Stranded

by Chance Carter

  I finished buttoning my shirt and walked toward the door, but Casey’s outstretched arm pulled me back. “Alexander,” she said, “thank you.”

  “No,” I said, smiling. “Thank you.”

  I walked out of the clinic with my head held high, the imprints of Casey’s hands still fresh on my back. Another successful sperm donation was complete.

  Chapter 5

  Casey

  This was really happening. I stood in the bathroom of my small studio apartment as I waited for the plastic stick in front of me to show either one line or two. It took every ounce of self-restraint I had not to take a pregnancy test every day for the three and a half weeks since having sex with Alexander. As if the reality of sleeping with the sexiest man I’d ever seen wasn’t difficult enough to comprehend, the possibility of having a baby was thrown into the mix. I was slightly terrified, but mostly excited and exhilarated. I still hadn’t fully processed what had happened. I just knew that, for the first time in my life, a baby was a real possibility for me.

  The longest two minutes of my life were finally over. I squeezed my eyelids shut, then opened them for the big reveal. “Holy shit,” I said as I stared at the two faded lines. “I’m pregnant.” I said the words aloud as if this would somehow magically make them more true than they already were.

  Then, like something from a movie, I found myself skipping around my 500 square feet of space, jumping from one end of the apartment to the other. My dream was finally coming true. I was going to be a mother.

  I hadn’t told a soul about my desire to get pregnant, even my closest friends. I knew what they would say. Liana would say, “Are you sure this is what you want?”, while Jane would offer up something like, “Casey, you’re young. There’s still time to find Mr. Right.”

  I shook their voices from my head. I wouldn’t let them take away my joy. I wanted a baby, a family, a real love so badly, and it was actually going to happen. Not only was I going to have a little boy or girl, but I was going to have a gorgeous boy or girl. After all, I’d gotten the best sperm donation in all of Atlanta.

  I walked over to my nightstand and lifted up the picture I’d kept there every day since I moved in two years earlier. My mother was flashing her toothy grin as she held me, only ten or eleven months older than the baby in my womb, wrapped in a blanket. It was the only picture I had of the two of us.

  As if losing my mother in a car accident wasn’t bad enough, I had also lost nearly every photograph I had of her in the shuffling among fourteen foster homes in the eight years following her death. This seemed like the perfect time to visit my mother at the cemetery. I wanted to tell her about everything going on in my life. But the 180-mile drive to the cemetery where she was buried was too far a drive on a random Tuesday. I’d have to wait until my annual Christmas visit.

  I walked back over to the bathroom and held up the plastic stick that sealed the fate of my future. It still hadn’t hit me that it was really happening. I’d spent the past few weeks replaying that day with Alexander over and over again. I could still feel his warm breath against my ear as he kissed my neck. I could still see his model-worthy washboard abs and perfectly-tanned skin.

  It was completely strange to think about the fact that I was carrying Alexander Preston’s child. This had completely ruined my chance of having a normal relationship— with him or any other man. That was fine by me, though. I had the gift of a baby inside of me, and that was what I wanted most. I tried to ignore the fact that this pregnancy would make things awkward the next time Alexander came in to donate. I had another week until I had to worry about that. Waltzing toward my wardrobe in my bra, I settled for a lilac, three-quarter-sleeved dress and threw it over my body. My body. My body that was carrying a baby.

  I spent the whole ride into work thinking of all the baby name possibilities I’d compiled over the years. Maybe Aaron or Oliver for a boy. I liked Madeleine and Donna for girls, until I realized that Donna Donohue would be quite an unfortunate name. No matter. I still had months to decide.

  Once the initial shock wore off, I switched into panic mode. How was I going to raise a child on my own? I could barely make ends meet as it was. Should I move to an area where the cost of living was cheaper? Would I be able to find a job without a college degree? There was also the worry that all expectant mothers faced—that the baby wouldn’t make it full-term. I had seen dozens of women at the clinic who suffered from miscarriages and stillbirths. It was something I had seen so often that I had almost become desensitized. That was, however, until it was my own baby I was thinking about. Whatever it took, I was determined to give this baby a great life.

