Page 26 of Knocked Up By The Mountain Man

I gesture to my body. Even in the large cab of my truck, it appears to be cramped and squished into the seat.

"Do I scare you?” I continue. “Do you think I'm going to hurt you?"

"Of course not," Alyssa says. "Not physically, anyway, if that's what you're asking. But emotionally?" She takes a breath. "Sure. Of course I think you're going to hurt me emotionally. That's what everybody does."

I identify more with what she's saying than she can possibly imagine.

"I don't want to hurt you emotionally either. I don't want to hurt you at all," I say.

"Yeah?" she asks. "Well, what do you think about this?"

She holds up the ultrasound.

“Because I heard what you were saying to your friend,” she says. “You don't want kids. You specifically ditched that lady this morning at the diner because you don't want kids. You called them a burden."

I exhale slowly, regretting every stupid word that I said.

"Kids aren't a burden when you have them with the right person," I say. "I guess that's what I meant. I don't want to have kids with someone like Carla, someone who isn't the right fit for me. But with you, it’s different."

"Why?"

"I don't know,” I say earnestly. "It doesn't really make sense to me either. I haven't been able to forget about you ever since I met you months ago."

I pause.

"If I'd had your phone number, if I had any clue that I could have tracked you down at all, I would have. Believe me, I tried. But I didn’t have any information to go off of, other than your first name.”

She looks down.

"It's just our bad luck," she says.

"Are you talking about me losing your phone number? Or are you talking about the pregnancy?" I ask.

"Both," she says.

I grip her hand.

Our eyes are locked, and I need her to understand this, to believe it, to really absorb it and know that every fucking word that I say is the truth.

“I don't think that this pregnancy is bad luck," I say slowly. "And I don't think it's a burden either."

I take a breath.

“I think it’s fate. Fate that we met that night. Fate that the birth control didn’t work. Fate that you walked right back into town and found me at the diner.”

I shake my head.

"I'm not usually a believer in corny stuff like that, but with you, I am. You’ve made me a believer in soulmates. Because I’ve found mine, and it’s you.”

I stare into her eyes.

"It's you or nobody. That's the thing. If I can't have you, I don't want anybody else."

I squeeze her hand.

"I don't want to have kids with anybody else. You're it. You're the one.”

Her eyes widen. Her breath hitches, and at first I'm afraid she's about to put the wall back between us.