Tell Me No Secrets: Secret Baby Romance Collection

by Jamie Knight

  I ran over and gave her a gracious squeeze. I loved Grace so much for always being the friend that I needed.

  “You're welcome,” she said, turning toward another bag. “I've got one more thing.”

  She pulled out a box of pregnancy tests.

  “You really are psychic,” I whispered, almost not believing my eyes. I had been wondering earlier if the heartbreak that I was struggling to get over might have been something more than what I thought. I knew that I needed to take a test to see what it really was, but I was mostly scared to face the truth.

  “Are you going to take a test?” asked Grace, impatiently. Part of me was irritated by her question, but a larger part of me was grateful that she had gotten the test. I could know the truth. I decided to take the test right away. I needed to get past the uncertainty.

  I took the box into the bathroom and read the directions. I needed to pee on the white stick at the end and sit it down and wait for a minute to read the results. If a blue line appeared, then that meant that the test was positive. This was all so weird and alien.

  But I had never wanted to fail a test as badly as I did right then. I peed on the stick, sat it on the counter, and waited.

  “Everything okay in there?” asked Grace, her voice muffled on the other side of the door.

  “Yeah, I'm good,” I said, looking at myself in the mirror. I looked terrible. My hair looked like it hadn't been brushed in ages. I had huge bags under my eyes. But really, it was my eyes themselves. They looked so sad.

  “Okay, cool. I'm here if you need me.” I knew that she was still standing on the other side of the door even though she didn't say anything. I look at the time and saw that a minute had gone by.

  I walked over to the counter where the pregnancy test sat and looked down at it.

  A solid blue line had appeared.

  I was pregnant.

  I leaned against the wall and sunk down to the floor. It felt like the world had stopped spinning. The reality of what had been happening with me began to sink in.

  “You still okay?” asked Grace, knocking at the door again.

  I stood up fast, swung the door open, and motioned for her to look at the test that was still sitting on the counter by the sink. She stared for a few minutes before turning around slowly to look at me.

  “Oh, honey,” she said, coming close to hug me. She held me and rocked me. I didn't move. I felt frozen. I didn't know what to think or how to feel. I felt my life flashing before my eyes. Grace let me go and looked into my eyes. I'm not sure what she saw, but she turned me around and pushed me out of bathroom and down the hallway toward the kitchen.

  “Let's eat,” she said, getting plates out of the cabinet and putting spoonfuls of chicken, broccoli, and fried rice on my plate. She pushed a plate in my direction. I started eating it absentmindedly.

  We ate in silence. I was grateful that Grace wasn't forcing me to talk about anything or that she wasn't trying to fill the silence with mindless chatter as she sometimes did. She just let me sit there with my thoughts, trying to eat.

  My mind churned. What was I going to do? How could I not have known? None of my friends had babies, so it wasn't like I could ask them. And if my dad found out...

  My dad. How was he going to take the news? The more I thought about that, the sicker I started to feel. I made a beeline to the bathroom and barely made it to the toilet before spewing up the little bit of Chinese food that I'd managed to eat.

  I wasn't quite sure if it was being pregnant or being nervous about the thought of telling my dad that was making me feel queasy. I splashed water on my face and slowly walked back out to the kitchen.

  “Did you puke?” asked Grace, holding her fork in mid-air. I nodded. She made a sour face and put her fork down.

  “Maybe I can manage some ice cream,” I said, half to Grace and half to no one.

  “Good idea,” she said, rushing to the cabinet and pulling out a bowl.

  She filled the bowl with mint chocolate chip ice cream and put it on the counter in front of me. I hesitantly licked some off of spoon that I was holding, waiting to see if I would start to feel nauseous again. The ice cream was delicious, soothing my belly. I ate the whole bowl greedily, licking my cold lips when I had finished.

  “That was good,” I said, patting my belly.

  “Good,” said Grace, smiling. “Let's go watch some movies and eat more ice cream.”

  She walked over to the TV and started rummaging through our movie collection.

  “Just whatever you do, please don't put on a romantic movie,” I said. That was the last thing I wanted to see, something that reminded me of the pain that my heart was in and the fact that it was even more complicated since I was pregnant.

  “No problem,” she said, plucking a movie off of the shelf and popping it into the Blu-Ray player. I didn't bother asking her what the movie was because I knew that my mind would not be focused on it. It ended up being a scary movie, but I couldn't even remember what it was about.

  I just kept thinking about the fact that I had a baby growing inside of my belly at that moment. While I was struggling to figure out how I was going to move past my heart being shattered to bits, a new life was beginning. It was so surreal. Grace sat next to me while the movie played, reaching over from time to time to rub my arm or squeeze my hand.

  “What am I going to do?” I said, turning toward Grace.

  “Honestly, Natalia, this is some heavy shit,” she said. She had a grave look on her face. I didn't know if that was fear from the movie or if she was scared for me. I was at a loss about what to do, so I wanted to see if she had some sort of Grace style super plan for this situation.

  “Well, what would you do?” I asked her, curiously. She looked at me like she wanted to say something, but was nervous about saying it.

