His Surprise Baby

by Valentine, Layla

  Said colleagues were boring—most spent lunches in their cubicles, eating limp, pre-packed salads and watching compilation clips from reality shows. When people did eventually bump into one another in the kitchen or bathroom, they exchanged small nods, chatted vacantly about perhaps getting beers at the bar round the corner after work, and then returned to their desks, knowing full well they’d never grab those drinks.

  And as far as Heidi could tell, they preferred it that way. Doleman & Co. was run on the backs of isolated introverts, and no one seemed interested in changing that fact.

  Thanksgiving had happened a few days ago, which meant they’d gotten Thursday and Friday off. She’d asked one of her co-workers, Sam, if he was excited about the long weekend, and he’d explained that he’d probably just spend it in bed, playing video games, maybe ordering takeout. She’d tried to restrain the pitying look that had crossed her face, but suspected he’d seen it all the same.

  Now, the Christmas lights were up on the balcony rails of the duplexes around her. She had been smart, back at Image-ine, to save a good amount of her paychecks, because that’s how she’d been affording to stay in her luxury apartment for the past two months.

  Heidi had seen the lights being hung and known she would probably have to move after this holiday season had passed. As a former lover of anything seasonal and ornamental, she was disappointed to see this change in herself: from an enthusiast who’d decorated the tree a month too early, to the Scrooge who wished people would cover up their household decorations and join her in misery.

  She hadn’t been able to visit her parents over Thanksgiving, which had only amplified her loneliness. They’d had one or two nice phone calls, wherein both parties had said how thankful they were for the other. Her mom had talked about how she’d muddled up the stuffing this year, again, and how they were going to have to go out and by the pre-made version after all.

  Heidi had listened as they’d chatted on about the perfect basting of the turkey, and the experimental new cranberry sauce recipe. She’d thought cranberry sauce was the worst part of the meal, but her father had begged to differ.

  When she’d gotten off the calls, she’d cried a little, wistfully thinking of her family. Ever since that fateful, horrible day, she’d cried with increased frequency, until it had become almost a part-time hobby. She’d started carrying around emergency mini-packs of tissues. The salt levels were starting to dampen the glow of her skin.

  Besides her parents, there was one other person Heidi would’ve wanted to share Christmas with, but she was still forbidden from speaking with him. She supposed she could’ve disobeyed the no-contact rule if she really wanted to, but she didn’t have the cash to settle a lawsuit with Image-ine.

  The lawsuit was still in the so-called discovery phase, and logically, she knew that her best bet was to keep from antagonizing any of the accusers. There was some kind of dim hope in the back of her brain that if she just laid low, everyone would forget she existed.

  Even Bradley.

  She got her fix of him through TV, which showcased every one of his Sunday night football games. As predicted, he was having the season of his life. Sports commentators, fans, and America in general were smitten with him; he was the golden goose who’d finally laid a shimmering egg.

  Sometimes, she touched the TV screen as he ran back and forth, crouching below flying arms and sending the ball sailing through the air. She remembered what it had felt like when those arms had held her, and when they’d twirled from room to room, locked in a passionate embrace.

  How could something so wonderful disappear so quickly?

  The stress was getting to her, physically. Not only had the tears damaged her complexion, but she was feeling nauseous and tired constantly. The nausea she chalked up to her anxiety, and the tiredness to the continuation of said nausea, but nevertheless, the symptoms had reached a head.

  She could no longer ignore the ever-present ache that filled her stomach, and the weights that seemed to hang on her eyelids. Maybe if she just took one more nap, or added an extra melatonin drop to her usual dose…

  Heidi snapped her eyes up from their position in the depths of her tea cup. The kitchen seemed even smaller than before, as if the walls were closing in around her. Now that she thought about it—when was her last period? She pulled out her phone, nearly spilling her tea in the process, and went to check her period tracker app.

