Wednesday
Pregnant.
When I took the test Monday morning, two vertical lines were the last things I was expecting to see. I was so used to negatives, to that gut punch in my chest every time I had to look at a used test. I’d taken another, and then another, and after I’d gotten home from watching Jamey I’d run to Target, buying as many tests as I could fit in my arms. I’d only taken half before the realization settled.
Pregnant, actually pregnant, confirmed by every single midstream early pregnancy test I could find. From the most expensive down to the cheapest, most basic, most unreliable. Pregnant, pregnant, pregnant, pregnant. The test said two to three weeks, and if I wasn’t mistaken, that would mean I got pregnant either the first or the second time we’d had sex.
If only I hadn’t been lying that day in Hudson’s office when I joked I’d slept with someone else.
Hudson didn’t want another child. That was fine, I could understand his reasons, and in all honesty, I felt bad for my own idiocy in thinking we didn’t need protection. He didn’t have to be involved and I would be absolutely fine with that, but I couldn’t help but worry over how he would feel about having another kid out there that he didn’t know, didn’t see grow up. I’d always planned on being a single mom, to raise my kid happy and healthy and alone, but that had always rested on the idea that I wouldn’t know who fathered it. Surely, I could look past that. I could make this work even though I knew the father, even though we’d slept together, even though I’d taken care of his kid for weeks now.
Right?
I groaned in frustration as I leaned my head against the tile wall of my shower, the hot water streaming across my body. I was happy. So genuinely happy, ecstatic even, to be pregnant. But the weight of the situation still sat heavily on my shoulders, my chest, making it hard to breathe, hard to feel more than just anxiety. Not to mention the sheer amount of confusion because I hadn’t needed the IVF after all.
I turned the shower off, letting the steam dissipate and the warm air turn frigid on my damp skin. I could do this alone. I’d planned for it. My business was successful, I had two spare rooms, I had family and friends that would be there for me and help in whatever way they could. I didn’t have time for a man in my life, whatever that relationship may be.
I’d be fine.
I had to be fine.
I wrapped a towel around my body and stepped out of the shower, checking the time on my phone. Just past five. Hudson would be home soon, and normally, the idea of that would send butterflies into flight in my stomach. But I wasn’t at his house today. He’d texted me this morning insisting that I stay home, saying he’d already asked his mother to come watch Jamey. I didn’t know if he wanted to cut ties and whether or not he wanted me to stop watching Jamey altogether. I hadn’t responded. I hadn’t had the guts.
I couldn’t avoid him forever, and I knew that. We were neighbors for Christ’s sake. I’d see him eventually.
I pulled on my favorite sweatpants, hesitating when I glanced at the Harvard hoodie still sitting in my laundry basket, yet to be washed, yet to be worn again. I grabbed it without giving myself a moment to wonder why, pulling it over my damp head of hair and sinking into the warmth and the little bit of comfort it gave me.
I had a shit ton of work to do. I had at least twenty backed-up orders for custom pieces that I’d yet to even start on, and as I made my way down the stairs with one hand on my nonexistent bump, I didn’t let my thoughts turn to Hudson and the stress that was piling up inside of me. I wanted an evening of peace, an evening where I could do the work I loved while just being happy about the life growing inside of me.
But of course I wasn’t going to get that. A knock at the door made me physically jump, the scissors in my hand cutting wrong across the too-expensive fabric. “Shit,” I mumbled, already knowing how horribly I’d messed up the delicate lace.
Another knock and I was on my feet. I already knew who it was, already knew that my evening was about to get much more stressful.
I pulled open the door, hoping that maybe, just maybe, I’d find a smiling delivery person making their last-minute stop. But no. Instead I was greeted by bright green eyes, scrubs, and a mop of dark hair.
“What do you—”
“Can we talk?” He asked, cutting me off and taking a step toward the open door. “Please?”
“I’m really busy right now.”
“I get that. But you can’t avoid this forever, Sophie.” He pushed past me, letting himself in, and all I wanted to do was scream in frustration. Couldn’t he just give me a day?
“I don’t want to avoid this forever,” I mumbled as I shut the door behind him. “I just need time to come to terms with everything.”
“I get that.” He pushed his fingers through his hair as he crossed the room, his eyes wandering over the patterns laid out and the fabric that was draped across my dress form, pinned in place. “I’m sorry for yesterday. I shouldn’t have reacted that way.”
I wasn’t expecting an apology.
“And I’m also sorry for how I acted Saturday night. That was… it was really shitty of me. I know that.”
