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’s 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.”
Thump. “You sure?” I ask like a silly naïve girl.
“Really. Even if it’s all bad stuff about me, I want to know. I want you to get it out.”
His eyes plead with me, and I know I have to tell him. I can’t hide this from him, not with him here, asking what I’m thinking. I need to be strong and tell him what happened. I look down at the comforter, swallowing thickly and picking at the threads.
“I feel like you broke up with me even though we weren’t together,” the words slip out before I can catch them.
“We were together and I don’t want to break up.”
“I thought… I meant-” I start to say, but he cuts me off.
“You mean more to me than I told you. You do. You mean a lot to me.”
“Why did you--” I can’t even place what he did or what happened that made me feel that way. “Maybe I just got in my head or--”
“No. I’m sorry, Grace.” He holds my gaze, and I feel it. I feel his sincerity. “I pushed you away and I’m sorry. I meant something to you too, right? You did want me?” he questions like he doesn’t know the answer.
“Of course I did. I still do. I don’t think I could ever not want you.” Surprise catches me in its grip, watching the relief roll through his shoulders.
It’s quiet for a long time, the sound of my heart beating faster and faster filling my ears. Tell him. Tell him about the pregnancy.
“You told Diane it was fake--”
“Diane?” her name comes out like a curse from my mouth as my ass pops off the bed. “What the hell did she tell you?”
“It doesn’t--”
“The hell it doesn’t matter!” I could kill her right now. What right did she have to come between Charlie and me?
Charlie doesn’t have patience for my reaction. “Listen to me Grace. Just listen to me.”
With his pleading words, I carefully sit back down, the bed creaking in the silence and I make a mental note to never speak to Diane again unless it has to do with work. She’s not my friend. There needs to be a boundary between her and I and I’m the one who has to set it. Gesturing for Charlie to continue, I wait for what he has to say before I tell him the whole truth.
“It doesn’t really matter because I shouldn’t have listened to her. I should have asked you. I thought it was over. And I’m sorry. But I want you, and I care for you….” His words are genuine and sincere.
“Wait. Wait.” I stop him and try to remember every thought I had last night. How he doesn’t have to be with me because I’m pregnant. How he can be in the baby’s life or not.
“I want to tell you something first… I…” I have to suck in a deep breath and stare at the ceiling to tell him. “I’m pregnant,” I say. Even though I thought I cried all the tears earlier, my eyes well up.
Charlie blinks a few times. “What?”
“I swear I didn’t think I could…” I can’t breathe as Charlie stands, his brow knit and he comes around the sofa, closer to my bed. My heart pounds.
“When did you find out?” he questions and in the million ways I imagined telling him that was never a question he asked. “Yesterday. I promise I didn’t know that it would happen when I said no condom… I swear,” I practically stutter as Charlie gets closer, his gaze intense and the air around him seeming to bend everything else, blurring it.
“I just came from the doctor and it’s obviously early and…” I don’t know what to say when he looks at me like that. With that sharp piercing gaze.
“Do you love me?” he questions me, now only inches away. The heat from his body wraps around me. My fingers dig into the comforter to ground me as I crane my neck to look up at him. He towers over me and my heart beats loudly in my ears.
“Of course I do.” Tears prick my eyes. I almost add, it’s okay if you don’t love me back. I’m so close, so desperate to be okay with whatever he wants because he makes me so happy and he’s the only piece in the puzzle of life that’s missing for me. I’ll take him anyway I can get. Please don’t leave me. I want to beg him. I’m shamelessly in love with him and he’s all I want.
“Good. Lay down sweetheart,” Charlie whispers, cupping my chin and kissing me just once, soft and sweet. A fluttering in my chest tells me it’s okay. With both of my hands wrapped around his, I lift my lips, stealing another kiss.
Before I can do as he wishes, he lowers his lips to my ear and confesses, “I want to make love to you.”