  “Good morning,” Dr. Leonard said when I walked into the clinic. “How are you doing, Casey?”

  “I’m good,” I said. “How about yourself?”

  Dr. Leonard shuffled some magazines in the waiting room. “Doing alright. John came down with the flu, so we’ll have to reschedule a few appointments.”

  “No problem. I’m on it!” With that, Dr. Leonard went to the back to prepare for the day’s appointments. I couldn’t help but wonder if he would somehow be able to tell I was pregnant. Sure, I was only one month along, but did obstetric and gynecologic doctors have a special sense for something like this? I prayed they didn’t. I didn’t want to tell anyone for at least another month or two.

  As I sat down at my desk, I felt my phone vibrate in my purse. It was a text message from Liana, complete with a photograph of an ultrasound. Twins are looking great. They can’t wait to meet their Auntie Casey, the message read. I smiled. Little did she know she wasn’t the only one with a bun in the oven.

  Chapter 6

  Alexander

  “Mr. Preston, is that fine by you?” one of the interns at my company asked, handing me a piece of paper.

  “Yes, sure,” I said.

  “So, we’re good to go?” I nodded in agreement, and half a dozen interns left the room. The truth was, I didn’t have a clue what they’d said. I only had one thing on my mind. Casey. After my visit to the clinic, I got busy at work and didn’t have much time to think about her. Lately, however, she was all I could think about. I wondered if she did become pregnant like she’d hoped, what my next visit would be like, and, most of all, if she thought about me, too.

  I found myself smitten and obsessed in a way so unlike myself. I was known as the laid-back guy amongst my buddies. Most of my relationships ended because I realized they weren’t going anywhere—and that it didn’t bother me. This was the complete opposite. Casey was a girl I’d spent maybe an hour with, and I had all these visions of a future for us. I knew it was a bit crazy, but my gut was rarely wrong.

  A few nights earlier, I was at the gym with two of my college friends, and even they—who, admittedly, weren’t the sharpest tools in the shed—noticed something was different. “Dude, what has you completely distracted?” Wren asked.

  “I think it’s more like a ‘who’,” Dustin chimed in. They knew about my regular sperm donations, but the situation with Casey was so bizarre that I didn’t want to explain it. I simply told them I met a gorgeous girl I couldn’t stop thinking about. Wren and Dustin, the last two single buddies of mine, told me to make a move. Even they had to admit that one-night stands and meaningless relationships were getting old.

  With my friends’ advice in mind, I walked back to my office and grabbed my wallet and car keys from my desk drawer. I knew what I had to do. “Leah, I’ll be back later,” I said to my assistant, walking out the door without so much as a glance back.

  The ride to the clinic was filled with bumper-to-bumper traffic, but that gave me time to prepare. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. Was I overestimating how much I liked Casey? Had I built up this silly fantasy in my head? I figured the only way to know was to talk to her face-to-face. This also worked out well because, well, I hadn’t even thought to get her phone number.

  I took a deep breath as I rounded the corner on which the clinic sat. This was it. If
Casey didn’t have feelings for me, then at least I’d be clearing the air before my appointment the following week. I walked inside and the chime on the door went off. Within seconds, my gaze was fixed on Casey’s deep, gorgeous eyes.

  “Alexander,” Casey said, as if my name were somehow poisonous. Not exactly the reaction I was hoping for, but I had to take it into account that she hadn’t been expecting me. “What are you doing here? We don’t have you scheduled until next week.”

  I looked around at the patients that filled the waiting room. “Can we go somewhere and talk?” I asked. Casey moved her eyes around the room, as if to tell me she had work to do. “That’s alright. I’ll wait.”

  Grabbing a magazine from a corner table, I took a seat. I glanced at the cover of the magazine I’d chosen. Maternity Monthly. While it wasn’t exactly TIME or The New Yorker, I had time to kill.

