by Amy Brent
“You know what you can do? Shut the hell up and never speak to me again. I don’t need a snake as a friend.”
And then she slammed the door in my face.
I slid to the ground, my world once again disappearing out from under me. Years played through my head on fast forward as I remembered all the amazing memories we had together, how we helped each other through the years. She was my one and only friend and I had absolutely tanked it.
I felt large, strong hands grip my arms and then I was being pulled up to my feet. Feeling like a deflated balloon, I let Anthony pull me against his chest and gently stroke my hair.
“It’s going to be alright,” he soothed, rocking me back and forth gently while I sobbed into his shirt. He smelled like oil and that orange soap they had at his mechanic shop and it helped calm me down a little.
Still, it was quite a while before I dwindled down to hiccups and whimpers. When I did, Anthony tilted my head upwards and wiped away my tears with his thick, brown thumbs.
“How about I get us a glass of water then we go lie down?”
It was so similar to how Rachelle had taken care of me earlier that the tears began to start up again, but I nodded. Carefully, Anthony lead me back to my bed before going to get some water.
When he returned, he had shucked off his shoes and he settled behind me, pulling my back against my chest. That allowed my head to loll back against him, and he continued to murmur comforts as I mourned the loss of my best friend.
“It’s alright. It’s going to be alright. She’ll come around. We’ve just got to give her time. And we have all the time in the world because I’m never leaving. I’m going to be right here as long as you want me, okay?”
I nodded, unable to quite speak with all the emotional turmoil going on inside of me. But I was happy to have him there. Anthony took off the sharp edge of the knife cutting through my soul.
I just hoped that life turned around, because I didn’t really have anything else that I could lose.
Anthony
I looked up at the clock in the shop, my hand going to the phone in my pocket for the tenth time in the past hour. Normally I wasn’t the type of guy that was addicted to having it on me all the time, but considering the week I had, I was sure that no one could blame me.
It had been a week since we had found out about Stella’s pregnancy and Rachelle’s following freak out. My daughter still hadn’t tried to contact either of us and I decided that having Stella alone like that wasn’t good for her, so she’d taken the rest of the week off work and school to come stay with me at the house.
She had her own room and her own space, which I figured she needed considering what she was going through, but she still spent every night in my bed, curled in my embrace like I was the last thing tethering her to the Earth.
And I very well might have been. The entire time we were together I never saw anyone text her. The only times her phone seemed to buzz was either from emails or comments from some of her group projects that she was still finishing via online sessions. How lonely she must have been with just Rachelle in her life for all these years. Clearly her parents never tried to contact her.
Granted, that was probably a good thing, but still, that just made the situation that much sadder.
My phone buzzed, and I snatched it up, hoping to see something from her, but it was just another manager from my second location. Today was the day that Stella was finally seeing a doctor to confirm her pregnancy.
Officially.
We actually hadn’t talked about the pregnancy much. She didn’t seem to be ready to and I figured there was nothing to discuss until she went in to a professional anyways. I remembered before Rachelle graced me with her presence, Karen and I had gone through three miscarriages, and every one of them was more painful than the last.
Apparently, ninety percent of pregnancies end in miscarriages, with women often not even knowing they were with child, but that hadn’t helped us feel better at the time. Karen had felt so guilty, and I had done everything in my power to assure her that nothing was her fault.
I didn’t want to have to go through that again. While I would accept whatever Stella decided, that was different than hearing that the choice had been made for us. Or at least for me it was.
Sighing, I returned to my work, this time balancing a bonus sheet instead of working on a car.
I would much rather be working on a car, but unfortunately this was one of the things that took precedence because no one else could do it. Well… I supposed I could appoint someone to do it for me, but that just seemed wrong. I was always the one who awarded and gave the holiday bonuses, and I wanted to keep it that way. Seeing the joy on my worker’s faces was one of the best parts about running my own set up locations. Missing out on that was not something I wanted to do unless I absolutely had to.
And yet when my phone buzzed again, my hand shot to grab it so fast that I knocked my laptop off my desk.
Oh well.
Sure enough, it was Stella calling. Just seeing her name made a wave of emotions wash through me, and I hastily answered.
“Hey,” she said, sounding clearly exhausted. But even just hearing her voice filled me with a protective sort of calm. In the week since the bomb had dropped, I could feel my love for her growing with every day. I marveled at the way she changed my life, giving me something to look forward to when I came home and a confidant to trust with all of the thoughts I normally kept to myself.
“Hey,” I answered back. “Are you alright?”
“Uh-uh,” she murmured. I hated how stressed she sounded. I wanted to take her by the hand and massage all of that away, to shower her with riches until she forgot what it was to want anything, but I knew that she wouldn’t really be comfortable with that. Even with everything that had happened, Stella was still proud and refused to be a charity case.
It was too bad that she didn’t understand it wasn’t charity at all, but a deep seeded need in him to protect and take care of those he loved. To provide.
“So, the doctor confirmed it. I’m pregnant.”
