by Holly Jaymes
Every instinct in my body was encouraging me to take my hand to my belly and stroke it. It was like I was trying to protect my child, from its own father, but I didn’t want him to guess anything. I kept my arms firmly crossed.
“Okay, so why are you here?” he asked, stumping me again.
I had put so much thought and effort into picking the right outfit to disguise myself, that I hadn’t given any thought to the possibility of him bumping into me. I hadn’t thought any of these questions. He had caught me completely unprepared.
Sawyer’s eyes focused on me. He was trying to find any clues of a lie. I stared back at him, hoping that I could pass this line of inquiry. I knew that I was a lousy liar. My face was too expressive. I feared that Sawyer could read me like an open book.
“My friend…a friend, her name is Samantha. She’s in the hospital. Nothing major, just her appendix, but I came to see her. Why, am I not allowed to come to this hospital?” I was fumbling with the information I was giving him, being too defensive. I knew that I was walking on thin ice. If he doubted what I was saying or did any research on what I was doing in the gynecology ward, it wouldn’t take him long to find out that I was with Doctor Roberts.
Miraculously, however, he seemed to believe me.
Sawyer stood up from his chair. He nodded his head, and I was so relieved.
“I hope your friend recovers quickly from her surgery,” he said. I clenched my jaws.
“Thanks, I guess,” I replied.
“I was coming over to tell you that it’s good to see you. How long has it been? Three, four months since we last met?” Sawyer continued.
I knew exactly how long it had been, but I shrugged my shoulders in response.
“I know we started off on the wrong foot…” he began to say, but I cut him short before he could say anything else.
“I have to go, I’m late,” I said quickly. I didn’t want to hear what else he had to say. I didn’t want to prolong this conversation any further.
“Right, your appointment,” he murmured.
I walked to the door of his office, quick to turn the knob. He was still standing behind his desk, his hands in the pockets of his pants now. Damn, how could a man make scrubs look so good?!
“Maybe we should talk sometime,” he suggested. I looked at him, trying to control the surge of feelings.
“Yeah, sure, maybe,” I told him, and before he could add anything else, I was out of his office.
I hurried down the hall to the elevators, keeping my head down. I was still feeling embarrassed at the thought that a lot of the nurses and the people about would have seen Sawyer carrying me into his office in his arms! Once again, I had made a complete fool of myself.
I was nervous as I left the hospital. Mostly because I had reacted in a way that I didn’t expect when I saw him again. I was hoping that I would have been angry with him for what he had done. I thought I would have felt mad at him for getting me pregnant. Or, at least, I thought I would be angry about the fact that I didn’t approve of his lifestyle.
Instead, he had made me weak in the knees, just like the first time we met. That is what got me into this mess in the first place. Why was it so difficult to resist this man I thought I didn’t like? Why did the Universe keep pitting us against each other?
I just wanted to be left alone. I wanted it to be just my baby and me, but it seemed like that would never be possible. I would always be looking over my shoulder, worried that Sawyer Barnhart was going to catch up with us.
Sawyer
I was sitting at the bar that evening, with my shirt sleeves rolled up and my tie loosened at my neck. I’d already had two, and I asked for a third. It was strange seeing Fay again. I knew that we should have talked more. I should have found a way of telling her that she had given me a lot to think about, but she had been in such a rush to get away from me.
She’d tried to convince me that there was some appointment she had to go to, but I didn't entirely believe her. There was still a part of me which thought that was just an excuse. She had seen me, and it was me she was running from.
I felt Isaac’s hand on my shoulder. I turned on the bar stool to see him standing behind me, with a big grin on his face.
“I see you’re finally letting yourself go!” he remarked, noticing my loose tie and my rolled up sleeves. I wasn’t usually this careless about my clothes, but today, I had a lot on my mind.
Isaac took the stool beside me and ordered a whiskey for himself. We knew each other from school. In college, I had met my four best friends. We had still managed to keep the friendship going strong. Isaac was one of my best friends. He was a professor now. He was considered an expert in the field of English Literature, which was a completely different profession from mine. It was a profession I didn’t quite understand. I had always been more of a Science nerd myself.
“You started early,” Isaac commented when he saw the two empty glasses beside me. I shrugged my shoulders.
“It’s been a long day. What can I say,” I told him while I drank from my third glass.
I could sense Isaac’s eyes on me, observing me. We had known each other for a long time, long enough for him to detect that something was wrong.
“When did you get back from London?” I asked him, trying to deflect attention. I knew he had gone to the University of Bath or some other, to attend some English conference. Isaac was a high flying personality in his field.
“Last evening, when I texted you, I thought something was off. What’s been up with you?” he asked, thanking the bartender when he got his drink.
“Nothing much, the usual, surgeries and consultations. You know what it’s like,” I told him, avoiding his eyes.
“No more TV shows in the mix?” he asked, and I scoffed. I didn’t want to be reminded of TV shows, because that made me think of Fay and how thoroughly I had fucked things up with her. I still didn’t know why I cared so much. She had a strange effect on me. I couldn’t come to terms with it.
