by Ella Brooke
“I’m not,” I said. “I’ve been throwing up all morning. I don’t think I’m going to make it to work.”
“That’s fine. Stay home. Get rest. Get better. I’ll manage without you for a while.”
I was grateful he cared so much and ended the conversation. I crawled into bed and pulled the covers up to my chin. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on getting the nausea to go away. Mind over matter, I told myself.
It didn’t work. I couldn’t sleep because I felt too sick, but I wasn’t sick enough to throw up again and get rid of whatever was bugging me. But now that I was sure it wasn’t a bug that lasted a few days or anything I’d eaten, I started to wonder what else it could be.
Maybe it was something I’d picked up from Lilly, I wondered. She’d been sick only a few days ago. But she hadn’t thrown up at all, and I didn’t have a fever or a stuffy nose. Stomach bugs were becoming old, and it wasn’t like I was pregnant. When had I had my period?
I counted on my fingers, trying to link my period to something prolific so I could find a date. When I worked it out, I realized I was late. Almost a week if my calculations were correct. I worked it out again and again. Every time, I came to the same answer. I was late for my period.
But I was on the pill, I argued. However, so many women had fallen pregnant despite it, I reminded myself. I chased myself in circles, arguing in my head until I was dizzy and the nausea became worse again. It terrified me. There was no other reason why I could be this nauseous for this long. I had to be pregnant.
Somewhere I knew it was a fact. I was a pregnant. But I didn’t want to accept it. Not until I knew for sure.
I dragged myself out of bed and got dressed. I had to run to the toilet twice before I was ready to leave the house. It was as if my body was trying to tell me that I was being ridiculous going out to look for proof when I knew.
When I walked out of my apartment, my car was in its usual parking space. Noah had made it happen, repairing the damage for me first thing in the morning so that it was as if it hadn’t happened. I knew he felt bad about it all, and I appreciated the gesture. Iclimbed into my car and pulled onto the road.
At the store, I found the pregnancy tests next to the condoms and the baby supplies. How apt, I thought. I bought three of them and headed back home to take the tests. I drank a lot of water and took the first test. While it did it’s thing, drawing up colored lines that would tell me what my future would look like, I drank another glass of water.
I did it three times and put the tests all in a row before I looked at them. When I turned them around one by one, they all told me what I’d already known.
Pregnant. Pregnant. Pregnant.
God.
I walked to my bed and collapsed on it, numb. What the hell was I going to do? I couldn’t have a baby now. I lived alone and I had a full-time job. And what about money? Not to mention that I had to bring a child into this world when I wasn’t even sure how to navigate it myself. Noah was a great parent – I watched him do it often enough – but I couldn’t do that. I hadn’t even thought about kids as being a part of my future. I had always focused on the now.
My stomach turned, and I was scared I would throw up again, but I didn’t. This wasn’t nausea. This was fear. I was scared to death of what was to come. I was pregnant and I had no idea what to do. And Noah? What would he say about this? And the company and the product and everything that had already gone wrong. God. What a mess.
I covered my face with my hands. How was I going to deal with this? It was too much for me. Slashed tires, a press release, a pending promotion. And a baby. It all seemed surreal. But I had three pregnancy tests on the counter in my bathroom telling me that this was real, that none of this was a dream. If I closed my eyes and slept now, I was going to wake up, and those tests would still be there. I was willing to bet the nausea would be here, too. None of this was going to go away no matter how much I wished it was a bad dream.
When I couldn’t lie in bed any longer, worrying about what had happened to my perfect life, I called Beth. I needed my friend in my time of need.
“Are you at work?” I asked.
“I am. What’s wrong?”
“Don’t worry about it. This isn’t something I can talk about over the phone.” I swallowed hard. I didn’t want to deal with it alone, but maybe I would have to.
Beth was silent on the line for a moment before she said, “my lunch break is soon. Do you want to meet me somewhere?”
I hesitated. “Could you come to the apartment?”
“That bad, huh? I’ll be right there.”
Sometimes when I was with Beth, she lectured me. There were times when I wished I hadn’t told her something because she always had to be rational about it. This time, I needed her advice, and I was glad that she would be there for me no matter what.
Beth arrived at my apartment about half an hour later. It had given me enough time to put on some make-up, run a brush through my hair and make sure I looked decent.
“Honey, you look awful,” Beth said when she walked into my apartment and hugged me. “What happened?”
So, it was obvious that something was very wrong. Beth knew me well enough to know. I walked to the couch and collapsed on it.
“Do you want me to sugar coat it, or give it to you straight?”
Beth sat down next to me. “Give it to me straight,” she said.
“I’m pregnant,” I said. I watched her as the information sank in, saw her face as it hither.
“Oh, my God,” she said. I nodded, and we both sat in silence, digesting the information. Now that I have said it out loud, I rolled it around in my mouth, tasting it, trying it on for size. It still felt incredibly surreal, but I had to accept it. I knew it was true.
“What are you going to do?” Beth asked.
I shrugged. “I’m not going to get rid of it if that’s what you’re asking. You know I don’t agree with that stuff.”
