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  Even with the spotting worrying me, and Sabrina calling the doctor and rushing me to get bloodwork done before I got into work this morning, it still wasn’t like having Gavin onboard.

  To have someone to deal with that with, someone other than my sister, someone who’d actually assisted in the situation, felt like all of the pressure placed on me was now balanced between the two of us.

  I’d talked a good game these past few days, but I couldn’t think of a woman in the world who yearned to be pregnant alone.

  My phone vibrates, but this time, it’s my sister.

  Sabrina: How’s the spotting?

  Me: Still light, so that’s good . . . right?

  Sabrina: Yeah, just make sure you’re not on your feet all day.

  I push my phone back into my pocket and ignore my cramps, telling myself not to research cramps and spotting during early pregnancy anymore for multiple reasons:

  One: I’m there, reading comments all day from as long as seven years ago in these awful forums.

  Two: No one ever comes back to these forums to tell us whether they indeed had a successful pregnancy after voicing all of their symptoms and concerns.

  And three: I was convinced that search engines were built upon the idea that knowledge is power. But some knowledge just kept you up at night and fucked with your inner peace.

  The moment I’d come up for air from several hours of researching my symptoms, I vowed to never do it again.

  I grab my things from the back, wave goodbye to Wren and a few of her employees, and head home in the car I’d ordered, just in case being on my feet wasn’t the best for me, as the Internet tooted.

  When I get home, Carlos is waiting by the door. I grab his leash and we head off. And it’s like he somehow knows to be a little gentle with me, not tugging on his leash, even when he sees a bird.

  It’s still early fall and although I can see the leaves losing their green hues, I don’t wear anything more than a light jacket over my Harry Potter T-shirt.

  Part of me wants to reach out to Draya and invite her to dinner, maybe even a few old acquaintances of mine to catch up. But I decide to head home instead and relax, hoping that the time off my feet will make the cramps go away.

  My phone vibrates in my pocket almost as soon as I’ve walked in the front door.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey,” Gavin answers, his voice sounding tired.

  “What are you doing up?” I calculate the time difference and realize it’s three in the morning. “Just getting home?”

  “No, no,” he says, and I wait for him to explain. “I’ve just been up, thinking. About you. About the baby.”

  I press my ear into my shoulder, so I can give Carlos a treat.

  “Freaking out?” There’s a little humor in my tone. Mostly because what he’s starting to feel now, I felt within the first ten minutes of finding out.

  To Gavin, this pregnancy was just an idea. To me, it’s my reality. The changes in my body force me to acknowledge it, even though I don’t indulge in the knowledge.

  I don’t talk about genders or names or telling anyone. I don’t pause when I see baby clothes; certainly not when I’m so focused on clothes for myself.

  “Obviously. Because you only have to worry about you. I have to worry about you and the baby. And I’m all the way over here. How is this supposed to work?”

  I try not to let him hear my smile when I respond.

  “You’ve established that you aren’t leaving Pakistan. So, we kind of just have to handle this as it comes . . .”

  “My parents are going to kill me.”

  He sounds so stressed out and I wish I could hug him. Wrap myself around him like a blanket and tell him it’ll all work out.

  “But I see the children here and I wonder about ours and what he’ll look like.”

  I roll my eyes.

  “Here we go with that?”

  “What? I’d like a boy.”

  “Of course you would,” I mutter, kicking my shoes off and sitting on the couch.

  “What would you like?”

  “I don’t really care.”

  And here’s the worry. I know it’s still early on, but don’t women usually have these feelings about their babies? About what they want, about their plans for it?

  “You seem so relaxed about this.”

  I shrug.

  “I had already gone through my freak out by the time I told you. I mean, I’m not ecstatic about this but it happened and here we are.”

  He’s silent and I listen to the sound of him breathing. It feels so good to talk to him; to not argue and feel like I have to be on the defense.

  “I’ve been spotting, though,” I say. “It worries me.”

  “Is that normal?”

  “That’s what I’ve heard.”

  “You always worry,” he says around a smile. And I wish I could press my fingers to his lips.

  “I wish you were here. Not because I need you here but because you know how to calm me down.” It’s like getting diluted doses over the phone. Gavin in person is the antidote to my anxiousness.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  I don’t ask him when that’ll be, I don’t make plans around him like I usually would. I just let this conversation be whatever it will be.

  Maybe that’s what love calls for today? To simply be.

  “Well, I can already tell this is your child. It came to me unplanned and it’s been taking over my life since.”

  He laughs and it’s rich and slow to die.

  “Seriously. It’s terrorizing my body. One minute I’m horny, the next I couldn’t even think about someone even looking at my nipples.”

  “And we both know how much you love my mouth on those.”

  It’s my turn to laugh and I pull the phone away from my ear, knowing it’ll be loud.

  “I do,” I say after I’ve caught a breath. “I most certainly do.”

  “Do you miss sex yet?”

  With everything going on, I hadn’t been able to really focus on it. But when prompted . . .

