I mean, I did sign an agreement to give him a baby. But, I never expected that I would start to develop real feelings. In fact, I’d signed it saying that I knew we would be over after I had the baby and that I would not develop feelings for him. How someone could promise something like that, I do not know. But I had.
If I were to be completely honest with myself, though, I had already broken the contract. I already had feelings for him. And those feelings started to develop even before I moved into the house.
I needed to stay and figure out where all of this was going. I had a feeling Darren felt the same way about me that I did about him, and I couldn’t just walk out on him now.
For better or worse, I had to admit to myself that this cozy yet isolated mountain cabin had become my home. And Darren’s arms felt as comfortable as everything else in this place. I hoped that my mother could somehow forgive me, but I wasn’t going to leave this house— or him— for anyone.
Chapter 29 – Hope
“What’s wrong?”
The sun was beginning to set when Darren made it back home. He came in to find me crying as I had been for hours. He was worried that something was wrong. And he was right.
“My mom came and I was in the kitchen cooking wearing nothing but a robe. I thought that it would be sexy for you to come home and see me like that. I had no idea that she would be walking in. She called me a whore!”
I collapsed in a fit of tears, unable to speak.
Darren didn’t move or say anything at first.
Finally, he said, “You aren’t a whore.”
The way that he said it was so matter of fact. I knew that he was right, but that didn’t keep my mother’s words from playing over and over in my head.
“I may not be a whore, but my mother is right. This is not the way that I imagined that it would be for me to have my first child.”
The look of disappointment that clouded Darren’s face was visible even through my tears, all the way from across the room. He looked like a balloon that the air had been let out of. His shoulders slumped forward and his head hung down low.
He stood there staring at the floor. I might have thought that he’d fallen asleep if it hadn’t been for him letting out a deep sigh. Then he straightened back up, his broad chest jutted out as if he meant business. He was back into that take charge mode that I adored.
“I hoped that you might start feeling comfortable with our arrangement. I understand that she’s your mother and what she said really hurt you. But, is there any way that you and I can have our understanding and continue with our arrangement? I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that you’re okay. I think that I’ve more than shown that I’ll do that. I can’t have you changing your mind about our agreement every time someone disapproves. This is a strange situation but you’re just going to have to deal with it, or not. But let me know now, please, because I was thinking we had a sure thing going on.”
Now, it was my turn to feel guilty.
“No, I understand. You have been wonderful,” I told him. “But, that’s my mother. My mother is my everything. We have been through so much together. You don’t understand how much it hurt me to see her upset because of something that I’d done. I have been the one to help make her smile when things go wrong, not be the cause of why she cries and gets upset.”
Darren came over and sat at the foot of the bed. He looked at me, his eyes almost begging me to understand him. I felt so torn. I wanted Darren to have what he wanted, what we had already agreed upon, but I also didn’t want to risk losing my mother and our relationship. I didn’t think that I could bear that, especially after already having lost my father.
I was so confused. One minute I was determined to stay, even though it meant hurting my mother, and now I felt lead to go comfort her, even though it meant hurting Darren. Why did I have to choose one over the other.
“I’m so sorry, Darren. I just feel so torn right now. I don’t know what to do.”
There. I’d said it.
He nodded slowly.
“You know what?” he said, resolutely. “Fine. I really don’t want you to do something that you aren’t comfortable doing. And, to be honest, I don’t want to keep getting my hopes up waiting for something that will probably never happen. I think that it might be best for you to just go back home. If you could do me the favor of waiting until after the visit with Bryant, I would appreciate it.”
“I can do that,” I said. “I’ll call my mom and tell her to send the money back to you, too.”
Darren shook his head.
“You won’t do that at all. I said that I wanted to help you and I meant that. Of course, I wish that things would have worked out differently, but I understand where you’re coming from. Plus, I know that you only agreed to this to help your family out of the financial bind that you have been in.”
I looked at him, with mixed feelings of gratefulness and guilt.
“ If you can stay until after the visit with Bryant, that will be you satisfying your part of the agreement in my eyes, for the down payment portion of it at least,” Darren continued. “Even if I can’t have the baby and the life that I want, at least I can pretend for the weekend and have an amazing time with my son. And you can keep the $75,000 that I’d wired.”
I felt terrible, but I was also grateful that he was being so kind. I began to fear my mother would disown me if I went through with this. I only had one family. I couldn’t give up on them. And yet, I couldn’t help but think, I only had one Darren. One guy who had taken my virginity. And stolen my heart in the process.
I hated sitting still without being active. I liked to stay moving rather than wallow in my thoughts. So, I started packing my things so that as soon as the visit with Bryant was over, I could leave quietly. But with each item I packed, my indecision mounted even more.
Should I stay or should I go?
I really couldn’t decide, and I hated that I couldn’t decide.