  Shit. In the throes of depression and chaos, she hadn’t been her usual diligent self, filling out the tracker every few weeks. In fact, she hadn’t ticked off the boxes in two months.

  Her head swam. Had she had cause to fill them out in two months? She tried desperately to remember the last time she’d bought a box of tampons. She couldn’t do it.

  Heidi threw her mug into the sink, not caring if it cracked. She walked quickly back to her cubicle, trying not to draw attention, and gathered her purse and jacket. Was anyone looking at her? It didn’t seem like it, but you could never tell in an office like this; people had eyes in the backs of their heads.

  For once, she was grateful for the ugly gray carpet that ran through the whole building—it hid the frantic clicks of her high heels.

  She was stopped mid-flight at the front door by Sam, who now evidently thought they were friends because she’d asked him a single, civil question about his life.

  “Where ya goin’, Heidi?” he queried, licking his upper lip, upon which rested a misshapen, poorly filled-out mustache.

  “Drug store.”

  “Yeah, why’s that? We got bunches of pain pills in the cupboard.”

  Heidi groaned internally, but managed to reply civilly enough.

  “No, Sam, thank you, but I need…” she ran through a series of items in her head that would necessitate a trip without fueling any further talk. “Constipation medication.”

  He pulled his lips back into a disgusted sneer. Not particularly a gentleman.

  “Uh, okay,” Sam said. “Don’t tell me any more, I don’t wanna know. Bye.”

  Without returning his goodbye, Heidi jogged out the front door and jumped into her car.

  The drive to the pharmacy was the longest of her life. She felt, viscerally, every bump in the pavement and curve of the road. It was as if the trip was happening in Technicolor, with a live orchestra for backing. She hit only a single red light, and spent the ten seconds pounding on the steering wheel, cursing at the light for not changing.

  Didn’t it know she had places to be, and major life discoveries to make?

  At last, she reached the corner store, which wasn’t technically on the corner, but about a mile up the road. The five whole minutes it had taken to get there had been agonizing, but no matter; she was there now. She rubbed clammy palms on the leather car seats.

  You’ve gotta know sooner or later, she told herself. No time like the present.

  She seemed to float into the store, gliding past sliding doors and through the aisles, magnetically drawn to the back of the space, toward a sign up above that said “family planning.” Her legs were so weak that she could hardly feel them, let alone stand steadily.

  Heidi came to an abrupt stop. There they were: the pregnancy tests.

  With quivering hands, whose sheen of sweat had already returned, she grabbed one off the shelf, and then hesitated. Was this a good brand? She had to be certain.

  Heidi pulled out her phone, and searched, “best brand of pregnancy test kits.” Predictably, the search engine spat out a bunch of ads for different brands, and then for baby clothes. There was no conclusive answer, so she took one that was in the middle-bracket price range, thinking that this was not a time to skimp on prices, and made sure that it had a fast response time.

  She made her way back to the front of the store, box in hand, and silently slid it onto the black belt of the register. With gratitude, she saw that the cashier was a woman.

  Good, she thought. She’ll get it.

  The cashier looked at the box, then to Heidi, then
back to the box. Heidi watched her clock the fact that there were no other items on the belt, and felt a strange intimacy with this total stranger. The woman scanned the barcode, and asked if Heidi wanted to pay cash or credit.

  Wordlessly, Heidi slid out a ten-dollar bill. For some reason, call it leftover high school mentality, she didn’t want this to show up as a charge on her credit card statement. She laughed aloud, realizing that what she was afraid of was her parents seeing the receipt.

  You’re 27, she told herself in a sarcastic tone. Old enough to get a grip.

  The cashier returned the change, and just as Heidi was preparing to leave, said, “Good luck. Whichever way you want it to go.”

  Heidi was taken aback by the simple kindness, and could only manage a small smile.

  The woman continued, “The bathroom code is 1873 if you need it.”

