Light Up My Life

by Winters, Bella

  After my stomach settled down, I pulled the home pregnancy test from my bathroom closet. I’d picked it up from the drug store a few days ago and been too afraid to take it until right now. But enough was enough. I had to do it. I’d waited long enough.

  I read the instructions, took the test, and then waited for several minutes until it was ready to show the results. I couldn’t believe it. It was positive. I was pregnant. I was … pregnant?

  I held my hands over my mouth gasping in terror. I… how could this be happening right now? Shit… why weren’t we careful? I just didn’t think it would happen. I wanted Lance so badly that I didn’t dare think about such a thing. And now it was, a thing… what was I going to do?

  First, I’d have to tell Lance. Then I’d have to tell my coach. We were only halfway through the season. I had a lot of games left to pitch in. But I couldn’t play pregnant, there were too many risks.

  My life was about to change significantly. I was scared. But I took a deep breath. I tried to imagine my mother there with me. What would she tell me to do?

  “Ok, sweetie,” she would have said. “You are going to snap out of it. Congratulations on being a mama. Now, get yourself together. Then take each thing step by step until you have everything together. One thing at a time. That’s all it takes.”

  I wiped a tear from my mother. I could hear her comforting me that way sometimes. I missed her so much.

  I decided to take the advice. First, I called a doctor to schedule an appointment to confirm the result of the test. Next, I decided to call Lance and tell him the news. He wasn’t answering. It went straight to voicemail. I wondered where he was and what he was doing that he couldn’t be bothered to answer his phone. Then I realized that I did not really care.

  But I did leave the voicemail and now I was basically waiting on pins and needles for him to call me back. It was not a definite thing though. I knew those home pregnancy tests could sometimes yield false positives.

  It was some wishful thinking on my part, but I would soon know for sure. My doctor’s appointment was that afternoon at three. They were able to work me in on short notice since I told them I was going out of town for a week. I had to know before I went on the road to play. Then I would tell the coach about my situation.

  I had to go to practice today though. It would be a light practice for me, since I’d pitched a full game the day before. I would just do some light throwing. I would not be putting the baby in any kind of danger. It felt so strange to think that I had a baby growing inside of me. Was I about to become a mother? For real?

  I wasn’t sure what to think about that.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Lance

  I woke up to a strange noise.

  I’d fallen asleep after doing a twenty-four hour shift at the fire station. It turned out to be quite the busy night and I was exhausted. As soon as I came home, I crashed, out like a light. I was sleeping soundly until I heard the noise.

  I waited there in the semi darkness of my bedroom. I had the curtains pulled tightly, but they did not block out everything. Some residual light was still able to get through there. I listened and I waited. There was something not quite right here.

  I grabbed my phone and checked my security system. I’d forgotten to arm it before I crashed. Dammit. I tried to arm it, but it wouldn’t. It kept telling me that one of my zones was open. I would have to bypass it to arm. I was not ready for that, yet. No…if the zone was open then that meant that someone had broken in somehow. Shit.

  My first thought was to call the cops, but then I saw something peculiar on the camera. A figure was walking up to the door. I did not recognize him until he was right there. Then I realized it was my friend, Bobby. Did he do this somehow? What the hell?

  He rang the doorbell. I heard it echoing all through the house. I put on my bathrobe and stepped out of the bedroom to head downstairs and answer the door. The second I stepped into the hallway I felt hands grabbing me in several places and restraining me. What in the hell was happening? I tried to scream, but the bag that was being placed over my head was cutting off the sound.

  I felt myself being lifted in the air and carried. There had to be at least three or four guys there. “What the hell is going on?” I yelled into the bag. It was so muffled. The sound was reverberating around my ears.

  I was carried downstairs and out the door where I could hear a car engine. This did not sound good. As I neared the engine, I felt my body being tilted sideways and then thrown into the vehicle. It sounded and felt like a van. After I landed, I heard the other doors shut and the van drive off.

  As we drove, I was being thrown around the back of the car, rolling first one side, and then rolling to the other.

  Where was I going? Would I end up right beside my dad, dead before his time? Was my life really going to be cut short today? I felt the air leaving my lungs and failing to return. I wasn’t sure how far I was going to make it before these people decided to kill me. I needed to just relax and wait for the right opportunity to strike. Then I would be able to try to fight my way out of this.

  I heard the car come screeching to a halt, and a moment later the door opened. Then, I heard nothing. Everything was silent for a moment, and then I heard some giggles and laughter. Slowly the tension and the fear went out of my body. I could recognize the laughter of some of the guys from the crew. These people were my friends. They were pulling some kind of an elaborate prank on me. What the hell?

  “I’m going to kill you guys,” I said with a smile widening across my face. They’d gotten me so good. This was the best prank ever. I could have sworn I was about to die.

  The bag came off my head and I saw Bobby, Zane, Frank, and Joey standing there laughing their stupid asses off. I couldn’t believe how they’d gotten me.

