by Faye Barker
I threw myself into work and ignored all my problems until I could have time to process it. I also had to talk to Flora when I got home about what’s going on between her and Keegan.
I hadn’t even realized their relationship had shifted until yesterday and I couldn’t help but wonder how long it was going on before I even noticed. Was I really in my head so much? When I stopped to think about it, I realized that I was in my head a lot.
The minute I got home I noticed that Flora was sitting on the couch with a wine bottle and a couple of empty wine glasses sitting on our coffee table, waiting for me and watching tv.
“Hey,” I say as I put my purse on the end table by the door.
“Hey, Keegan’s giving us space tonight for some girl talk,” she explains.
I nod and throw myself down beside her on the couch, leaning my head on her shoulder. “So when did the thing with you and Keegan start?” I ask quietly, keeping my eyes glued to the tv.
“Randomly,” she lets out a soft giggle. “It started about two weeks ago, you were at work and we were at home, studying, took a break to drink and it ended up with us kissing. Kissing quickly turned to more. We didn’t really know what was happening between us, so we kept it quiet. That, and I didn’t know how to tell you. Neither did he.”
“It’s okay, I understand.” My voice is still quiet, but cracked on the last word.
“What’s going on with you? You look like someone kicked your puppy.”
“I slept with Asher,” I admit.
“I kind of figured when you left with him last night and never came home. How was it?”
“It- he was amazing. Hell, he is amazing.” I still sound sad.
“So what’s the problem? Only a one-time thing?” She asks.
“I wish that was the problem, to be perfectly honest. And no, he wants to keep seeing me, but I’ve got two months until he actively pursues me.”
“What the hell does that mean?” She sounds confused and I don’t blame her, I’m still confused.
“My mom’s getting married.” I pause. “To Asher’s dad.”
“Holy shit!” She shrieks. “You mean you slept with your soon-to-be-step-brother?!”
I nod. “We didn’t know until we had lunch with our parents earlier. He says nothing changes, he’s giving me two months to let this all sink in.”
“Holy shit,” she repeats.
“Yeah. I don’t know what to do.”
“Well,” she says, leaning forward to grab the wine and corkscrew. She opens the wine and pours us both a glass. “We’re going to drink and just forget for tonight, no thinking.”
“Sounds good,” I agree with a small grin. “How did you even get this?”
She shrugs. “My dad. He doesn’t care if I drink so long as he provides it for me and am only drinking at home.”
“Lucky bitch,” I grumble, accepting my glass and downing half of it.
Chapter 5
4 weeks later
“This is ridiculous,” I mutter into the toilet. This is the third day in a row I’ve gotten sick after breakfast. I called in the last two days and I can’t afford to miss anymore work. I’ve been nauseated the whole time, haven’t been able to actually eat a full meal since this bug started.
“Honey, are you okay?” Flora asks as she walks into the bathroom with a glass of water.
I grab the glass and swish the water around my mouth in an attempt to get the pukey taste out of my mouth before spitting it in the toilet and flushing. I stand up on shaky legs, using the counter as leverage.
“I feel like absolute shit,” I tell my best friend and she bites her lip.
“Have you gone to the doctor?”
“No, it’s just a bug, I don’t have a fever.”
“Get dressed, I’m taking you to the doctor and I don’t want to hear anything about it. You should not still be this sick for several days in a row.”
I groan, but nod. I don’t have the energy to fight her right now. I’m exhausted, tossing and turning all night, attempting to find a position that would help settle my stomach but it was no use. Ran to the bathroom several times last night to dry heave but nothing would come out.
After getting dressed Flora and Keegan take me to the school nurse, since it’s closer and I had to make them pull over so I could puke on the side of the road. Flora held my hair back while Keegan rubbed my back.
I’ve never been more thankful for my friends than at that moment. They didn’t rush me, they didn’t act like this was a huge inconvenience and they didn’t act like I was ruining the day they had planned.
