Authors: Megan Noelle
“You’re pregnant!?” Once more I trailed my eyes to Corey. His jaw was set and his eyes blazed with the fire. This wasn’t how I envisioned Corey finding out he was going to be a father. Not even close.
I opened my mouth to speak, but my throat was suddenly as dry as the Sahara and nothing came out. Actually, a little awkward whimper came out before I snapped my mouth shut and resorted to a simple nod. Just when I was about to bolt, someone else called my name.
“Miss Hamilton!” Standing behind Karly was Mai and she was quickly approaching me with an envelope just like Karly’s. “I am so sorry! Dr. Miller came in and I completely forgot to give you your ultrasound photos.”
“Oh. Yes.” The words came forth rather slowly. She deposited them into my hand and beamed her smile back to me. “Thanks,” I managed, excusing her from this awkward moment.
“Can’t wait to get more pictures next month for the 5 month check-up!” Mai called back over her shoulder.
Honestly, I didn’t think Corey could look anymore pissed off, not to mention hurt, as he did in that moment.
“Make your next appointment.” He growled at Karly before stomping towards me. In a single motion, he had my arm in his hands and was pulling me outside.
He spun me around to face him and when I did, I was terrified. Corey was fuming mad and for good reason. But that didn’t stop me from wanting nothing more than to crawl under a rock.
“When did you find out?” he asked through gritted teeth. I wanted to answer him, but my immediate thought was to calm him down. I longed to press my hand to his chest and just gaze into those blue eyes to help bring his heart rate down. Unfortunately, everything I was about to say was going to have the opposite effect.
Before I gave the answer that I knew would shatter him, I took him in. I let myself memorize that perfect face with day-old stubble surrounding his oh-so-kissable lips. His eyes were an endless blue that I could stare in for as long as I had air in my lungs. It was that gut wrenching pain behind them that was killing me and, after my answer, there was only going to be more. With a rather large sigh, I prepared myself for the vicious onslaught that was bound to come my way.
“Since before I moved back.” His hands were instantly thrust into his hair. Even through his sweatshirt sleeves, I could see his arms tensing with stress. He hung his head, pressing his fingers over the bridge of his nose. I watched every move he made, but when his head suddenly snapped up and his eyes blazed with fire—I jumped.
“How in the hell could you keep this from me, Danielle! Were you ever going to tell me!?” His face contorted as if someone had whispered a secret into his ear. Eyes widened, mouth opened slightly and his eyes narrowed. “Is it even mine?”
My hand immediately flew to my heart while the other covered my stomach. Although I’ve never experienced what a gunshot wound felt like, I now had a pretty good idea. The massive blow knocked the air from my lungs and made my heart cringe. I knew he would be hurt and upset but never did I think he’d question this baby as his own.
The tears piled up and caused a lump to rise in my throat and my stomach to do flips. I went through about every painful emotion known to man. I hurt for hurting him, I ached that I had kept this from him. But mostly I was angry that he would doubt me and even angrier that I could somewhat understand why he did.
He took a step forward into my personal space, but I held my ground. “How do I know you didn’t run from me to another distraction to fill your needs?”
“Are you kidding me right now?!” I yelled out.
I saw the hurt from his eyes fade away and, for a minute, I was still terrified by the cold glare that replaced it.
“I was about to ask you the same question! You run out on me. You wouldn’t commit to me. Now, it appears that it was you that hid the fact that I have a child that will be born into this world! Why would you not tell me something like that!?”
His tone was rough and commanding, giving me goose bumps. Corey’s voice had never reached this level of ferocity. Part of me wanted to curl up far away from this hatred and the other part wanted to cuddle up into his arms and make him stop being so mad. I hated seeing him mad but, even more, I hated knowing I’ve done nothing but hurt him with one thing after another.
“Because!” I yelled back, ready to throw out some ridiculous excuse. It was on the tip of my tongue when I stopped myself. This was not the way to get the only man for me back in my life. “I was scared.” My shoulders slumped down.
It was then that Karly walked out with panic in her eyes that slowly subsided when she saw we weren’t boxing in the parking lot. She stepped between us with a smile plastered over her face.
“You know what I’m craving?” she looked from me to Corey, waiting for us to respond.
With a sigh Corey finally appeased her. “What are you craving, Karly?”
“Ice cream.” Reluctantly Corey’s stern face pulled into something resembling a smile. I smiled too, just at the sight of him.