  And then I saw what was really going on. We were standing in front of the Centerfold Studio, a popular strip club in that end of town. I’d been there on more than a few occasions hanging out with these guys. I kind of had a feeling what was going on, but it was twelve o’clock in the afternoon…

  “Why are we here?” I asked as I stood up out of the back of the van.

  Bobby stepped forward. “This is your non bachelor party!”

  “My what?”

  “Yeah, we figured since you are broken up with that girl you were going to marry, that now you need a party to throw you back in the wild so you can go nuts. You deserve a proper send off.”

  I started chuckling and slapping high fives. “This is crazy. You guys are crazy… but I like it. This is why you’re best friends. This right here. Ok, let’s go have some fun!”

  The guys had rented out the strip club for an afternoon of drinking and fun with beautiful strippers. It was a fun time in a fun atmosphere, but I was not feeling all that festive. I really wanted to be with Kat. I would rather have been watching her dance privately for me. The entire time I was feeling a bit guilty about things. I didn’t want to be with other women dancing for me, taking their clothes off and rubbing on me. A few of them even asked me if I wanted to go to the Jacuzzi with them. They were going to do something extra that the guys had paid for. I told the other guys to go ahead and take my turn. I was not ready for that.

  They all thought I was crazy, but I felt like I was cheating on Kat. I sure as hell didn’t want to even go near that neighborhood. Even though we were technically done, I still felt like I was with her. I could sense her, feel her close to me, constantly wondering what she was doing, etc. Why couldn’t we work this out?

  I should have said I would marry her. I didn’t want to be married. It was against everything I stood for, but would I ever be happy without Kat in my life? I really didn’t think so. Would I be willing to put aside that principle, something that was so important for me for the woman I loved?

  Yes, I had to. I couldn’t live this way.

  I left the party early, feeling like crap. I had to talk to Kat.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

&nb
sp; Kat

  I was nervous as hell when I walked into the doctor’s office. I was shocked they’d agreed to see me on such short notice. I was a new patient after all, but after explaining everything to them about my predicament they told me to come on in since they’d just had a cancellation.

  After waiting in the waiting room for about ten minutes, the nurse called me back. She quickly took my vitals and began a new chart for me. A technician took some blood after that and then she went to have it tested in the lab. I was surprised when she said the test would not take that long. I always thought it took days. Then she said the doctor would be in within a few minutes. And now, I was alone in the room.

  The walls seemed to be closing in on me. I was feeling anxious and stressed to the max. What was happening to me? I was scared as I could be, that’s what. I had no idea what I was going to do. If I was out of work for over a year with carrying the baby to term delivering, healing and everything else that went along with becoming a new mother, I wasn’t sure I’d be asked to come back to play. I also did not have enough money saved to support myself for a year, much less adding a baby to the mix. I was starting to wish I’d taken that offer with the Julie situation. Maybe it wasn’t too late…

  The doctor came in just then. He was a middle-aged man with a bald head and an overflowing belly, but he looked nice enough. He looked as if he’d been doing this job for far too long. “I’m Doctor Ryan,” he said introducing himself to me.

  I shook his hand and then I watched patiently while he went over my chart. He was taking his good time looking over things, occasionally pausing to ask me some questions about the new patient information forms I’d filled out in the lobby when I had first arrived.

  “No history of diabetes in the family?” Dr. Ryan asked.

  “No,” I replied.

  He continued to scan. “No history of epilepsy or blood disorders either?”

  “No, nothing,” I replied.

  “Ok, let’s take a look at you here,” the Doctor said. He did a cursory exam looking in my eyes, my nose, my ears, my throat, checking my lymph nodes, and finally listening to my heart and lungs. “Ok, everything sounds fine there,” he said draping the stethoscope around his neck.

  “Ok, what about my results?” I asked nervously.

  “Well, we looked over the results and it looks like you are pregnant,” he replied with a smiled.

  He must have noticed the look of terror on my face because he slowly wiped that expression off his face. I tried not to cry, but the tears began to sting my eyes almost instantly. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Why now? Why? Shit. What was I going to do?

  “I take it this was not a planned pregnancy?” Dr. Ryan asked.

  “No, it was not,” I said.

  “Well, that does happen. I’m going to tell you, what I tell all my patients in your situation. I don’t believe in mistakes. I believe in wakeup calls. Sometimes the universe makes colossal changes to the program in our lives to jar us into taking swift action to reevaluate things and make some necessary changes. But often those wake-up calls are the biggest blessings in our lives.”

  “Right,” I said. “I totally believe that. Thanks.”

  When I was finished at the doctor’s office, I found I felt a bit stronger, but I still wasn’t sure what to do. Should I tell Lance? I’m sure he would want to know about this, and he deserved to, but at the same time I was afraid he would want to marry me.

  “Well, isn’t that what you want?” Kayley asked me when I called her and told her everything. She said this after screaming in my ear for ten minutes about how happy she was for me.

  I loved that girl.

  “Yes. I want Lance to marry me, but only if he wants to. I don’t want him to feel forced to because I’m pregnant.”

  “You think he would? If he is against marriage that much, then I don’t see why he would think this was different.”