At least I could do Darren the favor of the visit with his son. We could pretend to be happy for a little longer, before reality shattered our dreams.
Chapter 30 – Hope
The morning of Darren’s visit with Bryant, I woke up early to do some deep cleaning in the house.
“Don’t do that,” said Darren when he saw me moving around the house, pulling things off shelves and dusting.
“No, it’s okay. I want to,” I admitted.
I still felt guilty about the fact that I would be leaving. We hadn’t really talked since we agreed that I would leave. I didn’t really know what to say. Every other minute, I wanted to run to Darren and tell him I’d made up my mind for sure, and that I wanted to stay. But then I worried I’d have second thoughts, which would only make things worse. So I said nothing.
I think that I somehow thought that cleaning would make everything better. At least it gave me something else to focus on rather than my own guilt and the mess that I’d made of everything.
When Darren’s mother and Bryant showed up, I stayed in the room. I wanted to give Darren and his son time to reconnect before inserting a new element into their relationship. I could hear the little boy bounding around the house happily.
“What’s in this room?” he asked, standing on the other side of the door of the room I was in.
“Nothing. Let’s go down here so that I can show you what I got for you.”
I could hear their voices fade away as they walked away from the door.
I started to think that maybe Darren had changed his mind about wanting to introduce me to his mother and son, until several minutes later, when he opened the door slightly and his head popped around the corner. I hadn’t even heard his footsteps on the stairs or outside the door, so I jumped slightly.
He was smiling, though, which made me feel more reassured. I smiled back at him, glad that he wasn’t angry. And second guessing everything, as usual.
“Hey, I just wanted to check on you and make sure that you’r
e okay,” he said. “They’re in the kitchen right now having some chocolate. I bought it when I was in town, as a gift for him, along with some toys I thought he would like.”
“That was nice of you,” I said, with a genuine smile, but he just shrugged and smiled slightly, as if saying it was the least he could do.
“Would you like to come and join us?” he asked me.
It sounded like a question, but I knew that this was the part of the visit where I was supposed to hold up my end of the bargain.
“Okay,” I said, following him to the kitchen.
“Mother, Bryant, this is Hope, my friend,” said Darren.
Darren’s mother and son both turned to look at me, half eaten squares of chocolate suspended in the air in front of their mouths. From the shocked expressions on their faces, I could tell that neither of them had expected to see me. Darren wasn’t one to have the best social graces. But his face looked excited, and I was glad he was happy to introduce me to them.
“Hello,” I said, stepping forward and waving.
I knew that he’d introduced me as his friend, but I wasn’t quite sure in what capacity that meant. Did he mean like a drinking buddy or more than that? I wasn’t about to specify. I just would follow Darren’s lead.
“Hope has been staying here with me,” he explained to them. “She is kind of a special friend.”
Well, that sure clarified things a little more. But also left open room for a whole bunch of follow up questions.
“Ohhhhhhh,” said his mother, clapping her hands and smiling. “So, you must be the reason why my son has seemed to change into a new person lately. Very nice to meet you, dear.”
“Nice to meet you, too,” I said.
“Are you going to be my new mom?” blurted out Bryant.
“Bryant! That’s not very polite,” said Darren’s mother.
Darren roared with laughter.
“You don’t have to answer that, Hope,” his mother said. “But, I must say that I am very happy that you have done such a good job with my son. I can tell that he’s happier than he’s been in a very long time. For quite a while now, I have had to stand by and watch my son be this broken shell of a man. Now, I see him and he’s smiling and cheerful. He has real hope and I know that you’re the reason for it. Thank you.”
I didn’t know what to say. I felt guilty yet again. I mumbled a “you’re welcome” in her general direction, but then just stared at the floor. I could feel Darren’s eyes on me, watching my every move.
His mom was giving me way too much credit. I was glad to hear that she noticed a positive change in him, but I had a hard time believing that it was all because of me. Maybe I just didn’t want that to be true, because I didn’t want the responsibility of it.
It was nice of her to say the things that she did, though. If it weren’t for the fact that I was going to be walking out of his life in just a few short hours, I might have felt pride in hearing her words.
Instead, her words left me feeling empty and, yet again, torn about what I was going to do next.
Why couldn’t I make up my damn mind?
And, what if I did, only to have my own hopes crushed in the way that I didn’t want to crush Darren’s?
Chapter 31 – Darren
The visit had gone wonderfully. I will never forget the peaceful look on my son’s face as I put him and my mother into the car, him clutching my mother and sleepily protesting their leaving.
What a difference this visit was compared to the last one. Bryant had actually wanted to stay with me.
I told him that he would be coming back soon enough. And I really meant it—Hope or no Hope. I was a proud father and it was time I started acting like it. Even though he didn’t seem satisfied by my reassurances, he at least smiled long enough to whisper “bye, Daddy,” while waving a chubby hand at me, and then they left, with promises of us being able to video chat the very next day.