“I see.”
There was silence for a moment. This wasn’t really a conversation I wanted to have over the phone, but I could tell that there were things that Stella needed to hear immediately.
“I know we haven’t discussed it, but do you really want this child?”
“I… I don’t know.”
I took a deep breath. I had an image in my head of all of us as a happy family together, but if that image wasn’t in her head too then I didn’t want it. “If you don’t know, that’s fine. But if you do know, and you’re hesitating because you’re afraid of what I might think or feel, then I’m telling you that you don’t have to.
“If you want to have this child, I will be there to take care of them in any capacity you want. You speak, and I’ll make sure it’s so. Father, sponsor, whatever. I’ll respect it.
“Or if you think this baby should be born but you don’t want them to change your entire life, I’ll raise them myself. No questions asked. No hate. I’ll never speak ill of you in any way.
“And if you don’t want it, I respect your body. I won’t lie that that’s not what I want, but I would never dream of you having a child that you were against.
“So, the decision is yours, and whatever you decide, I’m here for.”
“I… I….” she took a breath. “Thank you. I needed to hear that. I, uh, I think I want this baby, but I don’t know how I’m going to swing work, school and everything else. I… I can’t be a drop out like my mother. I just can’t.”
I wanted to assure her that of course she couldn’t be, but then she kept right on talking and I sensed she was saying words that she had been burying for far too long. “She’s been holding that over my head my entire life, telling me how I would never amount to anything, how I was going to be just like her, knocked up and desperate before I could even drink.
“I’ve fought my entire life to not be t
hat and I won’t let her win. I can’t!”
“That’s alright,” I said calmly, soothingly I hoped. I could hear her pain over the phone and it filled me with both rage and frustration. I wanted to go over to her parents’ place and give them a piece of my mind, and I was also frustrated that I had let her stay in that situation for so many years. I should have gotten her help, somehow, and she had suffered so unnecessarily because I thought just giving her a place to escape to once in a while was enough.
“This is definitely a big decision and I understand if you’ve got doubts and worries. They’re legitimate, and it’s okay to be uncertain.” Now it was my turn to take a breath. I so desperately wanted her to take my offer to raise this child with her, but she didn’t seem to understand all that I was offering. My fortune. My life. Anything.
But that was okay, because this was something we could talk about better actually seeing each other.
“So why don’t you use the drive number I gave you and head home, maybe take a nap or a soak, and I’ll be back around six. Then, we’ll go to dinner at any place that you want and talk some more. Does that sound good?”
I swore I could hear her relief all the way through the phone. “Yeah. That would be great, actually.”
“Alright, I’ll see you soon. We’re going to get you through this, okay? You’re not alone, Stella. You’ll always have me.”
She hung up and I finally picked my laptop up off the floor. It was just eleven am now, so that gave me plenty of time to think how I wanted to phrase everything that I felt I had to get out.
But how did you promise to love and cherish someone who’d never been shown was it was like to truly be cared for? Even after their month of being together, it was clear Stela still didn’t quite get that any wish she had he would grant.
Well… he had about seven hours to figure it out.
So much for getting any work done.
Stella
As we walked into the restaurant it felt like the weight of the entire world was on my shoulders. I took comfort in the fact that Anthony was okay with whatever I decided, but still I couldn’t help but wonder how I could possibly swing things.
Taking care of a child as a single mother was so incredibly difficult. And while I knew I could do it, I didn’t want to. And sure, Anthony said he would help me raise the baby, but I didn’t think that providing monthly child support and occasional baby watching duties would be enough.
Besides, he had his own business to run. It wasn’t like he would stick around and hold our child while I was off doing my classes.
Ugh. My classes! How was I supposed to be able to focus on tests and due dates and everything else if I had a real, actual human to take care of? No matter what happened, I promised both myself, God, and anybody else who was listening that I would never be like my parents. I would be the best mother I could be and that was going to demand a whole lot of my time. If it came to my kid or classes, I would have to choose the kid nine times out of ten.
“Hey, we’re at one of your favorite places,” Anthony said, drawing me out of my head. “It’s illegal to be sad here.”
“Is that so?” I said, raising an eyebrow. “What, are you gonna handcuff me?”
His eyes flashed, and I saw that smirk that I loved so much, his full lips curling devilishly. “Something tells me you might like that a little too much.”
“Maybe I would,” I said with a shrug, easing into the booth that the host lead us to.
Although host was generous. In reality, my favorite place in town was this mid-range sushi place that I got to go to as a treat on my birthday a couple times when Rachelle treated me out, and then later when I got a job at fifteen. But considering I was pregnant, I wasn’t really supposed to have sushi and especially not cheap sushi, so we chose my second favorite instead.
It was a pub sort of place, but it wasn’t obnoxious about sports. They also had some fun arcade games that I still enjoyed. Perhaps it was childish of me, but I loved going there for their buffalo chicken fingers, and I figured since I finally didn’t feel nauseous that I might chance it on something spicy before I got really pregnant.
