by Sam Mariano
"I will never do that," he said.
"Yeah, well, pardon me if I don't automatically believe you," I muttered.
"I'm going to earn your trust back, Nikki," he stated.
"You can try," I said.
He slanted me a look, pulling me back in for another kiss. "Don't sound so confident in my abilities," he said sarcastically.
I shrugged. "I can't help it, Derek. You're lucky I ever decided to trust you in the first place, but things just aren't going to go back to how they were. I don't even know if I'll be able to trust you again, but even if I can, it may not come easy. All I can promise is that I'll try."
"I don't care," he said. "I'm not letting you go again. As long as you're willing to give me another chance, we're going to make this work."
"Even if Kayla tries to stop you?"
"Even then," he agreed.
"Okay," I said carefully, wondering if I was making another mistake. "And if you find out you've knocked anyone else up –which, I'm warning you, you better not—you will not dump me to go running to her rescue?"
"No. That was a mistake. I don't even know what I was thinking, I wasn’t thinking, I just... I mean, I found out I'm going to be a father. I haven’t even graduated high school yet. Just accepting that this is actually going to happen hasn't been fun. There was lots of pot involved to calm me down, but there isn't enough pot in the world to make me okay with playing house with Kayla."
I scoffed at the idea. "No, I don't think there's even enough morphine in the world for that."
He half smiled, reaching over to lightly take my hand. "I'm sorry I've put you through all this, Nikki. I never wanted to prove you right about this."
I nodded. "I'm sorry I lied to you about the whole Andy thing. Maybe if I wouldn't have lost my mind and been so childish, this whole thing never would’ve happened."
He shrugged. "We can't undo any of it, so we may as well just make the best of it." Almost as an afterthought, he added, "Oh, and will you please take your car? It's hogging up my spot in the garage."
I smiled. "I miss my car."
"It misses you, too. Take it?"
"I don't know," I said reluctantly. "I think we should take it slow this time."
"Slow?"
"Yeah. I don't think we should go jumping into anything again."
"Well... okay, but we are back together, aren't we?"
"Yeah, I think so. I guess I am allowed to take the car if we're back together," I reasoned.
"Yes, you are," he said, standing up and holding his hand out to take mine.
I put my hand in his and also stood.
"Want to sit with me at lunch?" he asked.
"That will make Kayla really mad," I warned him.
"What's she gonna do, break up with me?"
Thinking about it, I realized the whole situation was going to make Kayla mad, because she thought she won.
Oddly, I didn't feel too bad about bursting her bubble.
The transition phase was a little more awkward than either of us hoped it would be. As much as I wanted to just hold onto Derek and not let anyone take him from me again, my sense of self-preservation implored me to be cautious, take it slow—just in case.
As much as I liked Derek –and honestly, probably still loved him—I saw no reason to advertise it. As far as I was concerned, my feelings for Derek were a shameful weakness that I didn't want people to know about, least of all Derek himself. I was having a hard enough time admitting it to myself, so why bring anyone else into it?
I did sit with him at lunch that day, and for all that it embarrassed me that I took him back so easily, it was almost worth it when I saw the frozen look of shock on Kayla's face as Derek put a hand on the small of my back and leaned in to whisper in my ear before we sat down. At first she just stared, unable to blink or lift her jaw up off the table, but when she realized something was happening that wasn't in her plan, her eyes flared and she nearly knocked someone's tray in their lap in her haste to get over to us.
“Prepare for drama," I muttered to Derek.
"What?" he asked, since he hadn’t been paying attention to Kayla.
I didn't have to answer him, as Kayla stormed up to the table at exactly that moment.
"What the hell is going on here?" she demanded. "What is that whore doing sitting next to you?"
"Wow, I'm experiencing a sense of déjà vu," I murmured to Derek.
"Don't whisper to him!" Kayla shrieked.
I grimaced, covering my ear. "Okay, seriously, you need to lower your volume."
"Derek, I am your girlfriend," she stated.
He glanced up at her. "Do you have to do this right here? This is really not how I planned on having this conversation."
Her eyes were so wide it might have been comical if the circumstances were different.
"Derek!" she whined again. "I'm carrying your child!"
"I know that," he said, lowering his eyes. "We'll figure something out concerning...the baby. But we broke up for a reason, Kayla, and a baby isn't going to magically fix all that. If anything, it will just complicate things."
"So what, you don't want to have a baby now?" she asked, glaring at him. "If you would prefer, I can just go get an abortion, really clear the way for you and your whore."
Derek shot her a look. "We've already had that discussion, Kayla, you know that isn't what I want."
"Why should I give a damn what you want when you obviously don't care about me at all?"
At this point, there were several people from the surrounding tables watching the drama unfold.
And they had already discussed other options? For some reason, maybe because I hadn't been involved, I didn't realize that they had already discussed their predicament. That made me feel strangely out of the loop, and I wondered if Derek would even clue me in later. Was I supposed to be clued in? What was my role, exactly? Now there was going to be another little life brought into the whole situation? What was I getting myself into? Was Derek, Kayla and a baby more than I could handle? After all, I wasn't even graduated from high school yet, so should I really have to think about all of those things?
