AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Emily came over a handful of times in the week that followed my afternoon in Washington Square. She brought me homemade soup and groceries, meal-prepped for me so I wouldn’t need to cook for myself, talked to me about how things were going with work to try to take my mind off things.
I just didn’t have the energy in me to respond.
“Aves,” she said softly, squatting down in front of where I sat curled up on the couch with layers of blankets over me. “You’re not taking care of yourself.”
“I’m fine.” I pulled the blankets up a little higher, covering my arms.
“You’re not,” she insisted. “And it’s okay to not be okay about this. But you’re pregnant and you need to take care of yourself to take care of that little life.”
I didn’t respond. I knew she was right, of course, but I was perfectly happy to sit and stew in peace until I decided I was capable of taking care of myself again.
“Have you talked to your dad?”
I shook my head. The idea of talking to him about the Adrian situation was horrifying on its own, but adding in the pregnancy as well felt like the worst possible thing I could do.
“I think you should,” she said gently. “Maybe there’s more to this than what Adrian told you.”
I couldn’t help but wince at the sound of his name.
“For their sake,” she pleaded, her eyes drifting to my stomach. “I think understanding would help you to move forward in whatever way that will look for you.”
————
I didn’t tell him I was coming.
Maybe I should have—maybe that would have made me less anxious about seeing him, maybe it would have made the words I wanted to say to him easier to practice in my mind. Maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t have thundered in like a raging storm, then.
But time was a funny thing and didn’t like to be undone.
“Are you happy?”
Dad sat on his recliner, a glass of whiskey in his hand and some show about trucks getting stuck in the snow in Alaska playing too loudly on the absurdly large television. His bald head swung in my direction, wide eyes clashing with mine as I caught him fully off guard.
He kicked down the footrest as his gaze traveled lower, right to the bump I wasn’t even trying to conceal. My paint-stained black shirt clung to it, and although my jacket obscured it slightly, I knew damn well he could see it. He couldn’t stop seeing it. “Aves…?”
“Do you understand what you’ve done?”
He blinked rapidly, his body stiffening as he stood up. It was as if his mind couldn’t quite catch up to the situation.
I didn’t have the patience for him to be confused. I didn’t have the patience for anything. “Fucking answer me, Dad,” I snapped.
His mouth opened and closed like a goddamn fish. “You’re…?”
“Pregnant?” I laughed, the sound coming out angry, hollow, vengeful. “Yeah. What gave it away?”
He shook his head in disbelief, his brows furrowing. “What the fuck is goin’ on?”
“You threatened him,” I said, kicking the door shut behind me. “You threatened him, and now I’m stuck in limbo because you couldn’t wrap your goddamn head around the idea that maybe, just maybe, we weren’t just having sex behind your back.”
Vertigo hit as he took a step around the coffee table toward me, aiming the remote at the television to pause his precious, stupid show. “Jesus H. Christ, Aves, ‘ya could have told…”
“No,” I scolded him. The temptation to laugh at the absurdity of scolding my own father hit me as I gripped the back of the couch for stability, but I fought it. “You should have come to me first instead of Adrian. You know damn well you should have. But you attacked him, threatened him, without ever asking me how I felt about the situation. You didn’t even consider me in this at all, did you?”
He cursed under his breath and averted his gaze, exhaling so loud through his nostrils I could hear it from ten feet away. “Is this,” he motioned toward my stomach, “why you haven’t been at the office?”
My eye twitched. “No, Dad,” I said, keeping my voice as level as I could after my outburst. “I haven’t been at the office because I’ve been so fucking depressed over this that I couldn’t get out of my apartment.”
His jaw tightened. “I didn’t realize the extent of it.”
