An Unconventional Love: A Novella

by Warren, Alexandra

  The scream.

  The conversation.

  I couldn’t have written the scared-straight moment any better myself.

  It was almost like I had hired an actress to play the role.

  “See, Rae. Do you wanna sound like whoever is in there regretting the sex she had?” She side-eyed me without answering, snatching the clipboard to fill out the paperwork herself.

  Things became distinctively quiet for a moment but as the door flew open, the air seemed to shift. I couldn’t figure out why until I made eye contact with my unpaid actress. Her eyes stayed locked on mine for so long that it seemed as if everything else in the room had disappeared until she began stalking over to me, talking so fast I could hardly understand her.

  What I did make out was, “This is all your fault!”

  “Huh? Slow down. What are you talking about?”

  “I’m pregnant! And it’s yours!” I didn’t know how to react. With an audience, I didn’t really want to react because I was 100% sure I would look like an asshole. After hearing the initial shock of her discovery, I understood why she was so hysterical but for the sake of not making even more of a scene, I needed her to calm down; especially in front of Rae who was already busy snickering at the woman’s attitude.

  “Can we umm...go outside and talk about this?” Even with my low, hushed tone, there was no avoiding the sea of eyes watching everything unfold.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you! Just know I expect your half of the abortion payment in a week. You know where to find me.”

  )~o~(

  The drive home was silent but I knew Rae couldn’t wait to talk shit once we got home.

  The irony of me finding out about a possible while scolding her about sex.

  With the talk I had with Jamison at the gym in mind, I knew there was a possibility that the baby wasn’t mine, but I still didn’t like the way it had played out.

  In front of the whole doctor’s office.

  In front of Rae.

  And in the unlikely chance that it was mine, she really expected me to help her get rid of it?

  Not happenin’.

  Though my parents were no longer around to judge me for my choices, I knew they would be disappointed from above if they ever found out I did such a thing. If Jasmine was having my baby, then we would get married and raise it together as a family.

  Period.

  I pulled up to the house and Rae rushed out of the car before I even had it turned off. I couldn’t quite gage her reaction now that the information had settled in but the second I shut and locked the front door, she wasted no time going off.

  “So you had the nerve to judge me for having condoms and you weren’t even responsible enough to use one your damn self?!”

  “Watch your mouth, Rae.” Though my mind was already racing a mile a minute at the idea, I knew I couldn’t let my little sister know that. She was already livid enough for the both of us, pacing back and forth through the living room.

  “Hell no! I’m pretty sure I’ve earned every fuckin’ cuss word in the book after this! A baby, Rich? I mean, really? What do you know about having a baby? A whole ‘nother life to be responsible for?”

  “Umm… did you forget I’m responsible for your ungrateful ass?”

  She seemed to calm down a little bit at the realization before she replied, “But I feed myself and wipe my own butt. Babies don’t.”

  “Babies also don’t have smart ass mouths like yours so it’s practically a fair trade.”

  “Yes they do! It just comes out as a cry instead.”

  Never thought about it like that.

  “Look, I know this is a little crazy but I need you to chill until I can figure this whole thing out, alright?” She rolled her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest, taking her usual teenage girl pose.

  “Ugh, whatever Rich. Just let me know when you find out if I’m really getting a niece or not.”

  “You mean a nephew?”

  She made a smacking sound with the back of her teeth before she said, “Seriously, Rich? How do you go from figuring things out to banking on it being a boy?”

  I shrugged my shoulders before I replied, “I’m just sayin’.”

  “Again. Whatever. I’m going to Justin’s and don’t you dare try to stop me.” Just the mention of his name had me ready to knock his little ass out.

  “Hey, let’s not get this shit twisted. I am an adult who yes, made an irresponsible decision but at least at a time where I could afford it. You can’t afford a baby.”

  She was already walking out of the room, but stopped and turned around to reply, “Well...looks like you’ll be writing two checks then.”

  jasmine.

