But that didn’t change that the tests were there. A bag full of used pregnancy tests in the bathroom I was sharing with Maya. I stuffed the test back into the box where I had gotten it, tied the bag closed again, and buried it at the bottom of the trash can where it had been before I managed to kick it over.
Still sitting at the edge of the tub, not wanting to move, I thought back to our first time together. It was a surprise, not something we had carefully planned out. Maya was so busy getting my clothes off I hadn’t been able to think clearly. And that meant I hadn’t grabbed a condom.
Come to think of it, I probably didn’t even have one at the time. It wasn’t like I was running around having a ton of sex. There was no reason for me to keep condoms stocked in the apartment. I bought a box after that first time, but we definitely didn’t use them our first night together.
I hadn’t even been thinking about it. We used a condom every other time since, as far as I could recall, so I must have just let that first oversight slide out of my memory.
And it was a major oversight. Possibly one with huge consequences. What if Maya was pregnant? What would that mean for us?
It would be a lie if I said that thought hadn’t flickered through my mind when she was talking about feeling sick. Then the look on Minnie’s face when I was talking about getting her on my insurance led me in that direction as well. But it hadn’t been a serious contemplation. It was just one of those things that briefly flashed into my thoughts, then left.
After all, she was convinced she had food poisoning. The more logical thing after that was that she was dealing with a stomach virus. It didn’t seem plausible that she could actually be carrying my baby.
I thought of all the nights of hard work she had put in since that first time. She had pushed herself, working hard for long hours. That couldn’t be good for her or for the baby. Not to mention the alcohol she had right around that time. I knew she wasn’t drinking now because she didn’t want to drink while she was at work, but I was still getting worried.
I decided right then I wasn’t going to bring it up to her. Even though a big part of me wanted to wake her up and demand she give me an explanation, I decided to stay quiet. I wouldn’t say I found the tests or give any indication I knew what was going on. I was going to wait for her to bring it up when the time was right for her.
The truth was, if I was freaking out about this, she definitely was.
I couldn’t even begin to imagine what it must be like to think about carrying a new life inside her. That she was the only thing supporting it and taking care of it. She must have been in a strange place trying to figure out how she felt and what was going to happen moving forward. I would give her the respect of deciding when to broach the topic with me.
Feeling a little better, I went into the bedroom and slid into bed beside her. I reached one arm around her and pulled Maya in close to my side. She sighed and rested her head on my chest, draping her arm over my stomach. I kissed the top of her head and closed my eyes, envisioning a baby that had her eyes and my hair.
29
Maya
When I woke up Monday morning, I braced myself for another wave of horrible nausea. I lay on my back for a few seconds, just waiting to have to run to the bathroom. When it didn’t immediately hit, I cautiously pulled myself up to a sitting position and waited again.
It was far earlier in the morning than I really needed to be up, but there was so much on my mind, I couldn’t sleep. Greg lay there beside me, deeply asleep and unaffected by me moving. I didn’t even notice him come in the night before. By the time I went to sleep, I was so exhausted and overwhelmed I was completely dead to the world. I didn’t even realize he had gotten home until I came awake for a few seconds in the middle of the night and noticed he was there beside me.
I could feel his warmth and his arm wrapped around me. I nuzzled against him, wanting to enjoy that feeling. Easing out of bed, I made my way into the kitchen to make him breakfast. As long as I could move around and not get sick again, I wanted to do something special for him.
After all, he was about to get some news that would change his life. I wanted to give him at least a little bit of pampering before that.
As I cooked, my stomach started to feel a little bit squishy. Not exactly sick, like I needed to rush off the bathroom and throw up again, but just unsure of itself. I had heard of women who didn’t really experience morning sickness when they were pregnant. Instead, they experienced nausea later in the day, or kind of on a perpetual basis, just dealing with different degrees of it at any given time.
It seemed I was going to be that type of woman. At least, that was what I was getting from the last few days of being sick. One more thing I was going to have to think about, one more thing that was completely new to me and that I would need to wrap my head around as I dealt with it for the months ahead.
At least I wouldn’t have to do it completely alone. I needed to tell Greg and just accept however he was going to react to it. It was the right thing to do. He needed to know, and I needed to not be on my own through this.
So, I was going to make him breakfast, and we would sit down and have a conversation before he went to work. This would give him a built-in out. He would be able to leave without seeming like a jerk and spend the day at work thinking about the whole situation so he could figure out how he felt about it and be ready to talk about it when he got home.
This was my plan. I was studying it and felt good about it. Right up until Greg woke up.
I was expecting him to react to me making breakfast the same way he usually did. He would come into the kitchen, wrap his arms around my waist, and nuzzle his face down into that curve between my neck and shoulder. He would tell me whatever I was making smelled good and go over and get himself a cup of coffee. It was an easy, predictable rhythm we had fallen into and a good start to any day.