“It’s freezing outside,” he responded, his eyes looking everywhere but at me.
“Well, it’s a pregnant girl thing. So, Dani, what do you say we go get some ice cream?” Now I understood. Karly was defusing the flame and pulling me aside so we could talk privately. And, right now, I wanted nothing more than girl talk.
“I could so go for some ice cream.” My voice was shaky and I knew I was on the verge of tears. Karly’s unfailing smile let me know that she knew just how much I was struggling and that was making me want to cry even more. Damn hormones!
“Well, thanks for bringing me, Corey. I’m going to go out with Dani now.” He nodded his head and cast a look back at me. And for half a second I saw it—the same longing to hold me that I had to hold him. My heart fluttered and sank at the same time, if that was even possible.
“Yeah, no problem. Give me a call later, alright?”
“Sounds good!” Corey turned to leave and the next thing I knew, Karly was pushing me towards my car. I couldn’t walk away this way though. We needed to stop leaving things unsettled and unanswered.
“Hold on,” I mumbled to Karly as I started hurrying towards Corey’s Jeep.
He was just about to get into the car when I called out his name. Corey whipped back around and stared as I scrambled to him.
“What is it, Danielle?” His face panicked as he looked from my face to my belly … and his baby.
I finally made it to him and held out the small envelope filled with the beautiful pictures of my little bean. He looked at it but didn’t move to take it.
“The baby is yours, Corey. I haven’t been with anyone since you. Please, I want you to have these.” I handed him the envelope again and he took it. His eyes were locked on it and, even though he couldn’t see any of the pictures yet, it was still affecting me so strongly. When his eyes met mine, I saw them reddening with the strength it was taking to hold back tears.
Corey cleared his throat and nodded once. “Thank you.”
There were many more things I wanted to say, but this was his time. I’ve had months to let this news sink in and Corey was only just realizing that, in a few months’ time, he was going to be a father.
“We’ll take a large basket of fries, two hot fudge sundaes with nuts, and extra whipped cream. Oh! And definitely extra fudge and onion rings! Oh, wait. And one of those bacon cheeseburgers to split, of course!” Karly glanced at me and seemed to be debating something. “Make that two. I’m not sharing.”
The pimple-faced teenage boy wrote it down and looked at us like we just rolled in from some freak show convention.
“Will that be all?” he asked, not even bothering to hide his amusement.
This was Karly’s version of “cutting back” from her original order. To prove that I completely supported Karly’s food decision, I handed him the menus with a wink. “For now.”
Not far from the clinic, we spotted an old school malt and burger joint. Our pregnancy hormones seemed to decide that was the place for lunch far before either of us had opened our mouths. We spent twenty minutes going over the menu and debating our plan of attack. However, since we originally agreed on having just ice cream, we planned to cut back.
Now our “snack” was enough to feed a large family. Sadly enough, my stomach growled for exactly what was being whipped up for us. But now that the ordering stage was over, the awkward conversation part was up. Conversations with Karly had never before been difficult, especially since she did most of the talking. This time was different. I had a lot of explaining and catching up to do.
“How was the honeymoon?” I asked first.
Karly’s eyes lit up and immediately my body filled with ease. Maybe things really were going to be alright between us.
“Oh, my gosh, Dani! It was so amazing! We went to the Caribbean and it was pure perfection. Clear blue water, bright sunny skies and the most romantic settings. We went scuba diving, rode jet skis, swam with dolphins—it was more than I could imagine.”
“It sounds fabulous,” I gushed.
Karly twirled the straw in her cherry coke. A leisurely smile was in place while her mind took her back to her blissful vacation.
“It was beyond my greatest dreams. We had to basically have someone force us onto the plane home. There’s nothing like paradise to escape from everything.”
“Sounds like it. But now you got your own paradise,” I added, motioning to her belly.
This time, she beamed far brighter than before. “I seriously can’t believe I’m pregnant. Jake about passed out when I showed him twelve positive pregnancy tests. He really wanted to come today but his boss wouldn’t let him take another day off. That’s why Corey brought me.”
The way Corey’s name rolled off Karly’s tongue, as careless as a summer breeze, made me ache. It reminded me that the brief time when I could love and laugh with him whenever I wanted was over. Now I had to walk around on eggshells, hoping that I didn’t do anything to send him further away from me. It was terrifying and I was more than ready for this stage of discomfort to be over.
