Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 68055 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68055 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
“She doesn’t want me,” I emphasize as kindly as I can to my emotional mother.
“Son, if you think I didn’t pick up on the fact that you were only friends before, you must think I’m a fool. That first day I met her, I knew you two lied.”
“Ma, I-”
“Hush, boy,” she cuts me off. “I let it go because I could tell she wanted you. She had her eye set on you like I did your father. If you were blind to that, I can forgive it. But I can’t forgive you thinking she doesn’t love you. Not when everyone around you knows she does.”
She doesn’t get it and it kills me. I hate feeling like this. I hate seeing my mother like this even more.
“Do you love her?”
I hesitate only a second before answering, “yes.”
“Did you tell her?”
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I answer my mother. “No.”
“Just promise me this. You’ll tell her how you feel. How you really feel.” She nods slowly as if agreeing to whatever she’s thinking.
What it is, I don’t know.
“Promise me, Charlie.”
“I promise, I’ll tell her.” When I answer my mom, I don’t think much of it. But the more I think about it, the more I know I don’t have anything to lose. She’s already gone, it can only bring her back to me.
Grace
You’re pregnant, the doctor’s voice echoes in my head. Congratulations, Grace.
I grip the steering wheel as I drive home, willing myself not to cry. It’s a mix of happiness, wonder and profound sadness. Charlie gave me a baby.
Four days past the supposed day I was supposed to get my period, AKA yesterday, I peed on a stick and then cried. I told Ann, who’s immediate response was: you have to tell him. I almost told my mother, but it’s so soon. So to the doctor’s I went, who, surprisingly also only had me pee on a stick.
Take it easy and be happy. Those were the good doctor’s only words of advice.
I have to tell him. Ann’s right. But how? It’s been a week. He messaged yesterday that we had to talk. Everyone knows what those words mean and then… I took the test.
How can I look a man in the eyes and tell him I’m pregnant when the words out of his mouth are that he doesn’t want to see me anymore?
With a right turn onto my street, I come around the corner, and I’m surprised to find Charlie. Fate is cruel. I couldn’t have had one more day before I have to face this?
Just one day of looking up cribs and searching for three-bedroom houses. Making plans and checklists and searching baby names and their meanings.
Deep breath in. He’s sitting on the steps to my building. Deep breath out and he sees me as I pull into my designated parking spot.
There isn’t a pep talk in the world that will prepare me so all I do is grab my purse and get the hell out to face him.
I imagine what I’ll blurt out:
I really liked you and even fell for you and you hurt me.
I miss you and if I hurt you, I’m sorry.
… also. I’m pregnant and I swear I wasn’t lying when I told you I didn’t think it was possible.
Shit… shit, shit, shit. I can’t say that to him. What if he really does think I’m a liar? What if he thinks I used him? Oh my God, I just can’t take this.
“You didn’t answer my calls or texts,” Charlie explains before I’m even six feet from him. He’s already standing, right in the center of the path.
I stare at him for a long moment, at his downcast expression and his regretful posture. He usually takes up all the space around him, but now he’s meek.
Sweeping my hand out, which causes my purse to fall off my shoulder, I gesture toward the doorway. “Do you want to come in?” My heart is frantic, although outwardly I’m trying not to show it. It feels like it’s all just too little too late. Too many days passed. Too many truths weren’t shared. This is where it all implodes.
“I… I have something I wanted to tell you,” I admit to him and it takes all the air in my lungs to do it.
Charlie ambles inside not taking his eyes off me, and I close the door behind us both. The click seems louder than usual. I put my keys down in the bowl and hang up my purse, then walk over to where Charlie has seated himself on the edge of the couch.
I look at him for a second, then sit on the bed, my butt pushing back my pillows.
“Talk to me,” he says.
“About what?” Nervousness pricks at the back of my neck. Does he already know?
“Just… tell me what’s going on in that head of yours. I want to know.”