Beth nodded. “You know I’m here for you,” she said, hugging me. “Whatever it is you need, you tell me, and I’ll try to make it happen.”
“But you have a wedding to plan,” I said. “This is hardly your problem.”
Beth rolled her eyes. “Elena, you’re my best friend. There is no way I’m ditching you in your time of need. Besides, I can worry about you and plan a wedding at the same time. Multitask.”
I chuckled, but it wasn’t as funny as it would have been in any other situation. I was lucky to have Beth as my friend.
“Have you told Noah yet?” Beth asked.
I shook my head. “I only found out this morning. You’re the first person I’m telling. I have no idea what to do.”
Beth took my hand in both of hers. “You have to tell him. If he’s the dad, he deserves to know.”
Of course, Beth was right. I couldn’t keep this from Noah, no matter how terrifying it was. He was the father, and after seeing how he was Lily, after everything he’s been through, I couldn’t keep this from him.
“What if it ruins us?” I asked. “Things were just starting to work out. What if this drives him away?”
“If he is going to break up with you because you’re pregnant with his child, he’s not the man I thought he was. And if he does do that, good riddance. You don’t need a man like that in your life, then.”
I felt like I was going to cry. I couldn’t do this alone.
“But,” Beth added, “I don’t think he’s going to reject you. The guy did a press release to declare his love for you, telling the whole world how he felt about you. That doesn’t seem like the kind of thing a man would do when he didn’t have forever in mind.”
I groaned. “I can’t even think of something long term right now. I’m too scared something is going to go wrong between us, that I’m going to have to raise this baby alone.”
“Then do yourself a favor and talk to him as soon as possible. The sooner you know, the better.”
And Beth was right. I had to let no one know w
hat was going on and take it as it came, no matter what happened.
“I have to get back to work,” Beth said. She hugged me again. “Are you going to be okay?”
“I’ll figure it out.” I let her out, thanking her for coming to see me. “It means more to me than you know,” I said before she left. She promised that I could call her anytime, and I knew that I could.
I turned back to the apartment, picking up my phone, doing what I needed to do. I dreaded this part, but I couldn’t avoid it. Noah answered after a couple of rings. Where his voice usually calmed me down, it made me panic more, now.
“Can I see you?” I asked.
“Of course, how about coming over for dinner tonight?” he asked.
“I would rather meet you alone. I can’t really talk about this in front of Lily.” I wished I didn’t have to do any of this at all.
Noah hesitated and the silence between us was heavy. I wondered what was running through his mind if he was thinking I might be breaking up with him.
“We can meet for lunch tomorrow,” Noah finally said. “Let’s say one o’clock.”
“That’s great, thank you,” I said before I ended the call. I looked at the phone in my hands and let out a shaky breath. I had called Noah and scheduled a meeting. I had taken that first step. All that remained now was to tell him that I was pregnant with his child and hope for the best.
God, I didn’t want to do this.
Chapter Twenty-One
Noah
I met Elena at the bistro she’d suggested. It wasn’t the kind of place I usually went to, but she had sounded panicky over the phone, and I wanted to let her choose a place she would feel comfortable in. I had no idea what this was about, but I was worried.
On the way to the bistro, I noticed a red car behind me taking the same turns that I was taking. I glanced in my rearview mirror and frowned. I was being paranoid, I told myself. After Nicole had slashed Elena’s tires and visited me in my office, I was starting to see her everywhere. If I wasn’t careful, I would let her rule my life without actually being in it. So, I shook off the feeling that I might be followed and parked in front of the bistro.
Elena was already at the table, sipping a glass of water. She wore jeans and a T-shirt, so different from the dress suit she usually wore it to work, and her face was riddled with stressIt made my stomach turn, too. Was she here to break it off with me? I wasn’t sure how I would handle that. I had done a press release a few short days ago to ensure that we could be together without having to hide. That, and I adored her. When she looked up and saw me, her face lit up a little but not enough. Not how it usually did.
She stood up from the table to give me a hug. At least she was still doing that, she hadn’t withdrawn from me completely. I was holding onto small blessings.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I still feel very sick. It isn’t much better.”
“Have you gone to see a doctor?” I asked.
She glanced up at me with those bright green eyes of hers, but they weren’t the color they usually were. Her eyes seemed dull now as if the life had been drained out of them. What had happened?
“Maybe we should order something to eat,” Elena said, obviously changing the topic. I wanted to fight on it, demand to know what she had asked me here to say, but I didn’t want to force her. Instead, I would let her say it when she was ready. Whenever that was. Whatever she had to say.
“Okay,” I said, picking up the menu and glancing at it. When the waiter arrived, I ordered the first thing that I fell on. Elena ordered a salad and another glass of water. I realize I didn’t know what kind of food she ate. When she came over to dinner at my place, I had food ready for us, and the one time we had gone on a date, I hadn’t paid attention to her food. She had been too mesmerizing. Now, I wondered if the salad was something she usually ordered or if it was as out of place as it seemed.
“How are things that the office?” Elena asked. She was stalling.