If you want to be with Derek you do, I answered myself.
Right. He had to complicate my life.
I decided that I would think about it later, when Kayla wasn't standing in the middle of the cafeteria, yelling at Derek and calling me a whore as she jabbed her manicured finger in my face.
My eyes narrowed and I resisted the urge to grab that nail and rip it right off.
Must be civil.
"Could you please stop jabbing your finger in my face?" I requested, looking up at her with what I hoped wasn't a hostile expression.
She narrowed her eyes at me and poked me in the chest.
I pressed my lips together so tightly that I was sure they were turning white, but when she poked me again I couldn't resist smacking her hand away.
"Don't hit me!" she said. "Derek, did you see that?"
Oh, how I longed to really hit her.
"Kayla, go sit down," he said tiredly.
She huffed one last time, telling one of us –or maybe both of us—that she wasn't done yet, then storming away.
Once she was gone I looked over at Derek, who looked back at me.
"Seriously," I said, shaking my head, "what the hell were you thinking?"
We didn't have to deal with Kayla for the rest of that day, but after school Derek had to go home and change before work, so we didn't really get a chance to talk.
I needed to think it over anyway, because I was kind of torn. I told Derek I wanted to move slowly, but I almost felt like I needed to hurry up and figure out where we were heading, because if I wanted to get into a relationship with Derek again, it wasn't something I could do halfway.
I hated to be one of those girls always needing to know "where do we stand?" but at the same time, I had the obnoxious ex-girlfriend who was pregnant with his kid to deal with. I wasn't just trying to decide if we sho
uld go to prom together, I was trying to decide if we had anything worth all the crap I was going to have to deal with.
Kayla had the power to make the next several years of my life hell if I decided to be with Derek. Did I really want to tolerate her? No. But did I want to be with Derek? Yes. So I was left trying to decide if it was all worth it.
There was also the fact that I was still a little miffed that he knocked her up in the first place. It might have been different if we wouldn't have been together prior to that, but that asshole actually slept with her after he slept with me.
My more sensible side acknowledged that if Derek and I were going to go anywhere, I was going to have to forgive him for that and move on.
And it somehow seemed easier than I expected...
That was where I always dug my heels in the ground and refused to think past that point. I couldn't seem to decide if I wanted to forgive him. What kind of woman would that make me? Would I be doing what my mother did? I didn't ever want to repeat her mistakes, and I knew she had been willing to forgive Mike just so she could have him.
Thinking about it aggravated me so much.
I liked my callous attitude toward love and men; it kept me safe. What I didn't like was having to acknowledge that I actually cared about Derek enough to question that attitude, possibly even make an exception.
I knew that was a bad idea. I wasn't supposed to make exceptions. I was supposed to stay strong, to resist. I was supposed to be stronger than my mother had been, not let a danger to my heart inside my protective walls.
And there I found myself, telling Derek it was okay if he knocked up other girls, I still wanted to be with him.
What self-respecting woman would even be willing to do something like that? A year earlier, I would have laughed –hysterically—if someone would’ve tried to tell me I would be doing that. Not me. I was smarter than that, I had my self-respect, and I was safe, always making smart, sensible choices.
What had happened to that girl?
But I knew the answer before I asked it. She lost her head, let her guard down, and fell in love.
Stupid girl.
Honestly, when I thought about all I was willing to sacrifice, I would withdraw, not even want to be around Derek. I would start to think of him as a drug of some sort. Maybe I was addicted, and that was why I was making such poor choices. Maybe if I just had time away from him my head would clear and I would be myself again.
But then he would smile at me, and I would be struck helpless by the way those blue eyes twinkled at me, by the smile lines around his mouth. Or worse, he would touch me, pull me close, and it would only take one sideways glance, one affectionate squeeze, and I realized I didn't want to pull away from him.
Maybe he was an addiction.
But maybe I didn't want to get over it.
After all, for all that I thought I had it all figured out, none of my views of what I should do as a self-respecting young woman felt nearly as good as when he would call me "hon."
Then there was Kayla. While Derek only seemed to bring me to this happy, oblivious little bubble, Kayla was always there to jerk me back to reality. Derek may have officially broken up with her, but she seemed to think it was still her job to be a royal pain in his ass. I actually caught her demanding money a couple times so she could stop and get something to eat after school. This made my blood pressure rise a little bit, but she just smiled, took his money and said affectionately, "For the baby."
It took a couple weeks before I felt that Derek and I were finally settling into our newly rearranged positions.
Even though it drove me a little crazy, Derek was still working two jobs. When I suggested that it was too much, that he shouldn't be doing so much work all the time, he told me the only way he was going to get to go to college even part-time was if he saved up enough money to pay for whatever the baby needed, and whatever books he might need for school.
"Part-time?" I asked, frowning.