  I sighed. “I know him too well. This to him would only make sense. He has some old school foundations in him. He would absolutely want to marry me just because of the baby.”

  “Well, that might not be a bad thing. You wouldn’t have to worry about finances for you or the baby. I know you would never use the situation for money, but here it is, and it might just be the best way to go, you know? You have to think about what is best for the baby now and not just what satisfies your own ego.”

  “Yes, you’re right,” I said. “I haven’t talked to him in over two weeks. I’m not sure what I would even say to him.”

  “You’re pregnant. Lead with that. I think he will shit himself.”

  I laughed hard. “You’re probably right.”

  It was always so good to talk with Kayley. She had that way about her of making everything seem so much simpler. I ended my phone call and sat there on my couch thinking about my next move. I had to call and tell him. Lance deserved to know.

  But first, I would have to alert my coach. Starting immediately, her star pitcher was out for the season. That was going to be quite the blow.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Lance

  I was in Cleveland. It felt odd being back even though I’d only been gone from it for two weeks. It was becoming a place I was getting used to being, but for some reason did not quite feel like it would ever be home. Not yet…

  I’d convinced myself that this was the right thing to do. I had not seen Kat in almost three weeks. I had not heard from her in all that time either. I was going crazy without her in my life. After doing some serious soul searching, I had finally decided that I had to be ok with getting married. It was the only way that I could be with Kat forever. I would have to say goodbye to a few things. Namely, I would have to leave the fire crew I was in and move to a different city, see if I could get on a new ladder. With my experience, I thought I probably could.

  Those were a lot of changes I was about to make for the woman I loved. I knew it was the right thing to do. I was parked right in front of Kat’s house waiting, trying to work up the nerve to go inside. I’d been sitting there for about five minutes. We didn’t leave on the best of terms the last time. Would she be excited to see me? I wasn’t sure about that... there were some things said that were hard to take back, mostly said by her about me, but I was willing to look past them. But often the person who said the wrong thing often had the hardest time forgiving themselves even if the offended person openly forgave them.

  I was willing to risk it. This would not be comfortable, but it was something I had to do. I wanted to. I needed her in my life.

  I strode up to the door and rang the doorbell. When Kat answered, she was shocked to see me. I thought she might slam the door in my face, but she didn’t. Her face softened and she smiled. She looked up at me with that beautiful, sweet smile.

  “Hi,” I said. “Would you believe I was just in the neighborhood?”

  She giggled. “Well, you have a jet. So…. I would believe that.”

  “Ah, was that a rich joke…?” I teased.

  Kat leaned forward and whispered. “Maybe a little one.”

  I nodded. She motioned for me to come in. So far this was starting off fantastically. It was like we’d never been out of each other’s lives, even for a few weeks. It wasn’t that long, but I spent every single second wishing that this amazing woman was with me in my bed snuggling with me. That made our separation feel like a lifetime.

  She motioned for me to have a seat on the couch and sat down across from me. “It’s good to see you,” she said. “I wanted to apologize about the last time. I flew way off the handle. I’m sorry. I have no right to tell you how to live your life.”

  I was shocked that she was apologizing so quickly. “Thanks for saying that. I owe you an apology as well. I got rather defensive about it, I guess. That might be the main reason I am here.”

  “Oh?” Kat asked. I could see that this had piqued her interest. She was leaning back now and staring at me intently with those amazing eyes. She looked so beautiful.
She was perfect. It felt almost like I hadn’t seen her in many years. I felt my love for her glowing inside of me spreading warmly within my being. I just wanted to walk over and hold her tightly against me. I needed her like I needed my very next breath.

  “Yes, I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching and coming to terms with some things, and I’ve realized that I was wrong. I do want to marry you, if you’ll have me of course. I love you and I can’t live without you. My reasons for not wanting marriage are selfish and I’m sorry that I have been so stubborn. The more I think about the idea, the more perfect it seems. I want to see you walking down the aisle. I want to see you in that perfect dress, and I want to declare my love for you in front of everyone. I need to do this. I need you, baby.”

  I was on the verge of tears. Pouring my heart out like this was not something that I was used to. It was tough, but it was so gratifying. I just needed to get this off my chest and I realized it had been building up there for so long. I needed to be real with myself, truthful about who I was and what I really wanted. And more importantly, what I needed. Who I needed.

  Kat wiped a tear from her own eye. She was looking into me, her gaze was full of sweet emotion and happiness. I felt her pain and heartache which mirrored my own right then. I loved her so much. I’d missed her more than she could ever know.

  “You really mean this?” Kat asked me. She wiped the tears from her eyes and straightened herself up to focus on me. I could see exactly how emotional all of this really was for her.

  “Yes,” I said. “I mean every word.”

  I walked over to her and stooped down on one knee right then. I pulled the ring box from the inside pocket of my jacket and then I opened it up to her. She was now staring at the large rock inside the box, bawling, as I looked into her eyes. I took her hand and held it softy in mine. “Kat Sellers,” I said. “You are my whole world. I can imagine nothing in my life meaning anything without you. Would you give me the greatest honor and become my wife?”