  “Have an abortion,” she said.

  The words landed like bricks. I leaned back on the couch and thought for a minute. Could I do that? It seemed like it would make things a lot easier in many ways. But I was certain I would feel guilty about it at some point.

  “No. I want this baby,” I told her, shaking my head. “I would go crazy, regretting that I gave up a baby I wanted, a baby that I could keep and raise myself... ” I trailed off, overwhelmed with my hopes and fears, all colliding at once.

  “So no adoption either…” Grace paused. “Yeah, I totally get it,” she admitted.

  “Okay, well, what else would you do?” I pressed on for her sage advice.

  Grace stopped and gave it some thought, tapping her chin.

  “In this scenario, I would tell the father,” she said. “That way, I wouldn't have to deal with it by myself and I could possibly get some support.”

  I thought about that for a minute and quickly rejected that idea.

  “No way,” I said, shaking my head profusely. “I couldn't tell Bradley about this. He already has been beating himself up about us having sex in the first place. If he finds out that there's a baby involved, he would tie himself up in knots about it. Plus, it's not like it would help our relationship. Telling him that I'm pregnant at this point would probably make him move to Alaska or something because he felt so guilty.”

  I could see the look of horror on his face now as I told him that he was soon to become a father. I didn't think that I could stand to bear any more pain about it. I knew that I would have to keep the news to myself.

  Chapter 36 - Natalia

  Grace got an angry look on her face, frowning and scrunching up her nose at me.

  “You two idiots really deserve each other,” she said. “Why are you thinking about the pain that this would cause for Bradley instead of thinking about your own needs? Do you realize how hard it will be to raise a child on your own? And not just for you, for the baby! We grew up with both of our parents, Natalia. Have you seen the research on how hard it can be for children when they grow up without their fathers? Are you really willing to risk th
at? Or to take on the job of two parents if you don't have to?”

  “Yeah, but I don't want to make things harder on Bradley. Plus, you forget that he's my dad's friend! I will not only be destroying his life, but also my dad's friendship with him. That's just too much!”

  Grace growled, frustrated.

  “Be reasonable, Natalia,” she said, tapping me on the forehead with the tip of her index finger. “You cannot go through this pregnancy alone and raise this baby by yourself. You don't know the first thing about being a mother. I think you just aren't thinking this through. But, I also know that trying to get through to you right now is useless. So, whatever you decide to do, you have my full support.”

  I smiled and hugged her, laying my head on her shoulder.

  “Thank you,” I said sweetly. “I'm so glad that I have you as my friend. Now, we have to come up with a plan so that no one notices me getting bigger.”

  Grace laughed loudly, head turned up to the ceiling above us.

  “Now, I know you must be out of your mind,” she said, looking down and searching my face to see if I was serious. “And how exactly are we going to do that? What are you going to tell people when they see your huge belly? That's it's a tumor?”

  She laughed again, her eyes wide and expectant as she waited on my answer.

  She had a point. It would be hard to hide a growing belly, even from my father who was often in his own world. He had already made comments of wanting to find the guy who broke my heart. If he knew that I was pregnant, he would definitely hunt the guy down, for sure.

  I had to protect Bradley. Sure, he was tough and experienced and an iron man through and through. But he was still injured, and still longing in his soul for something. I knew it because I was in the same boat, in my own way.

  I saw his vulnerability that night and never forgot it. And I was hog-tied with attraction when I saw that side of him. I’d only seen strong men like cardboard cutouts. But this one, Bradley, he was three-dimensional. He breathed and he bled.

  I simply didn’t want him hurt any more, not if I could stop it.

  Grace was still talking. Her musical voice brought me back to reality. “The only way that you can try to hide a pregnant belly is by avoiding contact with anyone possessing eyeballs,” she said.

  A lightbulb went off. I had seen a movie about a girl who had gotten pregnant and went away to have her baby in another state. She came back after having the baby and no one even knew that she was pregnant.

  I knew that was going to be my best option.

  “You're right,” I said.

  Grace looked at me confused. She put her hand up to my forehead, feeling to see if I had a fever.

  “You don't feel hot,” she said. “Maybe you are showing early signs of dementia. Because that's definitely not possible. What are you planning on, becoming a hermit?”

  “No, I'm planning on getting an apartment,” I said.

  “What? You're going to move out? That doesn't seem like a good idea at all. You're already not looking that well. You need to live with someone who can help to take care of you.”

  I smiled at her, glad that she said that.

  “That's where you come in… room mate,” I said.

  She looked at me for a moment, confused, until she realized what I was planning.

  “You're really crazy,” she said, turning off the movie with a dramatic flip of her remote-filled hand.

  “No, it's perfect,” I said, getting excited and sitting up, tucking my feet under my rump. “You already said that you were thinking of getting your own place because your parents are driving you nuts about what you're going to do once you graduate. This way, you can be out of their hair and moving forward with your life, the way that they wanted, and you can be there to help me out if I need anything. See? It's a win-win.”