We finally get to the nurse’s office and I’m dizzy and shaking. Not being able to eat or drink anything for days has been taking its toll since I throw everything I eat up almost immediately after I take the first bite or drink. I’m thankful Christmas break started this week or I’d have been screwed with my classes.
I make Flora and Keegan come with me into the room because I don’t want to be alone. After taking my pulse and blood pressure the nurse asks me several questions and gets a blood sample that she hands to another nurse to take to the lab to be looked at, before taking me to the bathroom to pee in a cup.
The nurse leaves and I come back to the room and lay down on the bed that’s set up, closing my eyes to try to stop the dizziness.
When she comes back ten minutes later she looks at Flora and Keegan before turning her eyes to me. “Do you want them to leave the room?”
“No,” I moan, my eyes still half closed.
“Alright, when was the last time you were able to keep food down? Water?” She must have forgotten to ask that question earlier because that was a new one, or maybe she just worded it differently. I feel so out of it, all I can concentrate on right now is my stomach trying to eat itself and the fact that my head won’t stop spinning.
I don’t answer right away so Flora does for me. Thank God I made her stay. “This is the third day that she’s been this sick, the day before the first day she got sick she was nauseated but didn’t puke.”
“Thank you,” the nurse tells Flora before turning to me. “I have a diagnosis for the reason you’re sick, just not as sick as you are, for that you’ll have to go to either the ER or to your family doctor.” She pauses. “You’re pregnant Melody.”
My eyes pop wide open as I stare at her, open mouthed. “What?”
“You’re pregnant honey,” she repeats.
“No, I know that’s what you said, what I meant was how!” I screeched. I tried really hard not to shout but I was officially freaking the fuck out. I didn’t care.
“When was the last time you had sex?” she asks softly.
“A month ago, but we used protection.”
“What’d you use?”
“Condoms.”
“Well, condoms aren’t always one hundred percent, there are rare cases that the condoms don’t work and some sperm gets through, either through a broken condom or the condom wasn’t administered properly, or there was a leak in the condom that wasn’t easily noticeable.”
Tears leak from my eyes as I look at a wide eyed Flora and a slack jawed Keegan who are staring at the nurse. I’m assuming that was what they looked like when she said I was pregnant and they haven’t wrapped their heads around it yet.
Pregnant.
I’m pregnant.
With Asher’s baby.
Oh god.
My head spun more and the last thing I remember before everything went black was the nurse asking if I was okay.
* * *
I wake up and look around, trying to figure out what it was that woke me up. I try to lift my arm when I realize it has a blood pressure cuff attached to it and it had automatically turned on, squeezing the life from my arm was the reason I woke up. I also had an IV placed in the crook of my elbow.
Am I at the hospital?
What the hell happened?
The door to the room opens and my mom comes in, a styrofoam coffee cup in her hand, Daniel
trailing behind her almost running into her when she stops abruptly looking at me.
“You’re awake!” She hands Daniel her coffee and rushes to me, holding my face between her hands. “Oh honey. You had us so worried. They said you passed out because you haven’t been eating, you’re dehydrated and starving. I’m glad you went to the nurse but next time you feel that badly, for the sake of my sanity, please go to the hospital.”
I nod. “Yeah, mom. Where’s Flora and Keegan?”
“They’re outside, so is Asher and Axel. Everyone’s here to make sure you’re okay. Shortly after you passed out the nurse got back the blood test results that said you were dehydrated and starving, they didn’t have the necessary equipment to handle that so they called an ambulance. You just got here about an hour ago. Flora called me as soon as you got here and told me what happened.”
I looked at her face, it didn’t look like she was aware of the fact that I was pregnant with her grandchild. Her first grandchild. I have a feeling Flora offered to make the phone call and knew I’d want to tell my mom on my own and she’d likely have made that known to the doctors.
“Can I talk to Flora a minute?” I ask.