  Flashes of his chest as he leans over me, his hands on my hips, in my hair, pulling my body any way he wanted me, his mouth to my ear, whispering words that make me go limp with the desire to be dominated.

  “I do now,” I confess, my voice little more than a whisper. “But that’s what got us in trouble in the first place.”

  He chuckles and quiets for a moment.

  “I saw a rocking chair I want to get you. I can see you sitting in it with the baby.”

  That’s his confession.

  “Okay,” I tell him.

  He clears his throat.

  “I should get some sleep.”

  “Okay,” I repeat myself.

  “Good night.”

  “Night.”

  When the phone disconnects, I hold it to my chest, wishing I could feel his weight on top of me one more time.

  Perhaps you felt it best

  That I let my frustrations out on paper,

  So my anger wasn’t as sharp,

  Dulled by the time it reached you.

  How sweet you are . . . to me?

  Or to yourself?

  Day 319

  Mornings are the fucking worst.

  I haven’t thrown up but because I haven’t eaten in hours, the nausea makes it feel like it could happen any second. I inhale two bananas, barely chewing them, only relaxing when my stomach settles.

  There’s a knock at my door and when I open it, I’m surprised to see Sabrina. Honestly, I’m surprised that anyone is here so early in the morning.

  “The hell are you doing here?”

  “Good morning to you, too, shorty.” She ruffles the top of my head and I dodge her at the last moment.

  “Uhh?”

  “Decided to take the day off and take us to get pampered,” she announces as she reaches in the fridge for orange juice. She pours two glasses and hands me one. “So, get ready.”

&
nbsp; “What about my job?”

  “Call out,” she answers, a look of confusion on her face. “What the fuck kind of response is that?”

  “I can’t just call out,” I tell her. But she calls my bluff.

  “You and I both know you could not go in for a day without calling, and you’d still be fine.”

  “That’s what happens when you work hard and establish a good reputation instead of taking days off to relax.” By the time I’ve finished the sentence, she’s throwing one of the grapes she pulled from the fridge at me.

  “Fine!” I shield myself with my hands and laugh until she stops pelting me with grapes. Carlos walks over to see what the commotion is about. “Pick these up! Grapes aren’t good for dogs.”

  I grab my phone to call my district manager. When I look at the screen after making sure Sabrina is indeed picking up grapes, I see someone’s been trying to get ahold of me.

  Two missed calls from Gavin and a text.

  The past few days, I haven’t heard much from him as he tried to process the information. And for once, I didn’t mind the space. I willingly gave it to him in heaps.

  Gavin: Call me.

  Frown in place, I call him back. He picks up on the first ring.

  “So, you’re keeping it, then.”

  He sounds frantic and I try my best to diffuse with near nothing.

  “Oh, hi. Good morning.” When I open my mouth to speak again, it’s for nothing. He takes the reins and starts in on his own agenda.

  “No, Denise. I can’t have a good morning. I can’t have a good anything because I just moved to Pakistan until my parents see fit, and now you’re pregnant.” But he isn’t done quite yet. “I don’t want this baby. I can’t take care of it and be the son my parents are expecting me to be.”

  “It isn’t like this is all my fault,” I tell him. Sabrina’s eyes follow me as I make laps around the apartment, little green pokers that prod at me to keep him in line or she will. “I’m sorry that this isn’t ideal, but it was never a question of keeping it or not.”

  “So, now I’m stuck.”

  “Not at all. You have a choice.”

  “How the hell do I have a choice?” He shouts into the phone.

  “He might want to relax on the other line. I can hear him from here.” Sabrina’s tone threatens all kinds of unspoken horrors and I say a prayer into the abyss.

  Please don’t let this get ugly.

  “You don’t have to do this with me,” I answer.

  “Damn straight,” Sabrina mutters from her place in the kitchen.

  I’m passing the couch, Carlos following me until I get the hint and feed him.

  “I’m not going to just leave you alone. That’s not me.”

  “Well,” I say with a grunt, standing from squatting to pet Carlos as he eats, “then get onboard and stop stressing me out about it.”

  Gavin offers a mirthless laugh.

  “You have all the answers, huh? You seem so happy about this. Fuck it, at least one of us is!”

  “Excuse me?”

  Sabrina walks from the kitchen to lean against the living room wall, her eyes squinting, waiting for a hint of trouble.

  I don’t need for her to get angry and jump into this. I want them to get along; that’s more important to me than anything.

  But Gavin’s frustration isn’t going to make this peaceful.

  “I don’t want this baby, Denise. I do not want a child right now.”

  The patience in me is dwindling at his insistence.

  “You should probably stop telling me that, Gavin. Quit telling me you don’t want the baby. Because one day I might not be able to forgive you for it.”

  Sabrina rushes over and snatches the phone from me. Before I can grab it back, she hightails it to my bedroom and locks herself inside.

  And then I’m pressing my ear to the door like this isn’t my apartment and she hasn’t hijacked my cellphone.

  Fucking Sabrina. This is exactly what I was trying to avoid.

  I can hear some of what she’s saying, about stress, about getting shit together, about the past, and me being supportive.