  I crossed my arms, satisfied with my solution. It seemed like the perfect plan. I would get an apartment with Grace and once my belly started growing, I would make excuses about why I couldn't come home. That way, my dad would never find out that I was pregnant. I wasn't quite sure what my plan would be beyond that, but I figured that this would be a start until I had more time to think and come up with a better plan.

  “I'm glad that you have it all figured out,” said Grace sarcastically. “For the record, I don't like it at all. But, at the same time, I do want to be here for you. So you have my support.”

  I squealed, leaning on her and hugging and kissing her. She laughed, turning her face away so that she could try to avoid my kisses.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” I said, relieved.

  Things were about to drastically change in my world, but having a plan seemed to ease my mind, even if only for a moment.

  Chapter 37 - Bradley

  My knuckles were white as I clenched my steering wheel, on my way to a restaurant to have lunch with James. He called me up out of the blue. Asked me to meet him.

  “There's a lot going on right now and I could really use a friend,” he had droned, sounding more tired than I had ever heard before. “Do you think that you can meet me at La Señorita for lunch tomorrow?”

  It had been a little over a month since the last time that I had seen him at the barbecue that he had at his house. We hadn't talked at all since then. I know that he had been busy traveling, but I had been too embarrassed to call him, even to say hello. My conscience had been so weighed down with the knowledge of what I had done that I felt guilty whenever I so much as thought about him or Natalia.

  And I thought about her all of the time. Her bright face. Her supple body. Her lilting voice. I still found myself getting hard, imagining being inside of her. Part of me wished that I could have just one more time with her. But, I knew that that wasn't possible. The thought alone made me stay away from James, however.

  When his name flashed across the screen of my smartphone, I thought that I was going to swallow my tongue.

  This is it, I thought. This is the call where he reams me a new one. My hands were cold when I answered the phone. When he asked if I could meet him for lunch, I obliged. My logical mind said all was fine, but stray fears popped up, that I wasn’t completely positive that he didn't want to confront me about his daughter.

  At any rate, I thought that my best bet would be to meet him in a public place, so I agreed. I figured if he was going to punch my lights out, it would be better to do it at a restaurant where, at the very least, someone could call an ambulance. Or, depending on how things went, the coroner.

  I had the memory of James preparing for battle forever burned in my memory.

  If he ever found out what I had done, I was pretty sure that my life would be over.

  I walked in the cozy restaurant and spotted James already seated in a corner. He waved me down. We shared a small table near a window where we had a clear view of the street outside.

  I saw people walking back and forth hurriedly, not paying much attention to what was going on behind the glass walls separating our two realities. Most on the sidewalk strode with their heads down, their faces buried in phones. I was engrossed in staring out at them through the window when James's voice cut into my distracted thoughts.

  “Thanks for taking the time to meet with me,” he said, flipping through the menu. “Things have been kind of crazy at the house lately and I thought it was time to talk to someone other than the four walls.”

  James wasn't a huge talker from what I remembered about him. So, the fact that he admitted needing to talk to someone were red flags to me. I picked up the glass of water in front of me, willing my hands not to shake as I lifted it to my lips and took a sip before speaking.

  “Oh?” I asked, keeping my voice even. “I know that Natalia is your daughter and you don't want to burden her with your stuff, but I'm sure that having her there for company is pretty nice.”

  He shook his head and stared at the table sadly. He looked like he had lost his best friend.

&
nbsp; “Natalia isn't even at home anymore,” he said. “She moved in with her friend Grace. She's been by the house a few times, but I haven't really seen much of her. I think it's a combination of me being gone all of the time and her just wanting to move on with her life. I feel like I've lost so much time with her because of being in the military, time that I can never get back.”

  He tossed the tortilla chip in his calloused hand down onto the empty salad plate in front of him. He sighed then addressed me.

  Thoughtfully, he said, “Don't get me wrong; I'm grateful for the time that I spent serving my country, but I also wish that I would have been with her for those moments that meant the most to her. And I guess that I thought that, with me traveling less now, I could make up for lost time, that she would want to stay at home longer.

  His eyes looked far away as he continued. “But, for some reason, it was almost like she was itching to get away. I didn't think that it would be as hard as it is.”

  He stopped talking and sat there fidgeting his hands. I really felt sorry for him. But, at the same time, I had a hard time focusing on anything other than the fact that Natalia had left home.

  I wondered if it had something to do with me, and what had happened between us. I had hoped that my leaving would have been enough space between us, but maybe the house brought up too many painful memories for her. The last time I saw her, she looked sickly and depressed. Maybe she was running away from the house in an effort to put the memory of us being intimate in her house behind her.

  I felt so guilty that I could barely look at James. But, I felt like I needed to say something to try easing his mind.

  “Well, these things happen,” I said. “I know that it must be hard, but we all had to leave the nest at some point. And Natalia is a smart girl. She's mature. Even though you may not have been as active in her life as you would have hoped to be, you can tell that you instilled some great values in her. She will be okay. And you, old man, need to get a dog or a hobby. Maybe even a girlfriend.”