He nodded. "My dad's going to help me out with school and everything, but even excluding tuition, I still have to buy books and cover normal expenses like food, gas... maybe even rent, I don't know. I don't exactly know how this is going to work now."
"I thought you were going to school full-time. You had a plan, Derek," I told him, bothered that he changed it without even telling me.
"Well, I know that Nikki, but a baby wasn't in that plan. Babies aren't free," he told me.
"I'm aware of that. That's where child support comes in, but I still don't see what this has to do with you not going to school."
"Kayla's mom doesn't even have insurance, Nikki. Kayla has no insurance. When the time comes, I have to help her pay for the hospital bill, I have to help her buy a crib and... whatever else babies need."
"But if you only go part-time it's going to take you four years just to get your associate's degree. What about transferring?" I asked.
I hadn't told him, but part of the reason I was so bothered by him changing up the plan was that I had started to make a plan. He talked to me about college so much that he made me start to think maybe I shouldn't just shrug it off, maybe I should check into it, see about what kinds of grants or scholarships I could get to help me pay for it. But the plan had been to go to school with Derek and Steph, and if Derek only went part-time, he was going to be two years behind me.
But instead of reassuring me that he was still going to go through with college, no matter what, he simply shrugged tiredly and said, "I don't know."
I let the subject drop for the moment, but I still wasn't happy.
Not only was Kayla trying to hold our relationship back, she was even holding him back in terms of his future.
Then again, I had to acknowledge that unexpected pregnancies probably often led to such sacrifices; at least he was willing to make them. It said something for his character, but I hated to admit that, because I realized it was similar to the sacrifice Mike had made. Mike's sacrifice had been greater, as he sacrificed his happiness and the woman he loved, but I condemned him for that, so how could I give Derek credit for something so similar?
When I would ask that, though, I would remind myself that I could still pat Derek on the back, because he was owning up to his mistakes, but not making me pay for it. Mike had just taken the lazy road of sacrifice, whereas Derek was pretty much killing himself to hold onto me—and pay his penance.
Thinking of it that way made my heart swell, and once I even wrapped my arms around him and just hugged him for no apparent reason, completely confusing him.
Derek was doing it the right way. He was taking complete responsibility for his actions, but he wasn't letting me go just because it would be easier.
I had to admit, I was kind of proud of him.
Even though I hated seeing him work 40 to 45 hours a week and go to school, I had to respect him for being willing to go to any lengths to right his wrongs without giving me up.
It made me happy that he wanted to hold onto me that much.
It made me feel a little lazy though.
Although I'm not sure that it was a conscious decision, seeing how Derek was handling everything and being true to his word not to hurt me again, he started to earn back my trust. When I acknowledged that we were truly, completely back together, I decided it was time that I step up to the plate a little. I did some more research on the community college we were all planning to attend, and I figured out the tuition for a full-time student—or two full-time students.
Once I had all that figured out, I told the manager at Wendy's that I'd like an extra day or two a week, and he agreed, giving me two and pushing me up to five days a week.
When February rolled around, I decided it was time to roll up my sleeves and start sharing in the baby talk. After all, if I was going to be a part of it, I had to start slowly pushing myself into the baby part of the picture.
"So, when are we getting an ultrasound picture?" I asked him one day on the way home from school. "I was thinking you cou
ld scan a copy for me."
He shrugged, turning the wheel. "I don't know."
"Well, do you have any ultrasound pictures yet? Like the first one where you can't actually see anything but a little bean?" I asked, raising one eyebrow.
"No," he replied. "I don't think she has one yet."
This caused me to frown. "What? She should have gone in for the first one by now..."
"She doesn't have insurance," he reminded me.
"Yeah, I understand that, but she will have to go to the doctor eventually, won't she?"
"Eventually, yeah, but she hasn't yet."
"Well... shouldn't you bring this up? Maybe ask her about it or something?"
"I don't know, Nikki. I don't know anything about pregnancy, just that it lasts nine months."
"How far along is she?" I asked, realizing I had never even been told the due date.
He gave me a blank look and shrugged. "I don't really know anything about it yet."
That much was obvious.
I was going to tell him it wasn't me I wanted answers for, but as the father, he should know these things. Instead, I let the topic drop for the moment.
That conversation made me realize that for all the effort Derek was exerting, Kayla wasn't keeping Derek updated at all. All he knew was that she was pregnant. He had no idea when the due date was, no ultrasound pictures, and he didn't even know how far along she was.
That was when I decided to step in. Kayla was taking advantage of Derek and he was letting her, but as far as I could see, she hadn't even produced any evidence that she was actually pregnant or that the baby was really his.
She should at least know how far along she was, so why didn't Derek?
Even though I knew it probably wasn't my best idea, I decided to try to have an actual conversation with her. In the hall one day I caught her coming out of a class, and I started walking beside her.
"Hi," I greeted.
She blinked at me. "Hi."
"So, I know we aren't best friends or anything, but since you are carrying Derek's baby, I figure we should try to get along."