gear. It felt like a car that was almost starting, but cutting out before the engine caught. “Okay, I guess you should let me know how that goes.”
I knew I wasn’t handling this well, but I had no fucking idea how to handle this.
“What do you want?” she whispered, her voice frayed.
“I have no idea. I just need to wrap my brain around this,” I said haltingly.
Belle nodded quickly and stepped back. “I’ll go then.”
Before I could even register what she was doing, she practically ran out of the barn. I heard her footsteps on the stairs, the sound echoing up to the landing because she left the door open behind her. Belatedly, I stood. I didn’t want her to bolt like this.
I wasn’t fast enough though. By the time I got downstairs and outside, the glow of her tail lights down the driveaway mocked me in the darkness.
Without thinking, I jogged to my truck, only to climb in and realize I didn’t have my keys. “Fuck.” I lightly bounced my fist on the steering wheel before hustling out and racing up the stairs.
As bad luck would have it, I couldn’t find where I’d put my keys. It was only after fifteen minutes of searching the upstairs that I remembered to check downstairs.
The sound of my feet scuffing on the sawdust covered floor was only slightly louder than the static in my brain. I found my keys on the worktable. Spinning them on my forefinger, I rested my hips against the table and looked out the windows into the darkness.
The moon cast a pearly glow, illuminating a portion of the mountain range in the distance. The delay in searching for my keys had caused my racing thoughts to slow just enough that I knew I needed to be able to say something sensible before chasing after Belle.
“Fuck. She’s pregnant.” My raspy words were loud in the empty and dark space.
Fishing my phone out of my pocket, my thumbs hovered over the screen. I didn’t even know what to text her. Yet, I felt pressed to say something.
I’m guessing my reaction wasn’t great. I was shocked. I’m not sure what’s best now. I’m here whenever you’re ready to talk.
I hit send before I could chicken out. “Fuck.” No matter what, I knew I needed to support whatever Belle wanted, and I was close to the edge of panic.
The static filling my thoughts was the only reason I answered when my phone vibrated, and I saw it was my father.
Before I could get a word in, he opened with, “Ty.”
His tone was sharp, but then it was always sharp. Like he was half-paying attention and annoyed at the interruption, even when he happened to be the one who initiated the call.
“Hey, Dad.”
There was a long silence and then I added, “I wasn’t expecting your call.”
“I didn’t think you were.”
I took a breath, marshaling my thoughts. I was determined not to fall into the stinging back and forth of most of our conversations.
I waited, and then he did the predictable. “I thought I’d try once again to ask you about working in the business.”
“You’re calling me now to ask this?” I prompted, more bitterly amused than angry.
“One of our VP’s is relocating, so the timing seemed right.”
I took a quiet breath as a strange sense of peace settled over me. I was feeling anything but peaceful about Belle, but oddly the crisis with her cast this situation with my father in sharp relief. “Stop, just fucking stop. I don’t want to work for you, and that’s not going to change.”
After several beats of quiet, my father asked, “Did your sister put you up to this?”
I leaned my head back, gritting my teeth to keep from snapping. “No. In the past, she has suggested I tell you to fuck off. That’s not what I’m doing. I’m asking you to stop pressuring me about work. We haven’t had a good relationship, and I don’t know if we ever will, but I’d like you to respect my ans
wer about working with you as final.”
“Ty—” my father began.
I cut him off at the pass of his question because I knew where this was going. “Dad, I don’t want a lecture on why you think I’m making a bad decision. I’m not going to change my mind. If you keep asking, I’ll stop answering your calls. My life is here now, and that’s not changing.”
He went quiet again before clearing his throat. “All right.”
“I assume you’d like me to work for you because a part of you cares about me. I don’t know how it will work out, but I’d like us to at least have a civil relationship. That won’t happen if you’re constantly badgering me whenever you call me.”
“Fair enough,” my father said slowly.
