Ethan’s standing in the doorway, wearing the same clothes he had on yesterday and his hair is a mess. His eyes are glazed and red, and his face has a slight stubble. His entire appearance looks exhausted. Good. He looks how I feel.
“Excuse me, sir, visiting hours haven’t started yet. Only family is allowed right now,” the nurse says sweetly to him.
“I’m her cousin,” he says, pointing in my direction. Sara’s sitting next to me and since he wasn’t specific, the nurse assumes he is talking about me. She nods and he steps into the room, moving cautiously around the bed to stand on my other side. I don’t have the energy to argue with anyone right now. He can stay, but I’m not talking to him.
“Alright, Ms. Brian, is there any medication you’re taking or any medical concerns we need to know about before we start?” the nurse asks.
Damn it. I should have asked him to leave.
I drop my chin to my chest and take a deep breath. I have to say it. I have to tell her the truth. Any one of those tests could harm me or the baby.
“I’m pregnant,” I blurt out and the room fills with silence. My eyes instantly search for Ethan’s and I watch as his face crumbles.
That’s the only look I need to see to be reminded that this entire thing between us has been a sham. A tear slips by, but I control the full waterworks because the one piece keeping me strong now is this baby.
Ethan
Pregnant.
I swallow hard as I lean against the wall next to Kelsey’s bed. Kelsey’s pregnant. With my baby. I take a couple of concentrated breaths before I look up at her. Her gaze is pointing down to her hands where she holds them laced in her lap. I see the tears running down her cheeks and her chest as it moves slowly with each breath she takes. My heart breaks as the nurse looks between Kelsey and me before she quietly excuses herself from the room.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I step toward her.
Kelsey swallows but doesn’t look up.
“Ethan, you should probably leave for a bit. Give everyone some time to process this.” Sara is standing in front of me, speaking quietly. I force myself to look at her. Leave? She can’t be serious. Kelsey and I have a lot to talk about. How can she not see this? I just found out I’m going to be a father, and she wants me to leave.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I say firmly and take a step around her toward Kelsey. Sara grabs my arm, and I snap my head to look her in the eye. What doesn’t she understand?
“Ethan, please,” she pleads. I stare at her for a moment then look back to Kelsey. She’s watching us as the tears continue to spill from her eyes.
“Is this what you want, for me to leave?” I ask her. She keeps her red, swollen eyes locked on mine for what feels like the longest moment of my life and then nods.
I want to yell. I want to hit something or even slam her door as I go, but I don’t. I don’t say anything as I leave her room. My heart feels like she just gripped it and squeezed as hard she could.
I haven’t cried in a long time. I’m a man and we don’t cry. I step into the elevator and the doors close in front of me. The elevator is filled with silence, giving my mind more power to yell and scream at me for everything I have done wrong. I want to cry. Cry for the way my heart feels. I want to cry because Kelsey’s in pain because of me. She’s pregnant because of me. She looks terrified because of me. And now she doesn’t want anything to do with me, and I want to cry because I just lost the best thing that ever happened to me and I don’t know how to fix it.
The one thing I do know I need to do is get my father out of my life. And when I get home to find him parked in my driveway. The anger building inside of me urges me to punch his teeth out.
He opens his door, standing to glare at me. “I sent you here for one thing. Look at the mess you made.”
“You need to leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere until I get—”
“Get the fuck off my driveway and out of my life!” I yell. His head jerks back as he stares at me.
“Excuse me? I’ve done nothing but give your spoiled, ungrateful ass everything you have today. You have no right to speak to me that way.”
“I don’t want anything from you, except for you to leave. Take it all. The truck, the house, the bike. I don’t care. The one person who means anything to me is lying in a hospital bed with my unborn child, and she wouldn’t be there if I hadn’t wanted to be accepted as your son so goddamn bad. None of that matters to me now. You don’t matter to me. Just leave.”
“Oh that’s brilliant, Ethan. Add to your mess by knocking up the—”
I step toward him, fists clenched at my sides. “Leave! Get the fuck out of here. If I have to say it again, I will hit you and won’t stop until someone drags you away from me.”
His eyes glance at my hands before he points at me.
“You are not welcome in my home, ever again.”
I throw my hands up as he gets in his car and backs away.
I will gladly never see that man again. If I have any chance of redeeming myself with Kelsey in order for us to have a real family, my father needs to be as far away from me as I can get him.
Chapter Twenty-five
Kelsey
The next few weeks go slowly. I decline Sara’s mother’s invitation to join them for Thanksgiving. I don’t want to chance seeing Ethan. My parents came home early from their trip, and my mother is more excited about my news than my father. He’s being a total Scrooge this holiday season, but I don’t care. I never expected him to be happy.
There’s no way I’m staying at their house anymore. I don’t want to be anywhere near Ethan. Thinking about him is hard enough. I would lose it if I saw him. But I miss him. I’m so angry and confused, I don’t understand how I can miss him. He’s the reason we’re in this spot to begin with. My cellphone rings on the stand next to my bed. I glance over to see Ethan’s name flashing across the screen. Again. I don’t reach for my phone but instead I sink down into my bed and cover myself completely with my sheets.
The finalist dinner came and went, and although they offered me the position and I accepted it, I can’t even force myself to be happy about it. It’s the one thing in my life actually working out. For as much as I had looked forward to that night, my mind is still in such a fog over everything that’s happened, it almost doesn’t feel real.
“Kelsey?” Sara pokes her head inside my bedroom door. “I’m going to make spaghetti for dinner. Do you want some?”
My stomach rumbles at the word spaghetti. Sounds like my little one is going to be a lover of Italian food just like her mother. I’m almost positive it’s a girl.
“I’m going to take that as a yes.” Sara gives a slight laugh from the door and then leaves.
Once the door closes, I pull the sheets off my face. The red light at the top of my phone screen is blinking. I have a voicemail.
I stare at my phone, trying to decide what to do. Ethan leaves a voicemail every time he calls. I never listen to them and when my mailbox is full, I delete them unheard.
I crawl out of bed and stand in front of the full-length mirror behind my bedroom door. When I was at the hospital I found out I was eight weeks along, which makes me almost eleven weeks now. That means I got pregnant the night of the pool table and my due date is early June. It also means I’m an idiot because I didn’t know for eight weeks. I should have figured it out sooner. I turn to my side and lift up my shirt. I don’t look any different, but I feel like a whole new person.
I have my first real doctor’s appointment next week and Sara is going with me. Every day she tells me I’m making a mistake by not including Ethan, but I try my best to ignore her. She’s still mad at Ethan, but I think she’s even more annoyed at the fact I don’t want him there. I don’t want him around me or the baby at all. He was pretending the whole time we were together and never wanted me to begin with. I don’t want the burden of him pretending he wants a family too.