“You look like something’s bothering you, man, and it might be good to get it off your chest. A bad surgery? Something at the hospital?” he asked as I glared at him. I was mad that he was this nosey. We didn’t talk about women, not in a serious way. Isaac, and the other two of our friends; we were all single. None of us has any immediate plans of changing that state either, and I didn’t know how to discuss Fay with him without setting off alarm bells.
Isaac narrowed his eyes towards me, and a sudden glow of realization seemed to fill his eyes.
“Is this about a woman?” he asked, nearly laughing aloud when he said the words. I gulped and took a swig of my drink.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It is, isn’t it? This is about some woman! How did you manage to fall in love in the two weeks that I’ve been in the UK?” Isaac was laughing openly now, while I struggled not to ram my fist into the counter. I had done an excellent job of hiding my troubles regarding Fay, for the past three months. Now that I had seen her again, I couldn’t anymore. She was troubling me tenfold.
“I’m not in fucking love!” I growled, in a deep low voice. Like I was afraid of someone overhearing us.
Isaac saw the look on my face. He sensed trouble. The laughter died, and he gripped his glass of whiskey tightly.
“Are you kidding me? You serious about this? I was making a joke!” he remarked.
“I just told you that I’m not in love!” I hissed as Isaac searched my eyes. He had a worried expression on his face. The sort of look a friend would get if his best friend were telling him he had a terminal disease.
“Who is it? What is going on?” he asked, dropping his voice to a whisper. I realized then how similar we were. Both of us were afraid of talking about this aloud like he might contract the disease from me if he spoke about it too openly.
“She’s just this girl…a woman. I slept with her once, and I’ve been thinking about her ever since. It’s nothing. I need a few days, and
I’ll get over it,” I told him and turned away to face the bar. I couldn’t stand him glaring at me like that any longer. I could sense Isaac’s eyes on me still. He was worried.
“Has she been hanging around, trying to turn a one-nighter into something else?” he asked. I whipped around to him.
“That’s the fucking thing. It’s the exact opposite. She hates me. She can’t stand my guts. She thinks I’m some pompous show-off, not a real doctor even,” I related to Isaac, whose eyes grew wider with every word that came out of my mouth. It was like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Why do you care, then?” he asked, in a low soft voice. I shrugged my shoulders.
“I saw her today, accidentally at the hospital and she ran away from me. Like literally, ran, nearly killing herself under an ambulance. That’s how much she can’t stand me!” I hissed. Isaac knocked his glass back. I could see him sweating. He was growing anxious. It was like he was afraid for my life.
“You need to stay away from this woman, Sawyer. You hear me? Keep your distance. Give it a few weeks. You’ll forget about her, and you can go back to fucking actresses and models again,” he said. I wondered what his students would think if they heard him talking this way.
I nodded my head.
“Yeah, you’re right. It’s just some phase or something,” I told him. Isaac thumped my back with his hand.
“Yeah, you’re just getting old!” he said. We laughed at each other nervously.
Then we went back to silently sipping our whiskeys. There was an uncomfortable silence between us. It was like we had broken some secret code. I knew what Isaac was thinking. If I was getting the jitters from a woman, how long before he got them too?
Fay
I was sick at the studio the next day, unexpectedly. In the past weeks, since I’d discovered my pregnancy, I only had morning sickness. I was always fine by the time I got to the studios, which was usually late these days.
Today, however, I had to rush out of a group meeting and straight to the restroom, where I hurled into one of the toilets in the stalls.
“Get a grip, Fay!” I murmured to myself under my breath as I sat hunched over the toilet bowl. I flushed once, wiped my mouth with some toilet paper and flushed again before I stepped out of the stall to find Susan there.
She was drying her hands and watching me in the mirror. My cheeks turned red. I thought I was alone in the bathroom. I gathered myself quickly and walked over to the row of sinks and started washing my mouth.
Neither of us had spoken yet, but I could sense Susan watching me. She was done drying her hands, but she hadn’t left yet.
“Fay…” she said my name and I looked up at her in the mirror.
“I think I ate a stale chicken. Shouldn’t have kept it in the fridge that long. I’m awful at following instructions, as you know,” I said. I added a nervous chuckle at my joke.
Susan wasn’t laughing. She wasn’t even smiling. Instead, she stood there behind me, with a hand on her hip, staring.
“Fay, I…” she began to say again.
“It was just a bad chicken. I’ll be fine. I can get the work done, Susan, don’t worry,” I interrupted her again. She clamped her mouth shut and watched me in the mirror. I could see her gaze swinging to my belly.
“How many weeks?” she asked, in a somber voice.
I whipped around to her, my heart beating right out of my chest.
“What are you talking about? I just ate…” I argued as she breathed in deeply.
“It wasn’t a bad chicken, Fay. You’re pregnant. Now, tell me, how many weeks along are you?” she said, in a slow even voice. I gulped. There was no point hiding it from her now. I could see it in her eyes that she knew the truth and I wouldn’t be able to convince her otherwise.
“Three months,” I replied, in a meek voice and looked down at my feet ashamedly.