Now, to my next point. “Look, because I know how you operate, I can guess why you decided to look up Belle. I don’t appreciate it. I care about her, and she matters to me.” Maybe nothing was settled with me and Belle, maybe we weren’t even together, but I had to say this to him.
A rustling sound carried through the line. “Okay. I hope you’re not being foolish.”
“It doesn’t really matter if I am, Dad.”
“I hope you can understand I’m just trying to protect your interests.”
“Jesus, Dad. Belle is a decent person, and she doesn’t deserve you digging into her background when you don’t even have the context to understand. Nobody’s perfect, not even you. Plenty of people know about your affair. If anyone wanted to make things awkward, they could.”
My father snapped, “You wouldn’t dare.”
I sighed, tired of my father and his bullshit. “Dad, I don’t want to spread any gossip, not because of you, but because of Mom. I think you get my point. You’re not exactly a saint and Lord knows what else you’ve done that I don’t know about. No one leads a perfect life. Some of us pay a steeper price than others for our mistakes.” I paused, giving my father a chance to say something, but he stayed silent. “I’ll talk to you later, and please don’t call if you can’t respect my wishes.”
I waited a second and hung up, because I didn’t sense my father would know how to respond right now. He would cogitate and ruminate and probably eventually respect my request. I doubted I’d ever have a great relationship with my dad, but I was weary of our petty bickering.
After that call, I realized all I’d ever needed to get me to the other side with my father was something much more important. Belle was pregnant, and I had no idea how to bridge the chasm I’d created before that news had been dropped like a bomb between us.
Restless, I found myself pacing. When that wasn’t enough to dispel my edginess, I strode outside. I leaned my head back and looked up at the stars. They glittered bright and sharp against the inky black sky. In the quiet, I heard a soft mewling sound nearby and glanced around. I waited to see if I’d hear it again. It came again, and I thought it was coming from a small shed situated just beyond the back of the barn.
I walked slowly in that direction. Another mewl reached my ears when I got close to the shed. There was enough light cast from the light above the door that I could see a pair of eyes gleaming underneath the shed. I knelt and took a closer look to see a kitten hiding there. When I held a hand out, the kitten scurried further back. The nights were getting colder, and I wasn’t sure how long this kitten could survive on its own outside.
“Hey there,” I murmured.
When the kitten stayed put, I rose and walked inside. I fetched two plastic containers out of a cabinet, pouring milk in one. After some deliberation, I opened a can of tuna and put some in the other container. I had no idea what was best to feed a kitten, but I’d have to go to the store tomorrow to get some food if the kitten was still there tomorrow morning.
After I left the milk and tuna just under the edge of the shed while the kitten’s glittering eyes tracked me, I returned inside and called the only person I could think to call as I walked back upstairs and plopped down on the couch.
“Hey, Ty,” my sister said in her jaunty voice. “What are you doing calling me so late at night? You know, I could be busy.”
“Are you?”
Jess was quiet for a beat, her voice softer when she replied, “No, but based on how you sound, if I was, I’d cancel my plans. What’s wrong?”
“Belle’s pregnant.”
Jess must’ve taken a sip of something, because she sputtered before saying, “Dammit. I got water on my keyboard. Hang on.”
In another second, she was back. “Okay, what the hell? She’s pregnant? Are you sure it’s yours?”
“Absolutely.” There might be things I doubted, but that detail wasn’t one of them.
“Wow,” Jess said slowly. “Do you know what she plans to do?”
I kicked my feet up on the coffee table where I was sitting on my couch, running a hand through my hair with a sigh. “Unfortunately, no. She just told me tonight. I was kind of shocked, and she bolted.”
“I’m sure she’s shocked too,” Jess pointed out.
“Oh, yeah. That much is clear.”
“Okay, are you calling for support, or feedback, or both?”
My laugh was dry, and I didn’t quite feel it. But I appreciated Jess’s question. We’d established that habit with each other when we used to call and vent about whatever. Sometimes one or the other of us wanted advice, and sometimes we just wanted to bitch and have someone say, “Yeah, I get it.”