  Google images has got to be the worst invention ever.

  You Google something to see examples, and what do they give you?

  The grossest, most horrific examples they can find, scaring you out of anything you could possibly think of.

  For me, that was the idea of an abortion.

  Sure I was a Pro-Choice type of girl after hearing horror stories about different grades of pregnancies through my law studies and work. But after looking through picture after picture of abortions gone wrong, I couldn’t do it.

  Not to myself.

  And not to my baby.

  I’m having a fuckin’ baby.

  I double-crossed my thoughts, wondering if the baby could hear me cussing in my head. I mean, technically he or she was a part of me right?

  I pulled my shirt up, observing my still-flat tummy from a bird’s eye view, knowing in a few months, everything about it would change.

  Everything about me would change.

  Fuck Mr. Robinson.

  I still didn’t know his first name, yet here I was, carrying his baby and signing off on at least eighteen years of correspondence. I knew - from ‘learning the law’ - that raising a kid in two separate homes was almost always a sticky situation when the parents weren’t in at least some sort of sync. There was hardly any way that he and I could be in sync considering we knew nothing about each other besides the kind of car each other drove.

  Oh shit.

  The insurance card.

  That should have his full name on it right?

  I snatched my phone from its place next to me on the bed and typed in my pass code before finding my folder of pictures. I scrolled through at least 20 selfies before I found the picture I had taken the day of the accident. The insurance card read Rae Robinson.

  His name is Rae?

  That’s kinda girly.

  I exited out of the pictures folder and scrolled over to open my Facebook app, typing in the name Rae Robinson. A few different locals came up that had the same name, but I scrolled through until I found a picture of him and the girl I remembered as his sister. I clicked on the profile and though most of it was private, I could still see the birthday listed as August 18, 1997.

  1997?

  Rae is his sister, dummy!

  He must’ve been driving her car the day of the accident which explained her attitude with me at the Talent Show.

  I clicked on the profile picture, the only thing I could access on her profile, and it opened to a larger version of her and her brother with the caption, “He may get on my nerves, but I love him like no other. #MyBrothersKeeper.”

  I continued my stalking - I mean research - by reading the comments.

  “Awww that’s so cute Rae!”

  “Rae, your big brother is so fine.”

  “You guys have such a special bond!”

  “Awww Richie Rich and Rae Rae all grown up.”

  Richie Rich?

  Was that his name?

  Was he a Rich like Richard Robinson?

  Or did he really have the swag to just be named Rich?

  Gotta be a Richard.

  Of course when I did a Facebook search of both Richard Robinson and Rich Robinson, nothing came up that resembled him. I transferred my search to Google and found out that there were
hundreds of both names in the state of California.

  But, since I had nothing but time considering baby was gonna keep me on the injured/reserved list as far as going out was concerned, I made it my quest to find the one that matched my baby daddy.

  rich.

  I was nervous.

  I hardly ever got nervous, but for the situation, it felt justified.

  After getting Jasmine’s information from Jamison - for the record, yes, he clowned the hell out of me -, we were finally meeting up to discuss options for our child that I couldn’t resist acknowledging as mine. Even though I didn’t know much about her besides the history Jamison had mentioned, I had a feeling she wasn’t the type of girl to just pin a baby on someone at random.

  If it was mine, she meant it.

  She wanted to meet at a coffee shop but I preferred going to somewhere more open like a park where she couldn’t lure me to a nearby alley and try to kill me. Somehow we ended up at a fro-yo spot with outdoor seating as a compromise telling me everything I needed to know about Jasmine. She was the type that made things a struggle for no reason other than just being difficult to peeve me.

  It was at least 30 minutes after our scheduled meeting time when she showed up looking far from pregnant in a crop top, skinny jeans, and nude sandal stilettos. Her eyes were covered with humongous sunglasses but I could still tell when they landed on me before she headed my way.

  Damn, my baby mama looks like a fuckin’ model.