I leaned back against the front door, watching him as he took the too-expensive lace in his hand, feeling the fabric that he’d startled me into ruining. “Thank you for apologizing.”
“I wish you’d told me,” he muttered, his gaze turning far too slowly toward me, looking me up and down, realizing I was wearing his Harvard hoodie. “Why didn’t you talk to me first? You had to know that I’d find out if you called the office. It’s been gnawing at my brain since yesterday and I just can’t figure it out.”
I pursed my lips as I twirled one damp strand of wavy hair around my finger. I knew why I’d done it. Deep down, I knew, and looking back on it now, it felt ridiculous. It was stupid, childish. “I thought it would be best to keep it professional,” I sighed, slipping my other hand into the pocket of the hoodie and placing it flat against my stomach. “I know you don’t want another kid. So I thought, I guess, that it would be better for you to find out as my doctor instead of as… whatever the hell this is.”
He blinked at me, confusion contorting his features. “Did you think that because I’m not actively pursuing having another child I wouldn’t want to be involved?”
I hated this. I hated this conversation, the tension, the heaviness in the air between us. “You said you were happy with Jamey and that you didn’t want another.”
“That doesn’t mean—” He cut himself off, his grip on the lace tightening. “If you’re having this child, Sophie, my child, I want to be involved.”
“If?” I scoffed, pushing off from the door and standing up straight. “Of course I’m having this kid. It’s a goddamn miracle I’m pregnant in the first place. Why would you even say that?”
He sighed exasperatedly, his eyes rolling. “I didn’t mean it like that and you know it.”
“Do I?” I pressed, taking another step toward him. “You said you didn’t want another kid. You made it clear that Jamey was enough, that you didn’t see a need to change that. Am I supposed to just blindly believe that you’re entirely fine with this? That you want to see this through?”
“Yes,” he deadpanned, his green eyes narrowing. “Do you think I’m some sort of heartless monster that would ask you—someone who has had a horrible time trying to conceive, someone who desperately wants a child—to terminate it just because I wasn’t planning on having another kid?”
“No. I don’t,” I admitted. “But I do think that you aren’t exactly thrilled. I do think that you don’t necessarily want it, and that the only reason you want to be involved is because you think it’s the right thing to do, among maybe a few others.”
“That’s not—”
“I wasn’t planning on sharing this child with anyone anyway.” I shoved past him, my shoulder bumping his arm, and tried not to think about how nice it was to even touch him like that. Opening the fridge, I scanned the shelves for something I could use to make dinner, deciding I was well and truly done with this conversation and that I needed to get on with my evening.
“What do you mean?”
Chicken. Broccoli. Camembert—shit, can’t eat that anymore. “I mean that I’ll be fine on my own, Hudson. I don’t need your help with raising it. You can live your life and I can live mine.”
“But I want to be there.”
I slammed the refrigerator door shut as I turned to face him. “Do you? Or do you just want to be around me so that you can fuck me?”
His eyes widened as he took a step back. “Jesus, how much of an asshole do you think I am?” He snapped, dropping the fisted fabric back onto the table.
“I don’t know, why don’t you ask your cock? It seems to be the only brain you have.”
His jaw hardened as he turned his gaze from me, toward the door. “Why are you shutting me out like this? Why do you desperately want to believe that I don’t want to be there through this?”
“I don’t.”
“You do, Sophia,” he snarled, whipping his head back toward me. “You know damn well that I’m a good father, at least as good as I can be. Why would I abandon a child that I helped create?”
I nibbled my lower lip as I stared at him. Words became stuck in my throat, too harsh, too scared to crawl out. This was all too much for me to even try to comprehend right now, not when I had so much to be happy about and focused on. For all the times I wanted him around me, I wanted him gone ten times more at this moment.
I wished we’d never had sex. I wished I’d never ended up at his clinic, as his neighbor, as his nanny. I wished we’d never crossed paths.
“I need you to leave.” I leaned forward onto the counter, dropping my head so I wouldn’t need to look at him. “Go be that stellar father to the child you already have, Hudson. I need to be alone.”
The silence fell heavy around us. I heard him breathing, the rustling of his scrubs as his chest rose and fell, the slight whistle as the air blew from his nostrils. Then, the shuffling of feet, hard footsteps against tile turning soft as they landed on the mat in front of my door, the sound of the handle turning and the door latching shut as he left. Then, the sound of my tears hitting the pale white countertop, of my nails scratching against it as I curled my hands into fists.
I should be happy. I should be ecstatic. But all I felt was dread and resentment, fear and anger, so palpable I could feel it boiling in my veins.
Why did it have to be him?