Except, apparently, that day. I was at the stove making a stack of banana walnut pancakes to go with the bacon frying up crisp on a griddle and the eggs I was going to scramble up last minute when I heard Greg coming down the hallway.
I readied myself, but he walked in and walked right past me. He went over to the coffee maker and poured himself a cup, barely even acknowledging that I was there. Just a quick glance out of the corner of his eye and nothing else.
“Good morning,” I said.
“Morning,” he said. “How are you?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Just thought I would make you breakfast before you went to work.”
“That was nice of you,” he said. “I appreciate it.”
I nodded, and he walked out of the kitchen to the living room. He sat down and turned the news on. He continued to be weird through the rest of the morning and as we sat eating breakfast. I decided then not to tell him that morning. For all my bravado, with him already acting strange, I didn’t want to venture into that.
A week later, Greg hadn’t stopped being weird. Some moments when he was friendlier than others, I thought he might be going back to his usual self. He would wrap me up in a hug or kiss me, but he still didn’t feel like him. He was being strange, pulling away from me. It felt like he had reconsidered what was going on between us.
Maybe he’d talked about it more with his mother, or after inheriting from his father he decided I was better left in his past. Or at least that he could do better now and wanted to reset our relationship. Maybe he was upset with me about something and just didn’t want to say anything. There were sometimes when I caught him looking at me and there was an expression in his eyes like I had done something wrong.
I couldn’t think of anything, but he never started a conversation, so all I could do was wait and hope.
Maybe I wouldn’t tell him. At least not yet. If we were going to end up breaking up, there was no point in opening up to him now. I didn’t want to seem like I was trying to trap him the way his grandmother accused his mother of trapping his father. If this was going to be the way it was g
oing to work out between us, I would wait until it all went down and figured out what I was going to do next.
As steady and secure as I tried to be, the situation got more painful and more challenging every day. I was still feeling sick, and I couldn’t seem to get enough energy. After the home pregnancy test, I finally managed to get into my doctor for an appointment.
After confirming with a test in her office, she went over the timeline I gave her and the start of my last period, then gave me my due date. Part of me was excited. Just hearing the day when I could anticipate my baby being born was a thrill.
At the same time, I couldn’t help but think about Greg. He should have been there with me. These were all things that we should be hearing together. Not because I couldn’t handle it or because I couldn’t make these decisions by myself, but because he was involved, and no matter what was going on, there was still a big part of me that wanted him to be there every single step of the way.
Not to mention how much my heart still ached for him. How much it killed me to think that what I thought was such an amazing start to our relationship could be over.
I left the doctor’s office just before I had to head into work. The emotion of it all crashed down on me as I drove toward the bar with the stack of papers and information stuffed in my glove compartment so no one would see them.
I didn’t want to completely break down about it, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. I walked into the bar fighting tears, trying to stay as strong as I possibly could. But the second I went into the back to clock in and saw Lindsey, I was a complete mess.
Bursting into tears, I hung my head and gave up even trying to hold it together and not be a total disaster. Lindsey put down the box of to-go containers she was putting in the storeroom right next to the monitor where I clocked in. Rushing over to me, she wrapped her arms around me and held me close.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
“I think Greg is going to break up with me,” I said with a sob. “It just started, and now I think it’s all over.”
Lindsey just kept hugging me while I clung to her and cried. She let me get it out until I was calm enough for her to step back and hold me by the shoulders while she looked me in the eye.
“Why do you think that?” she asked.
I shrugged, not ready to divulge the full story to her yet. “He’s just being really weird. He’s different. Like he’s pulling away.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think he’s going to break up with you. I’m just going to start right there. I think everything is going to be absolutely fine. But if something happens, I can promise you, you still have me.”
“Really?”
“Of course. You think I would give up our friendship for some silly boy? Never. And because I know what you went through and what’s probably on your mind right now, I want to show you something. Come with me,” she said.
“Where are we going?”
“Just come with me,” she said, taking my hand and leading me through a door at the back of the storage room I had never seen open before.
When she opened the door, I was shocked to see a short staircase leading up to another door. We climbed up to it, and she reached into her pocket for the keys. Unlocking the door, she opened it up and gestured for me to go inside.
“Go ahead,” she said. “I promise it’s safe.”
I walked in, and she reached around to flip a light switch right next to the door. The overhead fixture illuminated a small living room, and ahead of me I could see a kitchen and a hallway.
“What is this?” I asked.
“When my grandfather first designed the building to have the bar in it, he wanted an apartment over it where he could live. This is before he married my grandmother. He lived here for a long time, even right after they got married before they bought their house. Then my father lived here before he met my mother. I have not lived here, but I’ve been known to take a nap on that couch every now and then.”
“This is amazing. I had no idea it was here,” I said.