I had been doing a lot of reading in the week that I had taken off school, and I had learned that if I kept this child that I was in for a whole lot of hurt. Heartburn, more morning sickness, back ache, mood flares, swollen ankles, and that was just the light stuff. Some women got put on bedrest and had to deal with gestational diabetes or even blood clots.
And some women died.
That was a fact that was terrifying but something I needed to take into the equation. The United States actually had some of the worst maternal care and statistics in the entire first world. Women dying in childbirth still happened far more than anywhere else, and I would be lying if I didn’t admit that it terrified me.
But when I looked down at my middle and imagined it swollen with a real, kicking child, ready to come out and take on the world, that risk seemed like maybe it was doable. Sure, I didn’t want to die. I was just learning how to live. But in my head, seeing that little bundle of joy I could possibly have… well it was all very complicated.
The waitress came over, a cute redhead that I thought I recognized from school. Oh god, everyone would know I was pregnant! I mean, sure, I could keep out of sight as long as I possibly could, but eventually if I had this baby then people were gonna know.
I could just imagine it now. There would be those would be surprised that I had ever gotten someone to fuck me, those who would say they always knew I was gonna be a trailer trash mom, and those who would vaguely remember me as some unflattering blob-like shape in high school and just feel sorry for my kid.
I could move away, but that would mean being far away from Anthony, and as my only companion currently, I had about zero desire to actually do that.
Ugh.
I had really gotten myself into a mess, hadn’t I?
“Um, Miss, you okay?”
I realized that I had been staring at the waitress for far too long and gave a little nervous laugh. “Oh yeah, just lost in thought. Anyways, I’ll have a water to start.”
She took Anthony’s order as well. He asked if I wanted an appetizer, but I just shook my head. Given the tentative state of my stomach, I didn’t want to risk upsetting it before I even got to the main course.
“So, do you wanna talk now, or on full bellies?” he asked, his grey eyes regarding me seriously. Goodness, I could get lost in those eyes for ages and I wouldn’t even be mad about it. It was somewhere between intense and kind, and when they landed on me I felt like he could just be in charge of everything and it would work out okay.
Ugh, it was too bad life didn’t usually work out like that.
“How about on full bellies,” I said. I didn’t want to get upset and have my stomach flip before I had a chance to eat my delicious chicken tenders. Who knew when I would be able to handle slightly spicy food again? I certainly didn’t have an idea. Apparently if was possible for a baby to literally just jujitsu with my stomach if they wanted to and I would just have to take it.
“Sure, makes sense to me,” Anthony said, craning his neck to look around. “It’s pretty empty here tonight.”
I nodded. “It’s a Wednesday, not exactly the most popular night.”
“Ah. That makes sense. I guess I’d forgotten the general pub schedule.”
“Why?” I teased, grateful to have something to take my mind off things. “Because your palette is too refined now?”
He chuckled. “Hardly. I’m just too busy. The last time I went out to eat, well… that was with you at Benniccio’s. Before that, it had probably been a year or so.”
I let out a breath. “Wow, that was kinda where this all started, huh?”
“For me,” he said, his lips curling into a smirk again. “But apparently not for you.”
“Oh yeah,” I murmured, feeling myself blush. “But the teenage crush I had on you is a lot different than what I feel now.”
“I’m glad to hear it. I’m also glad that you never acted on it. Otherwise this definitely never would have happened.”
I looked down at my stomach again. Maybe I would be better off if it hadn’t. But as I thought of never getting to know Anthony like I did now, never getting close and feeling as beautiful and wanted as he made me feel, I would never go back and change things.
“Yeah, you’re probably right. You still would have been nice, but I have a feeling I wouldn’t be really welcome in your home.”
“No, I think I would understand, but I would definitely make sure I was out of the house whenever you were over.”
I frowned, thinking of all the amazing memories I had in my teen years thanks to Anthony and his generosity. “I guess it’s a good thing I waited then.”
“Yeah, I think so.”
He reached his hand across the table, alighting it on top of mine. I felt comforted almost instantly, and the situation wasn’t as scary as long as he was here.
Eventually the waitress came back with our drinks and then it was time to order. I got twenty of the strips, fully intending to gorge myself then take leftovers home while Anthony got a burger. If he thought anything of my large order, he said nothing, his eyes twinkling as I grew visibly excited for my tenders and the lack of nausea in my stomach.
We drifted in an out of conversation, just enjoying each other’s presence until our food came and I ravenously dug in. I did feel a wave of discomfort a couple of times, but if I stopped and sipped at water, it soon faded, and I was able to proceed.
In the end, I didn’t do too bad. I ate eleven of the buffalo fingers, emptying out two of the blue cheeses, and about half my friends. Anthony almost looked impressed with my accomplishment, but his amusement won out more on his face.
We sat there a bit while I digested, and he still worked at his burger, until finally he was almost done. At that, he set his food down, ordered a beer and gave me a serious expression.