As I waved them off and watched the car disappear around the bend, reality began to set in. While I was in the middle of enjoying my son’s visit, I had tried putting out of my head the fact that Hope would be leaving.
But, a man of my word, I went off to find her. She was sitting in her room, surrounded with her things and two empty suitcases. She wasn’t packing. She was just sitting on the edge of the bed curled up with her arms around her legs. She looked worried or sad.
“Here, let me help you,” I said, moving to pick up some of her things and put them into the suitcase.
“Don’t do that!” she yelled, snatching the things from my hand and throwing them to the floor.
“Whoa! What’s going on? I’m only trying to help.”
I put my hands in the air and started backing away. I didn’t want to trigger anything. Maybe it would be best if I just left her alone to pack herself and leave, I thought. I didn’t want to cause a scene. Even if it was only her and I left in the house, I had to remind myself I had built it for peace, and what was going on right now was the exact opposite of that goal.
“No, don’t go,” she pleaded, just as I was about to back out of the room into the hallway.
Now, I was really confused.
“Hope, can you please tell me what’s going on?”
Hope brushed her auburn hair away from her face and turned to face the window. There was nothing to see since it was so dark. I just assumed that she was looking at her own reflection. She was so beautiful, I couldn’t say that I blamed her.
“I really appreciate you staying for the visit. It meant a lot to me that you stayed even though you feel torn.”
“I can’t go.”
I couldn’t believe that I was hearing her right.
“What?”
“I can’t go.”
The past few days had been such an emotional rollercoaster, I wasn’t entirely sure that I wasn’t having some sort of hallucination or imagining that she was saying those words.
“Why not?”
“Because, I… I…” She sounded like she was about to cry.
“What? Hope, please tell me what’s going on?”
“I… I think that I might be pregnant.”
My heart skipped a beat. I didn’t quite know what that meant, but I knew that, whatever the case was, we needed to find out for sure.
“Well, that’s not the only reason I can’t go,” she hastened to add. “I had already been feeling very strongly that I wanted to stay, but I didn’t want to tell you unless I was sure.”
“I certainly appreciate that,” I told her.
“I know. I feel so bad that I couldn’t make up my mind, and I was afraid of hurting either my mom, or you,” she continued. “But in the end, I know I have to do what’s best for myself. And that’s to be with you. But, what really tipped the scale in your favor is when I started feeling nauseous. I’m not sure, but I really think I might be pregnant.”
“Well, there’s only one way to find out. I’ll head to town and pick up a test.”
I turned to go, even though I really wanted to be with her right now.
“No need,” said Hope. “I already have one. I bought one the moment that I agreed to come live in this house, because I knew the reason why. I knew how important it would be. At the time, I was thinking about the money, but now, I’m thinking about… us. Our future. So, I have a pregnancy test. It’s right here.”
I turned to see her with a box in her hand. It was an unopened pregnancy test.
This was the moment of truth.
Chapter 32 – Hope
Sixty seconds. That’s how long it said it would take for us to get the results back on the pregnancy test. They were the longest sixty seconds of my life.
My stomach had been feeling nauseous ever since I went downstairs to meet Darren’s mom and son, but now it flittered with anticipation as well. At first, I was convinced it was nerves that was making my stomach upset, but as the day drew on, it got worse instead of better, even though the visit was going well.
So, it
dawned on me that I really might be pregnant. And the timing couldn’t be any better, since it was in a sense the “make it or break it” moment.
I had already decided, though, that I was going to stay no matter what the outcome. Positive or negative, I’d either stay and have his baby, or stay and try again. And my mom was just going to have to figure out some way to live with that.
I was so nervous. I wondered if Darren felt the same way. He paced back and forth outside the bathroom as he waited for me to get the results.
While I waited for the test results to come back, I looked at myself in the mirror. How had I gotten to this place? Here I was waiting to see what the course of my life would look like and it all depended on the results of this drug store test. I hadn’t imagined that my year would be ending like this. I guess, how could I have?
“It’s time. What does it say?” came Darren’s muffled voice on the other side of the door.
I glanced down at the test.
There it was.
Opening the bathroom door, I went and sat on the toilet, motioning for Darren to look at the test.
He walked over and looked.
“Wow.”
That was all he said. He stepped back and leaned against the wall.
I was pregnant.
But, this was not the way that I’d imagined that it would be when I found out. Neither one of us was happy about this news. We both had a look of death, like we just found out that someone close to us had died, not that we were about to welcome new life into the world. This felt so wrong.
“I’m happy,” I announced. “I just need some time to process things.”
“Me too,” he agreed, looking relieved. “This is what I wanted. What I paid you for. It’s here. And I’m glad. But the timing of things…”
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