  Every time it seemed as though the waiting room was clearing out, another woman or couple would walk in, and I knew my wait was beginning all over again. Every once in a while, Casey glanced up to see if I was still there. She pretended we weren’t making eye contact, but I knew she knew I saw her looking. There was no use in leaving. I knew I wouldn’t be able to focus on anything until I talked to her. I spent nearly two hours reading four issues of Maternity Monthly cover to cover. I was now an expert on choosing the proper bottles for a baby and what to pack in your hospital bag.

  Finally, the last person in the waiting room was called back, and I had Casey to myself. I walked up to the reception desk. “Can we talk now?”

  Casey hesitated, then came around to open the door for me. We went into the same break room we spent time in the last time I was at the clinic, but I got the feeling that this was where the similarities ended.

  “There’s no way you could possibly know already,” Casey said.

  I couldn’t even guess what she was talking about. “Know what?” I asked.

  “Never mind. Why did you come here?”

  “Look, I know we sort of…not in so many words… agreed this was just a crazy idea,” I said. Why was I so nervous? I’d never been this tongue-tied around a girl. “But I really like you. I can’t stop thinking about you. Something just told me that I had to see you today.”

  Casey patted down her dress that hugged every inch of her perfect curves.

  “I have a guess what that something might be.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Our mission was successful,” Casey said.

  Gulp. I had to make sure I understood what she was referring to. “You mean…”

  “I’m pregnant,” she blurted. “I’m having a baby!”

  “Congratulations,” I said. What exactly was the right thing to say to someone you had impregnated voluntarily? I gave Casey a clumsy hug and patted her on the back. I had never acted so awkwardly, yet there was nothing I could do to stop myself. I didn’t know how to feel about the pregnancy. Sure, we agreed that this would just be like any other sperm donation, minus the plastic cup and insemination. On the other hand, this was much more personal than simply offering up some bodily fluids in a cup. I was drawn to Casey, regardless of whether or not she was carrying my child.

  I couldn’t decide whether this was the best possible time or worst possible time to ask Casey on a date. She was carrying my child—but it was debatable whether that made things more awkward or less awkward. I decided I had nothing to lose.

  “Casey, there’s a reason I came here.”

  “What’s that?” she said.

  I drew in a breath. “I’d really like to take you on a date.”

  Casey’s laugh wasn’t the answer I was hoping for, but it was the answer I got. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Well, why not?” I pushed. I hoped I wasn’t overstepping, but I wanted some sort of answer.

  “Did you miss the part where I told you I’m carrying your child?” Casey said.

  I nodded my head, trying my best to convey my understanding.

  “Sure, it makes things a bit…uh… unconventional. But I really like you.”

  “I like you too,” Casey said, a subtle smile making its way onto her face. “But I just don’t know if it’s the best idea.”

  Casey said the words in a way that made me question if she actually meant them. It almost seemed as if she were trying to convince herself it was a bad idea, but that she didn’t quite believe it. I understood her reservations. After all, we’d had a sort of unspoken agreement that the sex was just a one-time thing so she could have the baby she’d always dreamed of. But it felt like so much more than that, so I had to try.

  “Just give me one date,” I said. “Let’s see how it goes.”

  Casey put her hands on her hips and shrugged her shoulders. “Alright. One date.”

  “You won’t regret it!”

  I had Casey write down her phone number, gave her a kiss on the cheek, and bolted out of the clinic before she had a chance to change her mind.

  Chapter 7

  Casey

  Time had never passed as slowly as it did from 6:54 PM to 6:58 PM. It had only been four minutes since I’d finished curling my hair and putting on a slightly-too-tight black dress, but the nerves made it feel like a lifetime. There wasn’t exactly protocol for going on a date with your patient-turned-sperm donor-turned-potential love interest.

  I applied some lipstick and rubbed my lips together, sighing as I looked in the mirror. Alexander was so hot, and I was just so blah. I was certain that, by the end of the date, he’d want nothing to do with me. He seemed so certain when he asked me out, though, that I decided it was worth taking a chance. Before I could overthink things any further, there was a knock on my door.