“They are going well. Nothing new to report,” I said. I would play along for a while.
The waiter approached with our food a short while later, and an awkward silence stretched between us. I was getting more and more nervous. I was almost sure she was going to end things, now. She just didn’t want to say to me because she didn’t want to hurt my feelings. I didn’t want to lose her. I had realized how much I had come to care for her, and I wasn’t ready to let go. I wanted to be with her.
Elena picked at her food, barely eating. I frowned. This was the second time that she didn’t want to touch her food where she hadn’t had a problem eating in front of me before. And the last time she had eaten at my place, she’d thrown up. I watched her as she pushed the food around the plate, getting lost in the motion as if she had forgotten I was there. I thought about her feeling sick, about her not being able to eat, about her calling in sick. She had asked me to meet her because she couldn’t speak to me in front of Lily. She couldn’t come to work because she threw up too often. Something was out of place, and as I worked through the facts, everything fell into place like pieces of a jigsaw.
Maybe she wasn’t here to break up with me. Maybe she had something else she wanted to say to me, and she didn’t know how. Everything happening at the same time would be too much of a coincidence for it not to be related.
“Elena,” I said, “what did you want to talk to me about?” I wanted her to come out and say it. I wanted her to tell me what was going on, even if it was only to set her at ease. She looked like she was struggling with inner conflict, and I hated seeing her this way. I wanted to see her smile again, her eyes bright and energy returned. The woman in front of me was a watered-down version of the woman I loved.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” Elena said. I could tell how hard this was for her. Everything felt like it confirmed what I suspected. I leaned forward, moving my grilled cheese sandwich and soda out of the way to close the distance between us. Elena watched me with weary eyes.
“I think I know what’s going on,” I said.
“You do?”
I nodded. I glanced around us to be sure that no one would overhear, lowered my voice and reach for Elena’s hand.
“You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”
Elena’s eyes welled up with tears, and I knew I had guessed right. Her tears spilled over her cheeks when she blinked, and she raised her hands to cover her face.
“I can’t do this,” she said again.
“Hey, listen to me,” I said, reaching for one of her wrists. “It’s okay. Don’t cry. It’s okay.”
Elena dropped her hands enough so that I could see her eyes. They sparkled with tears, the most beautiful green I’d ever seen. “How can it be okay?” she asked.
“Because this isn’t bad news,” I said.
Elena blinked at me, confused. Maybe she didn’t understand how much I enjoyed having a child. How much Lily was the be all and end all of my life. Maybe she didn’t understand how much I loved children. How could she? We didn’t know very much about each other. But having another baby, having another baby with her was exactly what I would have wanted. I wouldn’t have planned it this way myself, but now that it was the case, I couldn’t be upset about it.
“I don’t understand,” Elena said.
“Having another baby will be amazing,” I said. “I would be so excited to be a dad again.”
Elena shook her head as if she was trying to understand what I was saying. “What about the media? What are they going to say about it in the papers? They’re already running around with so many stories I can’t keep up.” She took a deep breath and let it out with a shudder.
“No one has to know about this yet,” I said. “We can keep it to ourselves, decide how we want to handle it, be happy and excited together, alone, and when the time is right, we can announce it. Or we can keep it a secret. It has nothing to do with them.”
“But the company,” Elena started, but I shook my he
ad, interrupting her.
“This has nothing to do with the company. This is about you and me, our future together.”
Elena looked like she was turning it over her mind, thinking about what I was saying. I watched as she took in the information and tried to make it fit with the current status of her life.
“You’re not upset about this?” she asked.
I shook my head, and I was unable to hide my smile. “I’m not upset about this at all. I want to be with you. If it was up to us, we wouldn’t have planned a baby so soon, but now that it has happened, we’ll make it work. I know I’m happy.”
Elena nodded, and finally, she smiled. It wasn’t a big grin, but it was something. She didn’t look so down anymore like she wished the earth would swallow her whole. We still had a lot of things to work out, a lot of things we would have to do, but I was excited to do this with her. I knew how to be a parent, and I wanted to do it all over again with Elena by my side.
“Let’s celebrate this for the happy miracle it is,” I said. “Let’s forget about everyone and everything around us and enjoy it between the two of us.”
Elena nodded. “Okay,” she said and let out a shuddering breath. “Okay.”
I smiled at her. “Come to my place,” I said.
“What about work?”
“I own the company. I can take time off whenever I want.”
Elena agreed to come home with me. She was smiling again although it was a careful smile as if she wasn’t sure she could be happy about how things had gone, as though she was waiting for the other shoe to drop and something to go wrong. But nothing would go wrong. I was elated that she was pregnant, that I was having another child, and that we were having a baby together.
We walked out of the bistro hand in hand.
“We have two cars,” Elena said.
“Follow me in your car,” I suggested. “I’ll lead us home.”
Elena agreed, and we walked to our separate cars. Iclimbed into my car and waited for Elena to pull out of her parking space and join me before I drove home. When I was about halfway, I realized the red car I had noticed earlier was behind us again.