“Sure baby,” Mom says before squeezing my hand and walking back toward Daniel, rushing him out the door they just walked in.
Flora comes in with a doctor in front.
“Melody Anderson?” I nod. “I’m Dr. Walder. How’re you feeling?”
I take stock of my body, noting that though I’m still nauseous it’s not quite as bad as earlier but still pretty bad. I’m still a little dizzy.
“Still feel sick and dizzy. The nausea isn’t as bad as before but still pretty bad.”
He nods and comes to stand beside the monitor next to my bed. “We weren’t sure how long you’d be asleep for since your body clearly needed the rest, although I figured you’d have slept a little longer.”
“The cuff woke me up,”I inform him.
“Sorry about that,” he says as he moves to take the cuff off. “We weren’t sure when you’d wake up so we kept it on to monitor you. You have an IV of fluids in, we’ve given you some promethazine to help with your nausea. Your friend told us you wanted to tell your family what was going on so I haven’t told them anything outside that you’ll be fine given some time. Based on your symptoms your nurse told me there’s a chance you have an extreme case of morning sickness called Hyperemesis Gravidarum, if that’s the case, which I believe it is, there’s a possibility that you’ll be in and out of the hospital if we can’t get you to keep fluids and food down while you’re out of the hospital. We’re going to keep you a few days for observation to give you a few days to relax and feel better also to see if it’ll calm down in a few days and it’s just the onset of morning sickness hitting you hard the first week it comes on, then calms down a bit as time goes on. It happens, but every pregnancy is different so we’re going to take it one day at a time.”
I nod and smile gratefully when he leaves the room.
“Thank god you know me so well,” I tell Flora with a grin.
She laughs then her face turns serious. “You scared me when you passed out. I didn’t know what to do, I’m glad I was there and Keegan was with me because I would have freaked the fuck out.”
“I have to tell mom but I want to talk to Asher first. He doesn’t deserve to find out with everyone else but that’d look suspicious as fuck.”
Flora smiles. “He’s worried about you. He didn’t want to leave until you woke up but his dad and brother made him leave the room when we all went out to the waiting room to give you your rest.”
I try to hide my reaction to that news but judging by the smile on Flora’s face I failed. The fact that he was worried and didn’t want to leave me alone, shows that he was serious and he wants me, he wasn’t concerned about people asking questions, he just wanted to make sure I was okay and didn’t want to leave me until I was.
That’d make even the most cold hearted woman swoon.
Everything is about to change and I can’t think of anything beyond the fact that I’m carrying Asher’s baby. I’m carrying my stepbrothers baby.
“Send everyone in,” I whisper, heart racing from fear. Mom’s wedding to Daniel is in two days, and I’m going to be stuck in the hospital. I’m scared what mom’s going to say, how Asher will react.
Flora leaves and comes back with everyone before I have a chance to really start freaking out and changing my mind.
“Hey guys,” I say softly as I give a wave to everyone. Asher stands at the foot of my bed, next to his brother and dad. Mom comes to my side and holds my hand, Flora goes to the other and holds that hand, squeezing it for support. Keegan takes Flora’s other hand at her side and places his hand on my knee over the blankets covering me.
“Flora said you wanted to tell us something,” mom says gently.
I bite my lip, peeking at Asher, meeting his soft eyes and I gather my courage from that one look. “Yeah, uh, I’ve been sick the last few days. Really sick.”
“We gathered that,” mom says a smile on her face. Speaking of sick. Oh god. My stomach took that moment to lurch. I let go of Flora’s hand quickly and grab the bowl thing someone had placed beside my bed and puke into it just in time. Mom squeezes my hand and rubs my back as Flora moves my hair out of my way. “Oh honey,” mom croons.
Once I’m done Flora takes it out of my hands and sets it back down where it was. I’m suddenly even more exhausted than I was this morning. I lean back on the bed and look at the ceiling before closing my eyes.