  “Wow,” Alexander said, eyeing me up and down. “You look incredible.”

  In a maroon button-down shirt and khaki pants, Alexander looked even more handsome than usual. I didn’t know that it was possible. “Wow, yourself,” I said. From behind his back, he pulled out a bouquet of red roses.

  “Oh my goodness. They’re beautiful!”

  “Just like you.”

  Beaming from ear to ear, I left Alexander by the door as I put the roses in a vase. It was too soon for him to see my tiny apartment. I was certain it would scare him off. Shutting the door behind me, I asked Alexander where we were going.

  “It’s a surprise,” he said. “I’m hoping you haven’t been there before.”

  Considering my meals consisted mainly of frozen dinners and cheap takeout, I figured it was a safe bet I hadn’t been to wherever he was taking me. It was exciting to have an element of surprise. Like a true gentleman, Alexander followed me to my side of his car and opened the passenger door for me.

  “Thanks,” I said, blushing.

  The car ride went much better than I had anticipated. Instead of being filled with a mixture of awkward silence and small talk, we had a surprisingly engaging conversation about some of our favorite places in the area and our hometowns. It turned out that both Alexander and I were native Floridians, he from the outskirts of Tampa and I from a small town outside of Tallahassee. It was nice to talk to someone else who had grown up by the ocean and not in the big city.

  “I moved here to go to Emory for college and never looked back,” Alexander said. “It’s hard to be away from my family sometimes, but I have a great group of friends here, and I still go back to Tampa for the holidays.”

  “Any brothers or sisters?” I asked. I always imagined I’d end up with someone with a big family, since apart from a few distant cousins in New York who I hadn’t seen since my mom’s funeral, I had virtually none.

  “Two brothers and a sister,” he said.

  “Wow!” I hadn’t meant to say that aloud, but I was genuinely surprised. We were truly opposites. “Older or younger?”

  Alexander put his turn signal on. “I’m the oldest. Let’s see. I’m thirty, which makes Emily twenty-eight, and the twins, Connor and Patrick, twenty-four.” Glimpsing over at me with a grin, Alexander
pulled into a parking spot at an unfamiliar, dimly-lit restaurant. “Here we are.”

  As he walked over to open my door, I stared at the building in front of me. With a few small waterfalls and gorgeous stenciled stones, I knew it had to be fancy. I followed Alexander into the restaurant, wondering what he had in store for us.

  “Welcome to Lotus,” the hostess said. Based on the restaurant’s name and the outfits of the wait staff, I decided it was a safe bet we were having Asian. It was unlike any place I’d ever eaten before, filled with paper fans and porcelain tea mugs and a live quartet. Alexander went up and spoke to her, and she soon brought us to a table in the center of the restaurant.

  “This place is gorgeous,” I said as I sat down. “You really didn’t have to do all this.”

  “Of course I did!” Alexander said. “Besides, I wanted to. And you mentioned you love Chinese food!”

  I nodded with a smile. “I’m guessing this is going to be miles better than the takeout place I usually order from.”

  “Which place is that?”

  “Han’s Dynasty,” I said.

  Alexander threw his napkin on the table in fake disgust. “Han’s Dynasty?! That’s what you’re basing your love of Chinese food on?” I nodded as he continued laughing. “Boy, are you in for a treat!”

  “I’m looking forward to it.” I perused the menu and tried not to have a heart attack looking at the prices. Wow, was I living beyond my means tonight. One of my foster moms, whose home I had been at when I went on my first date, had told me to always offer to pay on a date. It was a piece of advice that had stuck with me long after she had. I always offered, but only a few pathetic guys had taken me up on it. I was certain that Alexander would pick up the tab, not just because he surely knew I couldn’t afford such a meal, but also because he had been nothing but a complete gentleman.

  We decided to split a few appetizers, none of which I could pronounce, and I opted for a chicken dish, while Alexander decided on shrimp.