  “Hello Miss. Jasmine.”

  “Rich.”

  I smirked at her newly acquired information before I asked, “So you finally found out my first name, huh?”

  “I’m a future lawyer. It wasn’t that damn hard,” She replied, as she sat down across from me, putting her purse in front of her belly. I was sure it was quickly becoming a habit for her to cover up her stomach in public though there were no hints of her pregnancy in sight.

  “Well then...Miss. Future Lawyer...I’m assuming you’ve come with an agenda.”

  She gave a little smirk of her own. “Hmm...you’re smarter than you look.” I watched as she dug in her purse and pulled out a packet of papers before handing them to me. “Here. Read over these, sign at the bottom, and we can move forward accordingly.”

  I scanned the document, and quickly realized that it had to be some kind of joke. Though it wasn’t the abortion that she had originally mentioned, it was equally inconsiderable.

  “You want me to sign over my parental rights? Are you kidding me, Jasmine?”

  “Do I look like I’m kidding you? Meeting you was a mistake, the baby was an accident, and the last thing I need is you pretending like you give a fuck. So let’s skip the bullshit and get to the real; you can sign over your parental rights or I can fight you for them. But I’m telling you now...you don’t want those problems.” I eyed her for a long time, before my lips turned up into a confident smirk. I could appreciate her confidence, but I had to call her bluff.

  “Oh, Jasmine. You still haven’t realized your little tough girl facade doesn’t scare me? I’m not like any of those other dudes you’ve probably stuck your stilettos in time after time. So I’m gonna do you a favor and give you the real; you met up with me because you were interested in me, the baby was made out of a wonderful, wonderful night of lovemaking, and I’m not even capable of offering fucks I don’t really mean to give. So, to make my point clear…” I gave the packet of papers a big rip before stacking them and giving it another rip for good measure causing her to gasp.

  “You’re gonna regret that.”

  “The only thing I regret is not taking the opportunity to get to know you a little bit more first. But...we have eighteen years, right?” She responded with an annoyed growl that was almost identical to the one Rae liked to use when I got on her nerves about something, forcing me to ask, “How old are you again?”

  “Twenty-four.”

  Phew.

  I took a sip of my water before I leaned back in my chair, crossing my arms over my chest. The simple motion made Jasmine fidget in her seat and I smiled a little to myself knowing her fidgeting meant she was checking me out. Even though she acted like she wanted nothing to do with me, I knew her attraction to me, which had started this whole thing in the first place, couldn’t have disappeared that fast.

  “So, tell me more about yourself.”

  She held her hand up, trying to cut me off. “Rich, just stop okay. This is already a fucked-up situation. Please don’t make it worse.”

  “What’s so fucked up about it? We’re having a baby, Jasmine. That’s a blessing in itself.” Though it wasn’t the ideal circumstance, I was still excited to be continuing my family’s legacy.

  “A blessing? A blessing for who?”

  “A blessing for us.”

  “That’s the thing, Rich. There’s no such thing as an us. I don’t know you, you don’t know me. The only thing we have in common is this baby.”

  “That may be true at the moment, but let’s face it, Jasmine; it’ll only be as bad as we make it and I don’t really need you all stressed out while you’re carrying my child…”

  She quickly interjected, “Our child.”

  “Excuse me, our child. So here’s the deal,” I dug in my pocket and pulled out the ring I had picked up from my jeweler on the way over. It wasn’t anything fancy but it would do the job until she proved she was worthy of an upgrade. “I want to make you my wife as soon as possible and then we’ll raise this child as a family.” I hadn’t even thought twice about the whole thing but I could tell I should’ve by her reaction. Her initial shock turned into fire in the blink of an eye.

  “Are you out of your gotdamn mind?! Your wife?! I just learned your damn first name like...some days ago, and now all of a sudden I’m supposed to be your wife?!”

