* * *
Three at-home tests and a doctor’s visit later, the news was official. Matt and I had played things fast and loose, and now I was pregnant. Almost two months in, the doctor told me, before offering me her congratulations and then leaving me alone in the exam room to have a mini panic attack. I’d always wanted to be a mother, my whole life, but not like this. I didn’t want to be carrying my boss’s baby! Especially not when that boss was afraid of commitment and didn’t seem to care about my feelings, or really me in general, in the slightest.
When I went to pick up Will from school the same day I went to the doctor’s, he could tell right away that something was bothering me.
“You’re so quiet,” he remarked on the drive home. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Sorry. I’m just tired.”
He frowned. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But not too tired to go to the park this afternoon if you still want to. It’s such a nice day, and since you have a late start for school tomorrow, it could be fun.”
He shrugged. “Nah, that’s okay. I’m tired too. Let’s just go home.”
I knew he was only forgoing the park for my sake, and normally I would have insisted we do what he wanted, but that day I really was too tired to argue. If he said he wanted to go home, then so be it. I wanted to take a nap anyway, and maybe call my mom. When we got home, however, I couldn’t do any of those things because Matt was there. He said he’d left work early after a particularly stressful meeting and then offered to take Will to the park himself.
“Great!” Will said. “Then you can rest, Stephanie.” He looked at his dad. “She’s tired.”
I nodded. “Just a little.”
“Are you sick?” Matt asked.
I shook my head. “No. Just—yeah, just tired. But nothing to worry about. You two have fun. I’ll be here if you need anything.” I went to my room before they even left, crawled under the covers, and slept for nearly three hours.
* * *
I spoke too soon when I told Matt that I wasn’t sick. The nausea started that weekend, and I spent all of Saturday in bed while Matt and Will ran errands and went to the beach. When they got back that night, Will came to check on me, and with him sitting at the foot of the bed, looking at me with concern in his eyes, I knew I had to tell his dad. And soon. I didn’t know what we were going to do, how we were going to handle this, but regardless, the fact that I was pregnant was going to have an impact on Will’s life, so he deserved to know the truth too. Obviously, I had to tell Matt before I told Will, so I made a plan to tell the father of my baby that I was pregnant the next day.
I set my alarm for a little after seven, that way I would wake up before Will, and thankfully that morning I didn’t feel sick. I went into the kitchen and made myself some coffee, then waited nervously for Matt to come downstairs. He sauntered into the kitchen at 7:30 and smiled when he saw me. “You’re up early. You feeling better?”
“I am actually. Would you mind if we talked for a second?”
He furrowed his brow with concern. “Sure. Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine—” I heard a noise from upstairs. “Is Will up?”
“I don’t think so. I think that was just the house creaking.”
I stood up from the kitchen table. “Either way, I’m not sure we want him hearing this, so maybe we should talk in my room.”
Matt nodded and followed me down the hall. I closed the door behind us, and told him to sit down on the bed. “Look,” he said as he lowered himself down. “If this is about our fight last month, can I just say something first?”
I was happy to have a reason to put off telling him I was pregnant, so instead of correcting him, I simply told him to go ahead with whatever he had to say.
“Great,” he said, sighing. “Thanks. This has been weighing on me for weeks now. I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. I never should’ve gone to see another girl after we had sex. I didn’t go and see her, for the record, But still, even thinking that was okay was wrong of me. I know that now, and I could see how that would hurt your feelings, and I’m sorry.”
“That’s… very big of you to say.”
“I know there was some confusion,” he went on. “And we both made assumptions—”
“Speaking of assumptions,” I started to say.
“Hang on,” he said, but not rudely. “I just want to get this out. I know we both made assumptions, and it would be easy for me to say there was blame on both sides, but at the end of the day, I never should’ve talked to you the way that I did. I should’ve been more sensitive, and I will forever regret making you feel so horrible that night.”
I drew in a long breath and then let it out slowly. He looked so cute with his messy bed head, and the fact that he was sitting there apologizing to me—I couldn’t control myself. I don’t know if it was pregnancy hormones or what, but I wanted him so bad. I jumped into his lap and started kissing him before he even knew what was happening.
“Stephanie,” he said, pushing me back. “What are you doing? We can’t.”