  “If I hear you say anything else about not wanting this damn baby, I’ll fly to Pakistan myself, do you hear me? She deserves better than that and so does your unborn child.”

  That part comes out perfectly clear.

  She emerges a minute later and hands me my phone. He’s no longer on the line but I have texts coming in, back-to-back.

  Gavin: This is too much for me.

  Gavin: I can’t come home. How would we even do this?

  Gavin: I feel like I’m being trapped.

  Once I read that last text, I send him one I never thought I would.

  Me: Stop messaging me, Gavin.

  And, for the rest of the day, he doesn’t. All while we get our nails and toes done, while we get facials and have lunch, my phone doesn’t get any notifications from Gavin.

  “He just needs time,” Sabrina says when we finally make it back to my place, examining her fresh manicure after taking Carlos on a walk.

  “I need you to not step in like that again.” She looks up at me, her head tilted and her eyes a little squinted, like she isn’t understanding why. “You can’t chastise him like that, Sabrina. If we’re all going to get along, and we should for the baby, we need to be on the same page.”

  “I was trying to get him on the page you and I have already been on.”

  I shake my head, and even though I’m smiling, I repeat myself.

  “You can’t step in like that.”

  She puts her hands up.

  “Okay.” When she sets her hands down and sits back, I expect that to be the end of it, but she speaks up again. “For the record, he seemed apologetic and receptive. Even if I still want to put my foot up his ass.”

  “Yeah, but . . .” How do I explain this in a way she’ll genuinely understand? “As much as I’m . . . dying for his support,” tears are building in my eyes, “I only want it if he’s willing to give it. I don’t want anything from him that he won’t give me on his own. I have no interest in accepting what he feels like he was bullied into giving.”

  Sabrina grabs my hand and offers me a smile.

  “And they say I’m supposed to be wiser.”

  I laugh.

  “You’re too much of an asshole for wisdom. But, man, you’re quite the protector.”

  She shrugs and lays her head on the back of the couch.

  “I’ve been doing it for so long, it’s hard to let go of that job. I think if you ever got married, your husband and I wouldn’t get along.”

  “I couldn’t marry someone who didn’t love you.” I smack her thigh. “See why it’s important that you don’t chastise my boyfriend?”

  Truthfully, I don’t know if we’re at that level of commitment anymore, everything so muddied between us. But it’s easier to call him that than to explain the mess we’d made of our love to anyone else. Even Sabrina.

  She rolls her eyes with a smile.

  “Oh, he’s got some growing to do before he’s even close to good enough to marry you.” She gets up and adjusts her yoga pants. “He’ll have to ask me for permission.”

  I smack her butt now and she jumps away from me with a small yelp.

  “Heading out?”

  “Yeah. Got a big day tomorrow.”

  She leans down to kiss my cheek before heading to the door.

  “Love you most!”

  “Impossible,” I yell back as the door closes behind her.

  I glance around my apartment, feeling at home with all of the colors and patterns. My eyes graze over the bookshelf, landing on one of my notebooks. It was the first one Gavin had ever given me, the day after I told him I’d always wanted to be a writer.

  I get up to grab it, wondering what beautiful things lived inside of it.

  The pages look back at me, begging to be felt again, begging to have someone other than me reading them. And it’s a little up
setting that these words that I pieced together to create these little love sonnets will only ever live on my shelf.

  It makes me wonder about these words and about if Gavin knew what he’d done when he gifted the notebooks to me. Page after page, I go over our moments together, much like I do from time to time, recalling moments when I’d told him, “I write the most beautiful things about you, Gavin.”

  Because I did. And I still do. Even when they’re a little less than perfectly happy.

  But, was that always the plan? To curb my need to release to him, he created a safe place for me to let go with less of a mess for him?

  I close the notebook shut and press it against my forehead.

  Truthfully, there isn’t anything in the world that can curb my hurt at this point.

  And I make a promise to myself that once the baby is here and everything is settled, these notebooks will no longer just collect dust on my shelf; forgotten pieces of this heart of mine.

  Don’t break my hope.

  It’ll be far worse

  Than breaking my heart.

  Day 316

  “Have you told him yet?”

  I want to choke Sabrina, and I would if anyone could ever invent a way to reach through the phone to throttle someone.

  “If you don’t calm the eff down, asking me that shit every day.”

  “Well, he needs to know.”

  “And you need to chill,” I tell her. “Where are you?”

  “Dunkies.”

  “No Starbucks?”

  “Don’t fucking insult me,” she says before she places her order.

  For all of her fanciness, Sabrina still preferred Dunkin’ Donuts over Starbucks; a fact that I would forever tease her for. She was a true-blue Bostonian, from the slight accent she got when she wasn’t trying to be this uppity bitch, to her choice in coffee and even her love of the Red Sox.

  Me, I didn’t give a shit about sports, but you better believe Dunkies was home.

  “Get me a coffee?”

  “Absolutely not. No caffeine.”

  I sputter into the phone.

  “What kind of cruelty is this? You call me while you’re at Dunkies and I can’t get a coffee?”