  I couldn’t let her always overblown attitude break my cool so I simply replied, “You’re having my child, Jasmine. You will be my wife.”

  “Over my dead body.”

  “Don’t say shit like that. Remember, you’re speaking for two now.”

  “Oh! Let me correct myself then...over our dead bodies. I’m not gonna marry you, Rich. Not today. Not ever.”

  I couldn’t help challenging her, “I’ll bet you a year’s worth of diapers you will.”

  “First of all, you’ll be buying that regardless. Second of all, I’m not gonna marry you just because we’re having a child together. That’s just making a bad situation worse. Third of all, don’t you have a girlfriend?” Now I was the shocked one.

  “A girlfriend? Hell no.” The term girlfriend felt weird coming out of my mouth cause I hardly ever used it.

  “But at the concert, you were there...with a girl.” So she had seen me in the crowd just like I had seen her. It was a good thing that Isabella hadn’t caught that though by this point, she was a complete afterthought. I couldn’t see her anymore if I wanted Jasmine to take me serious.

  “We were just kickin’ it. She’s not my girl by any means.”

  “Yeah, that’s what they all say.”

  Something about her brushing me off as part of the majority made me eager to prove a point. Though I may not have been better than the other dudes she was use to, I certainly wasn’t the type to say shit I didn’t mean. At least not in serious situations like this.

  I grabbed her hand from across the table and was surprised when she didn’t yank it away. “I’m not that bad, Jasmine. I have a good job. Nice house. Nice cars. No baby mamas. Believe it or not, you lucked out.”

  She rolled her eyes as she replied, “There’s nothing lucky about carrying a baby for nine months.”

  “But there is something lucky about not having to do it alone. Look, I understand if you don’t wanna accept my proposal right now but I’m not gonna let you kick me out of my...our baby’s life. And I’m not talking about just when he’s born. I wanna experience the whole thing; doctor’s appointments, Lamaze classes, late night craving runs, the first kick, setting up the nurse
ry, packing the bag for delivery day; all of it.”

  Her stance finally appeared to soften some, as she took a deep breath before she said, “Rich, that all sounds lovey and sweet but let’s bring it back to reality. That’s the kind of stuff people do when their baby was on purpose, when they made it out of love, when they took the proper steps beforehand to ensure that they wouldn’t be bringing their baby into a hostile environment. We have none of that.”

  “Well….sounds like we have some catching up to do then.”

  jasmine.

  “I’ve been dreaming of little fishiessss.”

  I sank lower in my seat as the room suddenly felt like a sauna in response to my mom’s enthusiastic little announcement. My family was sharing Sunday dinner at her house, a place I really wasn’t too welcomed at to begin with, but couldn’t avoid without catching an ear full from my big sister, Bailey. It was no secret that she was my mom’s favorite but that didn’t matter much to me since I had always been the apple of my father’s eye; part of the reason I wasn’t welcomed at my mom’s. Since I had always stayed on #TeamDad regardless of what he put her through, she read that as me being disrespectful.

  “Well, you know it’s not us, Mom. I would’ve told you by now,” Bailey chimed in, as she dug into her plate of mashed potatoes and fried turkey. Her use of us was in reference to her and her husband, Chad, that was sitting to her left; a suitor my mom had hand-picked from the church. Chad was an okay lookin’ dude, but not exactly the type of guy my bombshell of a sister should’ve been married to.

  Bailey and I were similar in looks. We both were pretty petite, we both had curly honey-blonde hair that we inherited from our father, and we both had big ol’ natural booties though Bailey always chose to downplay hers by wearing loose clothing.

  She could certainly do a hundred times better than Chad, but Bailey had always been the obedient type. Mom wanted her to become a nurse, so she went to nursing school and graduated top of her class. Mom wanted her to teach Sunday school, so she taught Sunday school, bible study, and every other church-related group the first lady of the church would let her get her hands on. Mom wanted her to marry a church-going, God-fearing brotha, so she married Chad.