“I-” I start before breaking off into a sob. I can’t do it. I can’t tell them I’m pregnant and that the baby is Asher’s. I can’t tell my mom that she’s going to be a grandma when she’s been telling me since I was old enough to understand not to have a baby until I was done with college. I just started college this year, this definitely won’t go over well. They need to know but I just can’t be the one to tell them. I don’t have the energy to even say it right now. I turn my head to Flora and through my tears I nod to her to break the news.
“Ms. Anderson, um, what Mel is trying to say is uh… holy shit this is hard,” Flora mutters.
Keegan rolls his eyes at her while she stumbles over her words and meets my eyes. I nod at him giving him the okay.
“What Mel and Flo are trying to say but keep tripping over is that Melody’s pregnant,” Keegan informs my mom.
I don’t look at her so I don’t see her reaction. I’m looking at Asher and as soon as those words register with all three men at the foot of my bed they straighten, Asher’s mouth opens and closes as he looks at me but there’s no other reaction and it makes my chest tight. He’s mad.
Chapter 6
“WHAT?!” My mom shrieks after several tense seconds, tearing her hand out of mine. Tears are free falling at this point and I wish like hell I could stop them.
“Brianna,” Daniel says quietly.
“The doctors want her to stay a few days for observation and to help her get some rest and relax since exhaustion was probably one of the reasons she passed out, I think. If the morning sickness doesn’t get a better then he said there’s a chance that she will end up in and out of the hospital until it goes away. I think it’s possible it’ll go through the whole time,” Flora whispers the last sentence when she looks at me her face softens and my tears fall harder and faster. I seriously have the best friends ever.
“How could you be so stupid?” Mom hisses through her teeth, ignoring Flora.
“Mom. It’s not my fault. We used protection. It just-“ I cut off when she holds her hand up to stop me.
“I’ve told you what would happen if this happened Melody,” mom says. Everyone looks at my mom and I feel my heart breaking.
“Mom-“ I break off on another sob, my body shaking with them.
“You know my terms Melody. Your scholarship doesn’t cover all of your needs or schooling. You don’t bring in enough money working at the diner to cover it. I tol
d you no babies and I meant it.” Shit. I forgot about our deal when I was thirteen. I remember her feelings about me having a baby before finishing school but I forgot the deal. She refuses to be responsible for another kid. Not quite disowning me, but close. I lose all support as soon as I hit eighteen. When they separated dad said the same thing didn’t apply to him because he wanted me to succeed even if it means succeeding to be a better mother, but he’s gone and now I don’t have his money or moms to help me stay in school with a baby.
Asher’s jaw gets hard and he turns his head to me, I meet his eyes and say quietly, “I’m not getting rid of my baby mom. If it’s that much of a problem I’ll leave school. Work full time instead.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Mom snaps at the same time Daniel snaps her name.
“What the hell are you talking about? What terms and for what?” He asks her.
“If she gets pregnant she’s on her own after she hits eighteen. That was the deal. She’s eighteen now. It’s been the deal since she was in middle school. She gets no financial help from me because she’s the one who spread her legs.”
Flora’s mouth drops and Keegan glares at my mom. They can’t believe she’s speaking to me that way even though this is normally how she speaks to me, earlier today and when I met Daniel was a rare occurrence. My friends have met my mom maybe twice and it was for a total of ten minutes, she’s been rude but never outright cruel.
“Mom the birth control failed! I can’t control that! At least we were safe!” I shout at her through my tears.
“Who’s the father? Or do you not even know his name?” She asks suddenly making me stiffen.
I bite my lip to stop another sob that threatens to escape.
“Me,” Asher says, speaking up for the first time since he entered the room. We all look at him, different expressions on everyone’s face. Mine is filled with shock, so is mom and Daniel’s but theirs is more confusion than shock. Flora and Keegan smile, glad he admitted it. Axel looks at his brother like he grew a fifth head and eight arms.