Karly undoubtedly caught the discomfort and sudden sadness that smacked me across the face. She crossed her hands and laid them on the table top, slightly closing the space between us. Something about the way the compassion rolled off her made me have to bite back encroaching tears.
“Dani,” she half whispered. I averted my eyes from the obnoxiously comforting and forgiving smile planted on her face.
“Yeah?” I asked, still refusing to look her way. The instant her hand touched mine a tear leaked out.
Screw these pregnancy hormones!
“You know I didn’t ask you here so I could sit and gush about myself, right?” I nodded. “You know this baby is going to be a dream come true to my brother. He may seem angry or hurt now but we both know that isn’t going to last.”
She paused. I assumed it was to let me say something, but I didn’t trust my voice yet. Karly took a sip of her drink, prompting me to do the same.
“Why did you leave, Dani? I know you had a job offer, but no job could ever take the place of the love you and Corey had.” I hung my head like a scolded puppy. I knew better.
My hands slid over my face to hide my embarrassment. “I don’t have an answer that won’t seem like an excuse.”
“So then, tell me the honest-to-God truth. No matter how difficult it may be.” I was rewarded with a time-out when the waiter delivered our massive amounts of food and ice cream.
Easier said than done, was what I wanted to say, but didn’t. I was tired of keeping everything locked away deep in my mind. It was dangerous to tread in the dark waters of my psyche, but it was safer to make the journey with another. I knew, without a doubt, that Karly was never going to judge and then shun me. I didn’t deserve a friend like her, but I wasn’t going to let myself take it for granted anymore.
“The pain and betrayal I’ve experienced in the past was devastating and taught me that there was no such thing as true love. That, combined with my less than stellar childhood, did nothing but teach me how to be tougher than nails. I was tired of being hurt and when I realized that Corey wasn’t going to hurt
me—I hurt him. I honestly couldn’t get myself to believe that Corey was the real deal.” Karly sat silently, taking a bite of her sundae. She was listening so intently to everything I had to say that I half wondered if she expected me to quiz her on it later.
With another deep breath, I restarted. “It’s a pathetic excuse but I didn’t know how to handle the intensity and connection we felt. In no time at all, he went from being just another face in a crowd to the whole reason I existed. I wanted him to love me. I wanted to love him back and I wanted a future. But there was just enough doubt in my head that told me it was time to run. So ultimately, I decided Corey was going to crush me sooner or later and I needed to get out while I could.”
Karly set the spoon down and raised a single finger in the space between us.
“There is one thing you’re forgetting—Corey didn’t, couldn’t, wouldn’t hurt you. I have had my fair share of cheating bastards in my life. And even though I love my mother, I still grew up knowing I was never going to be as important to her as my dad. Even though he walked out of our lives, she never let him go. So every single time I had my heart broken, lost a friend or just needed someone—I went to Corey. There has never been a single moment in my life that I questioned whether or not my brother would be there for me.”
My lips started to form my pathetic argument about there being a difference, but she beat me to it.
“It is not because I am his sister and it’s not because he has a family obligation to me. If that was true then the man that brought me into this world would have stuck around to see what happened to all of us. This is all just because he is the most amazing and generous person I’ve ever known. You will fight and you will have hard times, but that man is never going to walk away from you.”
An embarrassing sob raked through the depths of my chest. I buried my face into my hands and let the unavoidable meltdown take its toll. I wished I could just disappear from this far too public place and curl into a ball to drown out this humiliation. The booth seat shifted as Karly took the spot next to me and, within seconds, she had her arms wrapped tightly around my shoulders. The need to run and hide from this was what had screwed me up in the past, so this time I decided to change that.
I did the one thing I once avoided at all costs—I expressed myself.
“What if I screwed it all up, Karly? What if Corey really can’t forgive me for everything I’ve put him through? God! I don’t want us to be those parents that talk every other weekend when they’re switching their child from house to house. Whose only conversation consists of what the baby did this week.”
Picturing that awkward distance between us, of being nothing more to Corey than the mother of his child, completely broke me. My heart tightened, my lungs forgot how to work, and I was left gasping for air. Karly’s hand slowly rubbed circles on my back and was a welcome distraction.
“I don’t want to be jealous and resentful of my baby because it gets to have the man in their life that I tossed aside.”
