Page 37 of Session 33

He nodded, sitting down next to me. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m here for you.”

As I closed my eyes, I felt his hand gently stroking my hair. Despite everything, I couldn’t deny how much I wanted to be in his presence. I decided to wait and see how things played out in the next few days or weeks before telling him about the pregnancy.

And give him a chance to show me the man I was starting to think he was. Maybe I was being naive, but this was my first love, and I wanted to believe in him.

“I got you, baby. You don’t have to worry about anything,” he said softly. I'm staying right here with you.

I nodded.

By the third day, I wanted to go home. He was overwhelming me. I started to feel suffocated. The way he watched me, as if waiting for the right moment to reveal something I wasn’t ready to hear made me uneasy.

I was talking to Naomi one night, and he kept hovering around the door. I told her about how he'd been acting.

She sucked her teeth. "He knows he fucked up, and now he's scared you're going to get rid of him."

What she said didn’t make sense until I told him he could go home, and he caught an attitude.

I didn’t want to argue with him, so I dropped the subject. Later that night, the doorbell rang. We both had been watching TV in my bedroom. He jumped up to get it. He came back with his hand behind his back, grinning.

"I have a surprise for you."

He flashed a small velvet box. My heart ceased in my chest. He opened it, it wasn’t a ring. I damn near sighed out loud in relief. I was so grateful it wasn't a ring. It was a necklace, a tiny diamond hanging from a silver chain.

He took it from the box to show me.

"What is this for, Cassius?" I touched the pendant.

He frowned. "I can't buy you something just because?"

"Thank you, it's beautiful." I said instead of telling himthe gift felt suspect as hell.I took it, trying to make myself more excited.

Cassius leaned over and kissed my forehead. “You’re more beautiful.”

I rolled my eyes as he climbed back into bed, now thinking that Naomi was probably right about him being scared.

Chapter twenty eight

Cassius had finally gone home after a week, and I was grateful. It gave me time to think and do other things, like run to the drugstore and buy ten pregnancy tests. I knew the hospital doctor had to be wrong. This couldn’t be happening to me.

Back at home, I peed into a cup and lined up the tests on the bathroom counter, my hands trembling. One by one, I added urine to them. Waiting was agonizing, especially when, one after another, they displayed the same outcome—positive. My heart sank further.

"I fucked up," I whispered to myself, my voice cracking. This was not part of my plan. I got a man, and now everything was changing.

I sat on the side of the tub, and the tears came, wetting my cheeks as the reality of my situation hit me like a freight train. I felt dizzy but didn’t feel like walking the twenty short steps to my bed. My heart pounded in my chest. Sliding into the bathtub, I rested my head on the side.

What in the hell was I going to do? Cassius and I were in an awkward place. He kept saying he loved me, but I wasn’t motivated to say it back—even though I did. What did that mean?

I felt super tired. The next thing I knew, Cassius was waking me up. I wished I had never given him a key. When my vision cleared, I saw him holding a couple of the tests. His face was unreadable.

"You're pregnant?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Yeah," I answered, my voice hollow.

"Is that why you were crying?" he asked, his eyes searching mine.

"Yeah," I answered again, my voice breaking.

"Happy tears?" he probed, hope flickering in his eyes.

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