  Heidi nodded. At times, she was grateful to be a woman, knowing that men would never experience such a straightforward act of sisterly generosity. But there was no time to reflect on this further—she had a stick to pee on.

  She skittered off towards the bathroom, pressed the code in on the digital lock, and entered the stall. Inside the small room, she read the directions on the box seven times, just to make sure she did it with 100% accuracy. What if I pee wrong? she thought.

  After reading the directions for the seventh time, she quit stalling and took a deep breath before taking the test. She gingerly set the stick on the counter, making sure not to look too closely; she was worried she’d jinx “it,” whatever “it” was.

  She washed her hands methodically, desperately trying to pass the time. The timer on her phone was set for two minutes, at which point a cheery, fairy bell-like noise would resound.

  Filled to the brim with nervous energy, Heidi did a couple of squats, then some wall-sits, then, just when she was beginning to get pink the face from exertion, the bell went off. It was time.

  She puffed air through her cheeks and tried to work her courage up. With shaking fingers, she lifted the stick off the counter, and shut her eyes.

  “Now,” she said to herself with authority.

  Heidi opened her eyes to gaze upon the stick that she held before her.

  In the corner was one small—but undeniably there—pink plus sign.

  She gasped, dropping the stick to the ground. No need to review the box; she knew exactly what that plus sign meant. Positive. As in, pregnant.

  In the span of two seconds, she knew three things.

  One: She, Heidi Morris, was several months pregnant.

  Two: Bradley Fox was, beyond a doubt, the father.

  Three: She had no way of reaching the future father of her child.

  She fell to the floor, tumbling into a heap alongside the discarded stick. Under normal circumstances, she would recoil at the idea of touching the floor of a public restroom. But then, these weren’t normal circumstances.

  Sobs racked through her body, starting in her throat and boomeranging all the way down to her toes, and Heidi placed a hand over her stomach.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered to the baby. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  Chapter 17

  Bradley

  Three Months Later

  Bradley looked in the locker room mirror, and with one finger, smeared black lines beneath his eyes. This was his game-time ritual; it made him feel like a warrior, like the men who tattooed every inch of their bodies with symbols that told stories of victory.

  He was interrupted by a slap on the back from his teammate, Jason.

  “Hey man,” Jason said. “You ready?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “Aw, come on, tell me you’re not excited.”

  “Of course I’m excited,” Bradley replied. “But I’m also pretty fucking nervous.”

  Jason nodded. “Yeah. Guess it’s not every day we get to play in the Super Bowl.”

  Silence fell between them, as they took in the gravity of the statement. Sure, it was just a game, and they were just a couple of guys tossing a ball back and forth on a piece of grass. But it was also a game watched by an entire country and then some, and they were the guys on whose backs millions of dollars and dreams rode.

  His season had been, as predicted, iconic. Touchdown after touchdown, until it became a running joke amongst his teammates. Sports networks, after only a handful of games, started calling him the year’s M.V.P., and jokingly asking what his ring size was. The pressure was, in a word, extreme.

  And he found that he’d loved every second of it. Once he’d survived the media razing from the summer, he’d put his head down and focused on football. Easier to fill your head with calf raises and bicep curls than…well, than certain unmentionable people. He could no longer bear to even think her name; it became, mentally, hot to the touch.

  So, he thought about football. Endlessly.

  As if they were prayers, he recited on his lips lists of plays to run. Alley-oop, blitz, reverse, rush, slant, sluggo, on and on and on until the words swam in his eyes. He had become a master in distracting himself.

  Here he was, having the season of his damn life, about to go play in the Super Bowl, and in reality, he knew it was all just a distraction. That stung him, somewhere deep, to realize that one of the biggest moments of his life would happen under a cloud.

  “You okay, dude?”

  Bradley jolted out of his reflection, and saw that Jason was still standing there, though the look on his boyish face had grown more concerned.

  “This isn’t, like, a ’roids thing…right?” Jason asked, gesturing to the glazed expression on Bradley’s face.