“Most people don’t. But I wanted to show you because I wanted you to know if something happens and you are suddenly out of Greg’s apartment, you’re not homeless. You absolutely have somewhere to go.”
I looked at her with my eyes still dripping and my mouth hanging open. “You would let me stay here?”
“Absolutely. For as long as you wanted. And, silver lining, it would make your commute to work much easier.”
I laughed, and she gave me another hug. It made me feel better, but there was still an ache in my heart. I threw everything into work, trying to focus as much as I could so I didn’t dwell on Greg. When I got home the next morning, I went into my old bedroom and crawled into the empty, abandoned bed and fell asleep.
30
Greg
I didn’t think I was going to find myself back in the place where I would be lying awake listening for Maya to come into the house after work and wondering if she would come to bed. I had just gotten so accustomed to her always coming in, there was no question. It wasn’t even my room anymore. It was our room.
But that Monday, things changed. It had been tense and a bit awkward between us for the last week since I found out about the pregnancy tests. Every day, I waited for her to say something about it. Every day, I expected that conversation to start, especially when she gave me one of those looks like she was thinking hard and trying to come up with the exact words she wanted to say.
But she never did. Never once did she even come close to broaching the subject. A couple of times, I tried to lead her into it. I asked her how she was feeling, if her stomach was doing better. I asked if she had made an appointment with the doctor. I thought it might make it easier if she had a smooth and easy way to slip into the conversation.
Instead, she deftly avoided the topic and answered her way around the questions. She wasn’t lying, but she definitely wasn’t telling the truth, either. Maybe she did feel better than she did those first couple of days and there would have been no reason for her to talk to a doctor about food poisoning.
But I still wondered if she had gone to the doctor at all. And I expected her to take those questions and explain why she was feeling sick. When she didn’t, an uncomfortable reality started to sink in. It wasn’t something I even thought about it first. It didn’t even occur to me.
It started creeping around somewhere in the back of my mind by Wednesday. But I pushed it down, swallowing it and forcing it away so that I didn’t think about it. I didn’t think much about it again until that weekend when she still hadn’t said anything even all day on Thursday. Her day off would have been the perfect opportunity, time for us to spend together talking and working things out.
But it was Monday, a full week after I found the test, that I really had to come to terms with the lingering question in the back of my mind. All night, I lay awake waiting for her to get home from work. When she did, she hesitated in the hallway much like she did weeks before. Then she turned and went into her old bedroom.
When I woke up Monday morning, I peeked into the room. She was curled up in a tight ball on the bed, gripping the blankets in front of her so tightly it almost looked like she was awake. My heart broke when I saw that. It was a painful, miserable sort of confirmation.
For some of that week, I forced myself to consider that she wasn’t pregnant at all. Maybe she didn’t actually have anything to tell me. She could have suspected that she was pregnant just because of how she was feeling and the fact that we hadn’t been particularly careful, took the test, and found out it was negative.
But the later the week progressed, the more I realized that didn’t make any sense. She was acting so strange, and if she wasn’t pregnant, she would have no reason to hide the test and not tell me about them. I would expect her to tell me she had taken a test as soon as she saw me again.
Which left me with only one thing to think about. Only one realization I had to come to te
rms with. If she didn’t want to tell me she was pregnant, it was because she could be pregnant with Marshall’s child rather than mine. Just the idea of that was eating me up. I couldn’t stand the idea of her carrying that guy’s baby. It infuriated me and made me feel sick.
Not that it would mean that she had done anything wrong. They were together for a long time, and I couldn’t just pretend nothing ever happened in their relationship. It hurt so much because everything—everything about our relationship, everything about what we could have into our future—was completely different now.
She didn’t want to tell me, so she was leaving me completely in the dark, and I hated that. I hated the idea that she was hiding something so huge from me and didn’t trust what my reaction might be to the situation.
That might have been the worst part about it. If it was Marshall’s baby, did that mean she wasn’t intending on staying? Maybe that’s what it was. She knew she was pregnant with his child and intended on going back to him, telling him about the pregnancy and seeing if they could work things out.
Not that I saw that going particularly well for her. Marshall wasn’t known for his compassion and I didn’t doubt that he would shirk responsibility for anything that interfered with his plans for himself.
I wanted nothing more than for her to be happy. I had done everything to try to give her a chance to be happy here. And she couldn’t even have enough respect for me to tell me the truth and let me know what was going on.
Without bothering to pack her a lunch like usual or even leave her a note, I slammed the door and headed out to work. It didn’t even matter to me if I woke her up. Right then, I just wanted to be away from her.
The anger carried me through the rest of the morning and past lunch. The rest of the team sat around the field together, enjoying the picnic the Freeman family set out for us, but I sat off to the side and ate sullenly by myself. As soon as I was finished, I stormed back to the garage and buried myself in work.
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