Speaking of parents…
“Have you told your dad?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
Anabelle laughs, though it’s the least appropriate time to giggle. “What do you think he said?”
“Dumb question, sorry. When did you tell him?”
“Last week. I wasn’t alone, if you’re worried about that.”
“Who went with you?” Absentmindedly, without even realizing I’m doing it, my hand caresses her belly, insatiably curious about the small bump.
“Don’t be mad when I tell you, okay?”
I roll my eyes, a gesture I’m normally not prone to. “Anabelle, nothing you say right now could surprise me more than the fact that you’re pregnant.”
Nothing.
Not a single, goddamn thing.
A fucking elephant could break through the wall right now and I wouldn’t flinch. Steady as a rock.
“I probably should have mentioned it sooner, but at the beginning of the year, I reconnected with Rex.”
“Say again?” I pause, needing clarification, as if I didn’t hear her clearly. “Gunderson?”
“One and the same.” She chuckles beside me, red eyes finally drying.
“I don’t understand.”
“We’ve become friends.”
I pull back, hand frozen on the swell of her stomach. “I’m not following.”
“We have a class together like we did last year, and he invited me to coffee so we could talk…and I went, and it was nice.”
“Nice.”
“Yeah, it was nice. I’m sorry if it upsets you, but he really isn’t as terrible as he’s been in the past.”
“Why do I find that hard to believe?”
“Because you don’t like him.”
“You’re right, I don’t.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Elliot. He’s been really supportive.” She chooses her next words carefully. “Anyway, he came with me to my dad’s—who knows Rex and I are friends, by the way—and sat there while I told them. Linda cried, of course, and my dad blew up and kicked Rex out.”
“Why’d he do that?”
“He assumed the baby was Rex’s.”
“Awesome.” Just great.
As if the fucking situation wasn’t fucked up enough, people are going to think this baby—my baby—is Rex motherfucking Gunderson’s, the biggest dipshit on campus?
Over my dead body.
I’ve never been jealous of a single soul before meeting that moron, but I’m jealous now—insanely so.
I can’t believe Anabelle is naïve enough to fall for his nice-guy routine after being shit on by him once before.
Jesus H. Christ.
“Don’t get mad, Elliot.” Her voice is cajoling, low and soft. “I didn’t want to tell you over the phone, and I was afraid I wouldn’t see you until December, because by then I’ll be huge and oh my God, this is so bad. First I’m fine, then I’m crying, then I’m fine. I’m a mess—I never would have known I was pregnant if I hadn’t gone to the doctor, and since I hadn’t been to a doctor in Iowa before, I was required to have a physical.” She’s crying and babbling at the same time. “And the doctor started asking me all these questions about being pregnant, and I thought there was no way I could be, no way, but the pill isn’t one hundred percent and I was devastated when I found out.
“And so scared. I couldn’t sleep and I looked like shit, but I had to go to class. I couldn’t stay in bed crying forever—that wouldn’t be doing anyone any good. So, I showed up to the lecture hall, and who walks in but Rex. There he was, said I looked tired and did I want some coffee? He made an offhanded comment about the way I looked then a wisecrack about me being pregnant, and what could I say? I couldn’t lie. Because I am.
“One time we went to Target and walked through the baby aisle looking at all the tiny clothes.” She laughs. “He thought it would cheer me up.”
I want to be sick, want to puke all over this white bedspread at the thought of Gunderson taking her to the fucking baby department at goddamn Target. What the actual fuck?
It’s like I went to bed last night and woke up in a parallel universe where Rex Gunderson has taken over my life and is filling my shoes.
You moved to Michigan, remember?
She doesn’t say it, but we’re both thinking it.
I shut my mouth and save my comments for myself. Run my hand over her abs, up toward her breasts, not daring to actually touch them. “Have these gotten any bigger?” I blurt out rudely.
“Oh my God, seriously?” Anabelle groans. “You just found out I’m pregnant and you’re asking if my boobs are bigger.”
“Well, yeah.”
“Well they aren’t, not yet, but they probably will be.”
“Huh.”
She yawns.
“Anabelle?”
“Yeah?”
“I just want you to know I’m…sorry, for this, for everything I missed.”
“You don’t have to apologize, we’re both responsible.”
“I know, but I should have known better.”
She tilts her head, trying to get a better look at me. “What do you mean?”
“Until you’re in a committed relationship, you should always wear a condom. That’s like, textbook common sense—Oz and Zeke lectured me about it all the fucking time.”
“I was committed to you, Elliot, in my own way, whether you wanted me to be or not.”
“I didn’t mean it as an insult.”
“What did you mean, then?”
“Unless two people are planning a future together, they should be careful.”
“You know what, Elliot? I’ve been living like this for weeks with nothing to do but lie here, by myself, and think about this baby inside me over and over and over again. I lie in the dark, dwelling on it, on what we could have done differently and how my life is going to change. How disappointed my parents are. My mother barely speaks to me, blames this whole thing on my dad.” She yawns. “Can we just sleep? This second trimester is kicking my ass.” Her hand reaches for mine, pulling it around her waist. “I’m glad you’re here.”
The lights are shut off and after Anabelle dozes off, I’m still lying in the dark, hands behind my head, staring at the ceiling.
I’m going to be a father at the age of twenty-two.
A dad.
Because I got a girl I’m not in a relationship with pregnant.
Knocking a girl up is something I would have expected my old roommates to have done before they found love and settled. They’re the ones who used to sleep around, not me.
What the hell am I going to do?
Anabelle
“So how did it go at your dad’s thing?”
He’s been gone for hours, having left the house late morning, looking dapper in black dress pants and a button-down shirt. I helped him with his tie, a periwinkle blue and bright pink paisley, my trembling hands so embarrassingly unknowledgeable on the task, I had to redo it four times.
Elliot stood patiently, smelling like a fresh shower while I fumbled. Then, with a self-conscious backward glance—as if he almost couldn’t make himself go—his black leather dress shoes carried him out the door and down the steps. Headed to some fancy hotel downtown when between us, there were so many things left unsaid.
But he’s back now, sitting in my kitchen, able to rationally discuss “the situation.”
The situation—is that what I’m calling it now?
“How did it go? I honestly have no idea—I could barely concentrate on anything my father or his colleagues were saying during their speeches. This baby thing is all I could fucking think about. I sleepwalked through the entire day.”
This baby thing…
I know he didn’t mean to say it like that, but still, a knot forms in the pit of my stomach and I resist the urge to put my hands on my belly protectively. I’ve been doing that a lot lately—touching my small bump, rubbing it and gazing at it in the mirror, watching it grow.