Karly remained silent while I gave in to the onslaught of tears that didn’t want to stop. Finally, after what felt like hours and was probably only minutes, I could breathe again. I peeled my face away from my (now soaked) hoodie sleeves. Karly leaned over with a smile and placed a kiss to my temple.
“None of that is going to happen, Dani. Corey loves you. We all love you. You’re a part of us for good, I promise.”
Even though I knew Karly’s promise could easily be broken and it really guaranteed me nothing—it still did the trick. The anxiety and knots in my stomach began to fade away and I was finally hopeful for the future.
“Now let’s eat! Baby’s starving!” She declared before sliding back into her side of the booth. With a laugh and a grumble from my stomach, I agreed.
After we finished our monstrous amounts of ice cream, I dropped Karly back off at her car - which, unfortunately for me, was at Corey’s bar. My eyes darted around the parking lot in search of his Jeep, but it was nowhere in sight. I couldn’t deny that little part of me that was bummed out that he wasn’t home and I quickly had to silence any thoughts making me wonder where he might be. Karly noticed, of course, and gave a reassuring squeeze of my shoulder.
“When he has a lot on his mind he likes to drive around. It helps him think, that’s all. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
I brushed her off with a forced laugh. “Yeah, no. I mean, it’s nothing. I mean it isn’t like I was going to go talk to him right now or anything.”
“Mhmm,” she said with a smirk before saying goodbye.
We waved goodbye as she started up her car and drove off towards her happy home to bask in the bliss of a baby with the man she loved. I envied her. Since there was nothing I could do about that right now however, I decided to do something else I was, quite frankly, dreading. Before I had a chance to talk myself out of it, I put my car into drive and headed towards my destination.
Sitting in front of my Grandmother’s house always seemed to make my heart race. Repeating the manta, I can do this, wasn’t having the effect I had hoped for. Then again, I expected to walk inside with my chest pushed out in a “Superman out to save the world” kind of way and deliver the news. I wouldn’t wait for her response. I would just fly back out of there and go fight some crime or something. Okay, I didn’t have all the details quite worked out, but it seemed fine for now! Besides, if I sat in my car procrastinating any longer, my Gram was going to storm outside and
… shit.
My eyes darted towards the door and there she was, standing with a scowl as she stared at me. Her arms went out to either side, asking what I was doing. I put on a brave (sort of) face and smiled with a wave. Deep breath. I stepped out of the car and kept my face locked into a smile.
“What are you doing sitting outside the house like that? You’re going to draw unnecessary attention to us by doing that,” she hollered, undoubtedly drawing more attention to us than me sitting alone.
“I haven’t been out here for that long,” I clarified as I got closer.
She twisted the thin gold watch along her wrist and pointed at it as if that was going to have any meaning to me. When I looked from the watch and back to her face, I could sense her anger rising that I didn’t get it. With her hands thrust onto her hips and a disapproving purse of her lips, she continued to glare.
“It has been twelve minutes,” my eyebrows rose with surprise.
“That is astonishingly precise.”
“Well, come on in. We’re letting all the heat out.” Although the air was freezing, I knew stepping inside would be walking directly into the fire. Before I had the chance to back out though, Gram took my arm and pulled me in.
No going back now.
I followed her into the living room where my Grandpa sat in his favorite chair reading a book. He peeked above his reading glasses and his face cracked from the concentrated stare to a jolly wide grin.
“What a pleasant surprise, Danielle. Your Grandmother said you were here but you were outside so long I thought she was merely joking.” From behind me I heard my Gram snort at his comment.
Don’t roll eyes. Don’t roll eyes.
“Yeah, I was just … thinking.” I found myself trailing off, but I couldn’t resist.
My hands were shaking and beads of sweat began to form at the back of my neck. I was scared shitless.
“Thinking about what, Dolly?” Grandpa took that as enough reason to slip his bookmark in and set his reading aside.
I opened my mouth to start, hoping Gram would take a hint and sit down to hear me out. Of course not. I love the woman, but she did not know when to sit down. She took a hold of the duster sitting out on the table and began prancing around the living room hitting every crevice of the room. My eyes trailed after the busy working bee and suddenly I forgot everything I had on my mind.
“Dolly, is everything okay?” I snapped my attention back to Grandpa. He paid no attention to his wife, especially since it was probably a normal thing for him to see.
“Um, yes. I just
…” Gram tossed a look my way but didn’t stray from her meticulous cleaning methods. I wrung my hands together and let out an exasperated sigh.