Page 45 of The Lover
I was pregnant.
* * *
Wednesday
Isatat the kitchen table and waited. I knew Jake’s flight landed in the morning, but he still had a three-hour drive from the airport. I had no idea what I was going to say to him. Because I knew exactly how this was going to go down.
For four days I had cried and despaired. Then in the really dark moments, I thought about making it go away before he came home and never telling him about it. After all, wasn’t it my decision?
But I couldn’t. Because it wasn’t. This was something we had done together. If he ever knew I had done that without letting him know, it would end us. Any semblance of what we were. And even if he never found out, I would still know I had done that to him. I couldn’t live with myself knowing that.
It would hurt him to know I had even had the thought.
But he wasn’t going to see this like I saw it. He wasn’t going to see how I had trapped him again. How a relationship where both people didn’t chose each other was ultimately doomed to failure.
There was this one dream I had. Hope really. That maybe he would walk through the front door to find me waiting for him, and without any prompting he would tell me how much he missed me. How much he loved me.
I heard his truck pull up and felt my stomach drop. This was it. Every practiced speech, every thought in my head of how I could make this not horrible was about to go down.
“Ellie, you here?” Jake called out as he opened the front door.
“In the kitchen,” I called back. I took a sip of water and I could see my hand was shaking.
I swallowed.
“Hey, I didn’t know this was the plan, but I like it,” he said as he bent down to kiss me on the lips. “Not working today?”
I shook my head. I wasn’t ready to talk over the lump in my throat.
When I could, I started with the easy stuff. “How was the trip?”
“Hey, can you hold that thought? I just want to run out and check in with Rich first. Make sure there are no fires. Then I’ll tell you all about it.”
I nodded and listened as he made his way out the back door.
A reprieve. Still, the fantasy was gone. No immediate declarations of love.
I got up to fill up my glass. There was soda in the fridge, but truthfully I had no idea what I could or could not drink yet. Alcohol was out obviously, but what about coffee or did I have to drink tea? And I thought there were new rules about lunch meat.
I didn’t know. My head was too wrapped around what this meant for me, for Jake, that I hadn’t been ready to go into research mode quite yet.
What was going to be a surprise was his reaction. What he did after that, was not in doubt. But I wondered if he would be angry or sad. Or if he might be happy. He’d always wanted a family. He might in some ways be thrilled, which meant I had to make sure he didn’t know how devastated I was.
After all, it was Jake’s baby. I was probably going to love the thing.
After another ten minutes passed I heard the back door open and close, and then he was in the kitchen. Smoking hot in jeans and a black t-shirt. The father of my baby.
Yeah, maybe once all the sadness passed about how this would dramatically change the path we were on…I would start to think how lucky I was.
He made his way to fridge and got out a beer. He sat down and stretched out his legs and sighed.
“Long trip. Man, I hate flying. The seats I swear are made for five-foot, hundred-pound women and that’s it. Anybody else and you’re out of luck. And of course the guy in front of me had to have his seat back all the way. I’m serious, Ellie. Not going to lie, I get a little claustrophobic on those damn things.”
I nodded.
This was it. This was the moment. I just had to say it.
“Sorry about that. I’m pregnant.”