  “No, Jesus, of course not. Just nervous, like I said.”

  “If you say so. Coach is calling us.”

  “All right, I’m coming.”

  Jason jogged off, leaving Bradley to take one more second of bittersweet consideration. He stared in the mirror at those black lines, and found strength in their neat edges. He was a warrior, and warriors keep their minds on the game.

  You are a warrior, he repeated in his mind, and then aloud, “You’re a fucking warrior.”

  The next few minutes were a blur. Coach Simon gave a pep talk that went through Bradley’s ears like water, dripping out the other side. The team did their traditional chant. They ran out onto the field, holding their helmets and waving to fans. Bradley had to stop himself from scanning the 50,000-person crowd for her face. He sipped some energy drink, and just like that, the game began.

  By the end of the first quarter, the Sharks were wiping the field with their opponents, in most part due to Bradley’s stellar leadership.

  He ran so fast that he worried his legs would catch fire. The ball became a part of him. He would later learn that, across America, sports commentators had gone silent at the pure majesty of his ability. One said it was “like watching Hercules play football.”

  Everything after the first quarter was more of the same—the Sharks nailed every pass, and made tackles that seemed to defy gravity. They weren’t just winning; they were dominating, that kind of domination where for once, the opposing coach didn’t even try to argue with the ref’s calls. Everyone could see that the Sharks were kicking ass.

  So when Bradley’s Super Bowl win came, it didn’t come on the wave of astonishment and awe that usually follows a win. There were no Hail Marys, no last-minute saves. They started on top and ended on top.

  The final score was 42-7, Sharks. The buzzer rang, signaling the end of the fourth quarter, and the team rushed to lift Bradley on their shoulders, chanting his name.

  “Fox, Fox, Fox!”

  On and on it went. The stadium joined in the chant, until all Bradley could hear was his own name, filling an entire arena.

  He had just played the greatest game of his life, and still he felt numb. The adulation was cool, and he was proud of his performance, but it all felt a little…well, hollow.

  He felt the cup being forced into his hands, and he knew distantly that he p
umped it in the air. As had been predicted, he was named the MVP.

  In only a few hours, he’d achieved his wildest dreams. Never mind that he’d always imagined it feeling better.

  Microphones were shoved in his face, and a hat that read “Champion” was placed on his head. Everyone wanted to know how he’d done it, what his big secret was.

  “Faith,” he mumbled back, hoping the generic answer would satisfy the ravenous hordes. “Y’know, just faith and hard work.”

  They pressed him with more questions: what was going to happen next year? What was next for Bradley Fox?

  He shrugged his shoulders, and responded honestly.

  “I have no fucking idea.”

  The reporters laughed loudly. He hadn’t meant it as a joke, but whatever. They could laugh if they liked.

  After the fanfare had died down from screaming, all-consuming roar to excited yelps and cheers and drinking in the stands, Bradley walked with his teammates back into the locker room. One after another lightly punched him in the arm, or slapped him on the ass.

  “Aw look, Fox is so shook he’s gone mute!”

  “Nah, he’s just thinking ‘bout all the pussy he’s gonna get.”

  “Because he was doing so bad before?”

  The friendly ribbing didn’t even register with him. It was true, he was in a daze. But no supportive words were going to get him out of it. He was coming down from the high of the game, and that former need for distraction was returning. But even still, when his teammates invited him to the after-party, which would take place at the running back’s mansion, Bradley turned them down.

  “You can’t do that!” Mark cried.

  “You’re the MVP; you gotta come,” added Luke.

  “And besides,” said Jason with a grin, “there will be strippers. Like, good strippers. No expense spared. I hear they’re bringing poles. You telling me you wanna miss that?”

  Bradley smiled, trying to appease them.

  “Guys, you know I like a good party. But I’ve seen enough strippers. You’re not gonna drag me out with the promise of a sweet pair of legs.”