Page 3 of How is This My Life?
I was stuck in a daze, unable to process anything else tonight. My world had changed so drastically, I wasn’t sure what to do next. I knew I had to leave him, the apartment, and the life we had planned behind. I was a monogamous girl through and through. I only ever wanted one man, and for one man to want me. I didn’t think that was so weird, but maybe I was wrong?
There was no way I could ever be with someone I didn’t have that emotional connection with, and I sure a heck couldn’t be with someone who could sleep with someone else, anyone else, while still being with me.
I needed fidelity. Was that too much to ask?
How…how is this my life?
T W O: Three Weeks Later
Elise’s POV
It had been three weeks since I moved out of the apartment and in with Denise and Aaron. They helped me pack everything up that night so I’d never have to see him again. They had been amazing in every way possible. Denise gave up her office, which used to be their guest room, that she used for schooling, and where they would have family come to visit, though the only family that came to visit was me.
Denise would still come into the room some days to use the desk, which was the only place for it. It was a nice break from the silence I surrounded myself with. I would lock myself in there most days, sleeping, or getting sick from the thought of what happened with Trevor, or wondering if he had been sleeping with her for a while and just asked for the open relationship to ease his guilt.
I had scheduled a STD/STI screening at my doctor's immediately, but still hadn’t been able to get in. That appointment was this week, though, thankfully. I called my landlord the day after I moved all my things out and explained the situation to her. She was a kind, elderly lady, and her husband had run off with his secretary back in the seventies to Boca. She said she understood and had been thinking of raising the rent there anyway. I laughed, thankful that she was showing her support in her own way. And while I didn’t get my whole deposit back, I did get part of it back since I had to break my lease early.
Then I changed my address at the post office and with HR at the hospital. Those, fortunately, were the only phone calls I needed to make to discuss anything to do with this unpleasant matter. I was zoned out at the moment, staring out the windowof the guest room, lost in memories, snuggled deep in my nest of blankets and pillows. I was trying desperately not to smell whatever was being made for dinner because it was making me want to spew my guts for the fifth time today.
“Girl,” Denise said gently, coming in and sitting on the bed, moving some hair out of my face, “It’s been three weeks, and you’re not getting better, you’re getting worse. I don’t think it’s flu or heartbreak. So, while we were out at the store today, I bought these.” She pulled out three different brands of pregnancy tests.
No fucking way.
“There is no possible way I’m pregnant. We were always so careful, with condoms, and I was on the pill.” I was doing the math, or trying to, in my head. And I couldn’t remember through the fog when my last menstrual period was.
“I know,” she said with her hands up in surrender. This suggestion was the most lively response she had gotten from me since I’d been staying with her and Aaron, so I knew she was trying to be careful about her approach, “but we need to know. If it’s not this, we need to check it off the list of things it could be. If it is, we need to tell your OB about it when you go in to get the STD test because there’s no telling if he was with others before he asked for the…you know.” I nodded.
As much as I hated to admit it, it made sense. Condoms and birth control fail all of the time. I knew. I was a nurse. And I’d been consistently sick basically all day, depending on the smells, since the night I left. At first, I thought it was just the thought of Trevor with someone else. Now? With this suggestion and the pregnancy tests in front of me? I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, and the tears were trying to come again. I wasn’t ready for more tears. I had cried enough for a lifetime.
“What if I am?” I asked barely above a whisper, “I don’t want him to have anything to do with my pregnancy or my baby. At least not in the state he’s in now. Not when he’s all aboutexploringandexperimenting.” She pulled me into a warm hug, rubbing my back, soothing me from the crying fit that was coming on.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there, babe. We’ve got to find out if there’s a baby to worry about first. Use this.” She gave me a small smile as she handed me a red solo cup from the pack of them that we’d used only weeks ago to get drunk off our asses and drown my sorrows the night I left him.
Oh god.
If I were…that was the last time, but there was a possibility I might have still been pregnant then, if I was at all, since I had no idea when my last period was.
“I got a few different brands. We can dip them and find out.” She said, like the different colored boxes scattered on my bed weren’t proof of that. I just nodded, taking my plastic cup to go pee in.
How was this my life?!
I shuffled in my fuzzy socks, oversized pajama pants, and one of my dad’s old t-shirts to the bathroom, gently closing the door and doing my business. I set the cup on the counter, and Denise came in, tests ready to be dipped, and gave me the honors. We set timers on our phones after dipping them and laying them out on the countertop, caps on and face up. I turned around. Not able to look at them, just in case one decided to be done early.
Aaron knocked on my bedroom door and poked his head in to tell us dinner was ready. Denise and I were facing away from the tests, holding hands, pacing between the bathroomdoor and the length of the bedroom. Just as he went to shut the door, the alarms on our phones started going off. Neither of us moved; we just stared at the bathroom. Aaron, the hero he was, stopped and poked his head back in, looking at us frozen in place in the middle of the bedroom.
“Need me to check?” He offered. I looked at Denise, then at him, and nodded. I was too chicken shit to check. The thought of being tied to Trevor forever had me sick to my stomach, but the thought of finally becoming a mother had the butterflies in my belly going nuts. He padded his bare feet into my bathroom, taking his time looking at all the tests thoroughly.
“Well,” he said from the bathroom, sounding light and, if I wasn’t mistaken, a little teary, “Looks like we’re gonna be godparents, Nise.” He looked over at us, holding up one of the digital tests, results facing us.
What?
I moved at that, letting go of Denise’s hand, though she was hot on my heels.
“No fucking way,” I muttered as I picked up each of the tests. I checked each of them, then looked at and re-read the directions for each of them. My breath caught in my throat as more tears streamed down my face. I was going to be a mom. I felt both of their arms as they wrapped me in a tight, warm, familial hug. This had been what I wanted for so long, and now I was doing it on my own.
So many thoughts were assailing me. How could I do this? How would I be able to care for such a small human by myself? Would I be able to do it? Would I be a good mom? Would Trevor want to be involved? I tried my hardest to push those thoughts away and just melt into the hug of my best friends, my chosen family. The two people who had been therefor me through all of the ups and downs life had thrown at me. The two people who would be godparents to my child.
I melted into that embrace, clinging to them like a lifeline.
