Gia
My eyes bore into the white lump of fuzzy material I’d been avoiding on the counter. Unprepared for the news it provided, I scrambled to obscure it, needing instant relief.
I closed one eye and squinted the other, unraveling the paper after however much time had passed. The plus sign was still present, screaming my fate.
Knowing the extracurriculars I’d taken with Grant, I made an educated guess leading me down the women and baby aisle at the grocery store. The stick was the piece that made the picture make sense.
“I should’ve cracked open a medical encyclopedia and ran down the list.”
A little suspense would’ve made the journey more enjoyable instead of hurtling right to one of the most life-changing situations. A little ignorant bliss would’ve done me a lot of good.
Shock could be the only way to describe my initial reaction to the confirmation staring back at me. It was one thing to notice sore breasts, exhaustion, and nausea. They were tell-tales that felt like a nightmare if the timing had been right. A positive test made it real. An assumption then became a fact. And the fact of the matter was I went on vacation and returned pregnant.
Finding out on a Friday that started a three-day weekend was a silver lining I almost strained my shoulder to reach.
Labor Day.
I cringed at the title; the word labor had a new meaning.
“It really couldn’t have been anything else?” I pleaded to the empty bathroom.
Symptoms could mean an array of things.
Nausea could mean anything from a stomach virus to food allergies, anemia was one of the leading sources of fatigue, and stress could cause a missed period.
But that plus…
That plus sign eliminated the other possibilities. I was going to be somebody’s mama.
I wanted to call Camryn; I needed to talk to my sounding board.
Thankfully, she’d gotten over her apprehension and went out with Sylvester last night. She didn’t come home like I’d taught her, thus putting her unavailable until further notice.
Grabbing my phone, I went to my recent contacts, knowing she’d be high on that list, but halted before my finger touched the screen. I needed Camryn…but she needed to get her professor back.
And I needed to tell the pappy about his baby.
I moved down the list of contacts. I could feel sweat breaking through the pores of my arms as I scrolled through the E section of my phone book.
Mr. Esquire.
Seeing the nickname took me back to the day it was created.
Grant had me blushing while walking in The Bahamas. We’d been intimate by that point, so the wounded divorcee idea had been defeated, and I had been creeping into smitten territory. I couldn’t ignore how well we gelled. In and out of the bed, our chemistry was more substantial than I could’ve imagined. I had to remind myself what it was when Grant unknowingly showed me different.
It was fun, non-committed sex during vacation, that was it. It wasn’t supposed to come with eternal strings.
A baby?
Babies were people who depended on others for every aspect of life. Then, they grew into children and adolescents with the same dependency. Children were deep, the deepest depths of the ocean we sailed while creating one, and I didn’t know something as basic as Grant’s middle name. Parents usually had a sturdier foundation before going half on a child. How could I make sense out of establishing an eternal connection with a man I’d just met? That was a lot, even for me.
What was I going to do?
There would be no point involving Grant if I decided I wasn’t going through with the pregnancy.
A ring sounding from my palm startled me. My chest beat faster seeing the name on the screen. Had I called him by accident?
I watched it ring, scared it would answer by accident if I made a move. Grant’s name and picture stayed on my screen longer than I thought possible for one call. I didn’t exhale until his contact card went away.
Pressing the side button locked my phone, blacking the screen, allowed me to see my pained reflection in the display. I had to look away.
I promised I wouldn’t be what I saw in the reflection.
I promised myself a lot of things.
Then there was Grant.
What was he going to say?
I talked a good game that week, giving the me, myself, and I rhetoric just to slip up in the most significant way.
It would be a while before I could reconcile with my negligence.
But I had time.
I’d give myself some rest today. I was allowed to come to terms independently before letting anyone else in.
I left the bathroom, taking heavy steps into my room across the hall. My head met my mattress when I fell back into the bed, tortured gaze rolled up to the fan rotating low. Round and round, the blades spun. I wondered what direction they would take if they were given a choice. Which direction would I choose?
I needed the time to figure it out.
“I have to keep this to myself.”
I would tell Grant about the baby.
Later.
Comments ()