“I don’t really know.”
“Okay.” My sister took on her practical tone, as I liked to call it. I could imagine her rolling her sleeves up. “Obviously, this is a big deal. You need to support whatever she wants to do. You know, it’s her body, her choice, and all that jazz.”
“You don’t have to talk me into that, I’m on board.”
“Well, if she wants to keep the baby, how do you feel about that?”
“That’s the million-dollar question. I’ve had less than an hour to ponder this.”
“What’s your gut reaction?”
“You mean beyond the panic?”
Jess’s laugh was warm and understanding and that tight feeling in my chest started to loosen. “Yes, beyond the panic.”
“I don’t know. It’s not that I’m opposed to having a baby, but I sure as hell wasn’t planning on it. Not that you asked, but we’ve been using condoms.”
“I’m sure you have,” Jess said dryly. “And that, frankly, is more than I wanted to know about your sex life.”
This time, my laugh was genuine. I still felt as if I were floundering, like someone had tossed me in the ocean and I couldn’t see land. Somehow, I had to figure out where it was.
“If you haven’t already, you need to call her and tell her you’re there for her however she needs you to be there for her. The last time we talked, you’d broken things off with her. Did you do anything about that since?”
Jess just had to go and ask that. Her question felt like a stinging dart right into the center of my heart. Every time I thought about Belle and scrambling up the courage to repair the rupture between us, I felt something like the feral kitten I’d discovered hiding outside tonight—uncertain who to trust. Just like when I got close to the kitten and it backed away, trying to make itself invisible. That was like my mind when I tried to contemplate the enormity of my feelings for Belle. Holy hell, I needed to get a grip.
“I told you I love her, but we haven’t patched things up yet,” I finally said.
“Well, that’s dumb,” Jess countered quickly. “This is a pretty heavy thing to go through without you having the nerve to talk to her.”
“I talked to her tonight,” I muttered.
“Because she told you she was pregnant!” my sister practically screeched.
Because there was no solving this for now, I tried to deflect. “I found a kitten under the shed.”
“You did?”
“I just said I did.”
“Is it okay?”
“I couldn’t see very well, but I hope so
. I took some milk and tuna out. Hopefully, I can bribe it out soon.”
“You better keep checking on it,” Jess ordered.
“I will. I swear,” I insisted.
“Keep me posted. Now, back to your situation. You are going to have to dig deep and get over yourself with this.”
So much for deflection. “Calling you is supposed to make me feel better.”
Jess sighed. “I hope it does, a little. But I can’t wrap this up in platitudes for you. If you love Belle, you need to do something about it.”
“I will,” I said, my tone low. I didn’t know how yet, but I would.
Maybe my sister didn’t solve anything, but she did nudge me in the right direction. I’d already known I missed Belle too much. It had cut deep when I realized she hadn’t trusted me enough to tell me the whole truth, but she mattered too much to let her slip away.
Before I went to bed, I went outside to check on the kitten. That pair of eyes watched me carefully, but it didn’t inch any closer. The tuna was gone, along with most of the milk though.
I didn’t sleep well that night, and Belle never replied to my text.
29
Belle
“Honey,” my mother’s voice came through the bathroom door. “Can I get you anything?”
Apparently, I was one of the unlucky ones who got morning sickness early. I’d had to race to the bathroom when I woke up, just barely making it to the toilet to empty what little I had in my stomach. Then, my mother made me a nice bowl of oatmeal with maple syrup and butter.
My stomach didn’t like that either, and I was eyeing the pretty blue tiles on the floor as I rested my cheek against the cool surface of the toilet seat. After a moment, I wiped my mouth with a tissue, flushed the toilet and splashed cold water on my face after I washed my hands. Glancing at myself in the mirror, I was greeted with the sight of my pale skin and bleary eyes. To top it all off, I’d slept like shit, and my mother had questions.