Susan stepped towards me, and for one moment; I thought she was going to slap me. Instead, she reached out and placed her hands on my shoulders.
“Do you know who the father is?” she asked me instead. I was shocked that she wasn’t raging and complaining yet. Susan was known for her unique quality of making everything about herself.
“Yeah…” I replied, my throat was feeling dry.
“Good, that’s a good start. Is he in the picture?” she asked. I shook my head.
“No, I’m single, and he doesn’t know,” I told her.
Susan breathed in deeply again, and I felt like a child who had disappointed her parent. She took her hands off me and stepped back. Her eyes roamed over me still.
“You have that glow about you. It’s unmistakable. I’m shocked at myself for not noticing sooner,” she continued. I was waiting with bated breath for her to begin her tirade. I expected her to say that I was foolish for the bad decisions I’d made, that I was going to ruin my career, and that she couldn’t employ me anymore.
Instead, she just stood there, looking me up and down like I was an exhibit at a museum. Then I watched as she stepped up to the sink again and started washing her hands. She’d just washed them! I didn’t know why she was doing it again.
“You know, I was single when I conceived Bernie,” she began to say, referring to her teenage daughter Bernadette, who dropped into the studios from time to time. We all knew her as the spoiled brat daughter of Susan, who always got her way, just like Susan did.
I stood aside, listening to her as she spoke.
“I knew who the father was, just like you, and I kept it from him, just like you. I have spent the rest of the years, trying to make it up to Bernie for separating her from her father,” she continued.
She walked over to the dryer again to dry her soaking hands. She then waited for the buzzing electric sound to stop before she spoke again.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” she asked.
I didn’t appreciate these lectures that Doctor Roberts and Susan were giving me. Neither of them was in my shoes. Neither of them knew who the father was, and yet, they had taken it upon themselves to try and convince me that I couldn’t do this by myself.
“I’m not going to tell him, I’ve already made up my mind, but thanks for the advice, Susan,” I told her. She clucked her tongue.
“Why? Because you don’t want help?” she asked.
“What makes you think that this man would be ready to help? That he would be excited and willing to play a fatherly role in my child’s life?” I snapped.
Susan nodded her head slowly.
“Yeah, you’re right. I’m not sure of it, but I think that there is always a chance. I’m not telling you to form a romantic relationship with him, just reminding you that he has a right to know. Once you do your duty of telling him, the ball is in his court. What he does with that information is up to him. At least, you don’t have to spend your life dodging questions from your kid about its father,” Susan spoke in a wise voice. In fact, this was the wisest she had ever sounded to me.
I looked down at my feet and nodded.
“Okay, I’ll think about it. Thanks,” I said. I didn’t want to argue with her. I felt like there was an argument coming up about my job anyway.
Susan smiled and then was about to walk away, but I stopped her.
“I was going to tell you, soon,” I said. She looked at me and shrugged her shoulders.
“It doesn’t matter. I respect your privacy. I get why you’ve been coming late to the studio now,” she told me.
I had my brows crossed, thoroughly confused by this reaction.
“You’re not…you’re not going to fire me?” I asked, and Susan threw her head back and laughed.
“Fire you? Why on Earth would I do that? No, Fay, I’m going to give you time off, as long as you need, paid. When you come back, your job will be waiting here for you,” Susan informed me.
I was too shocked to say anything. I just stared at her like I had been slapped across the face.
“Cheer up, Fay! Having a baby is great
news. You’ll see. I have a feeling you’ll make a wonderful mother,” she said. With that, she left the bathroom, leaving me by myself to catch my breath.
Not only did one more person know the truth about my pregnancy now, but I also had my job, and I wasn’t going to lose it. I breathed a sigh of relief as I stared at myself in the mirror.
This day wasn’t going as badly as I thought it would. Susan surprised me by being generous and understanding. I was beginning to wonder who else I had misjudged, Sawyer?
No. I hadn’t misjudged him. I told myself that repeatedly. I didn’t want to give up that notion. What I wanted was to continue to think that Sawyer was an arrogant limelight-whore. I still wanted to keep believing it.
Sawyer
Despite my conversation with Isaac the night before, I still went to see Fay at the studios. In fact, that particular conversation might have propelled me further, making me realize that fighting this was hopeless. I couldn’t stop thinking about Fay. She had overtaken my thought. I knew I had to talk to her again if I was ever going to move on with my life.
When I walked into the studio, through the back door, heads turned to look at me. The crew recognized me immediately, and several of them came up, trying to find out how they could help me.
“I’m looking for Fay Woods,” I told one enthusiastic member of the camera crew. The girl went running away, looking for Fay; leaving me to talk to the others. Someone called for Susan Fairweather, who appeared with her arms wide open. I had to hug her and pretend like I had some business matter to attend to with Fay.
“What business?” Susan asked, furrowing her brows, just as I caught Fay appear in the background from the corner of my eye.
“Oh, just some documents I needed to sign,” I lied to Susan, who I could see wasn’t believing a word I said.
Fay walked towards us reluctantly. Susan turned to her, confusion marring her face.