You're So Pretty On the Outside

“John, what are you doing?” I asked.

He was running around the house frantically and throwing some of his stuff into a bag. I had a bowl of cereal on top of my 7 month pregnant belly and continuously shoveled spoonfuls of the food into my mouth.

“My cousin is coming into town so I’m going to rent a room in the city for a few days while she’s here with her boyfriend.”

“Why don’t you just invite her here?” Gena suggested.

“No, I don’t think that would work out very well.”

“Why not?” I questioned, thoroughly confused.

“Because,” he pointed a finger at me, “you ask entirely too many questions. I wouldn’t want you to scare her away the day she got here, now would I?”

I just rolled my eyes and crossed my arms, a pout adorning my face.

John scoffed. “Do you really think that is going to make me give in to you? Think again, darling. I have to go now. I’ll see you soon, doll,” he said before kissing Gena.

He gave me a short hug and rushed out of the front door to his car.

“Your boyfriend is a bit odd,” I mused.

Gena scoffed. “At least I have a boyfriend.”

“Touché.”

I turned to the TV and watched whatever random show that was playing across the show. A short while later I sighed and grabbed the remote to turn the TV off.

“TV sucks,” I complained.

“Like you didn’t know that already. You do the same thing every day. Sit on the couch, watch TV for a couple of minutes, turn off the TV, and whine about how there’s never anything good to watch.”

“Well it’s true!”

“Then go out and do something else.”

“I can’t do anything else. I’m pregnant. If I do anything I’ll end up having Grace way to early and we don’t want that, now do we?”

“Of course not, but taking a walk every once in a while won’t make you go into labor. You’ll be fine. You’re supposed to exercise anyway so obviously walking a little bit won’t do any damage. It’s not like you’re on bed rest.”

“I am on bed rest.”

“No, you’re just lazy. Now get your ass up and go outside for a little bit. This is probably one of the only times that you’re going to be able to go out without getting soaked so you should take advantage of it while you can.”

I groaned and muttered to myself as my sister tugged me off of the couch.

“But it’s cold outside,” I whined.

“Quit with the fucking whining already! I’m not afraid to slap you, I don’t care if you are pregnant.”

I glared at the back of her head as she led me to my room and threw clothes at me.

“Put that on and then go for a walk or I’m going to beat you up.”

I changed, but instead of taking a walk I just sat on the front porch where Gena couldn’t see me through any of the windows. About twenty minutes after I ‘left,’ I stood up and walked back into the house.

“You didn’t even leave.”

It wasn’t a question. I just rolled my eyes.

“I feel like you’re 15 again. Why can’t you just cooperate for once, Anna? I mean, I get that you’re pregnant and all, but you could at least quit being a bitch about everything.”

“I’m not being a bitch.”

“Yes you are. You’re always a bitch.” Gena rolled her eyes. “Isn’t that why you left Oli?”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “Why do you always have to bring him up?”

“Because in about two months you’re going to be giving birth to his child!”

“I thought we went over this before.”

“Yes we did, but you never really told me why you did it.”

“I didn’t want to keep hurting him,” I automatically said.

Gena pointed her finger at me. “You’re a liar. I know you and I know that you aren’t so selfless that you would leave him and risk hurting yourself to help him.”

I frowned, not liking the fact that she was calling me selfish yet knowing that it was true.

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

“Bullshit. Why did you do it?”

Gena just kept pestering me to give her an answer and after a while I just got fed up and told her.

“It’s because scared, okay?! I was scared that he was going to get fed up with my shit and leave me! Or even worse, stick around until I had the baby and take her away from me! I left him before I could get too attached and have him leave me.”

By the end of my rant I was breathing rapidly. Suddenly I doubled over when I felt a pain radiate through my abdomen.

I clutched my stomach and started taking deep breaths.

“What’s wrong?” Gena asked, panicked.

“I don’t-ah! I don’t know!”

“Did your water break?”

I shook my head firmly. My sister thought to herself for a minute before shaking her head.

“We better get you to the hospital just in case something bad is happening.”

I nodded and she helped me out to the car. As she pulled out of the driveway, I noticed that the pains seemed like how the ladies at my birthing classes described labor pains and I freaked out.

“What if I’m having the baby now? I’m only 7 months in. I know that babies can survive from this point on with enough care, but I still don’t think she’s ready to be born.”

Gena shushed me. “Don’t worry about anything until your water breaks. That’s when we’ll know that there’s trouble. You could just be having false labor pains. Remember when the doctor told you about those?”

I nodded, still taking deep breaths.

We arrived at the hospital about 10 minutes later and the pain wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been in the beginning. We went around to the emergency room and a nurse looked came to my aid immediately.

“Are you in labor?” she asked.

“She doesn’t know,” Gena answered for me.

The nurse nodded. “Has your water broken?”

I shook my head.

“Well, why don’t we just bring you into a room and have a look at you, yeah?”

The nurse helped me into a wheelchair before wheeling me into one of the private rooms. She checked all of my vitals and such, writing everything down on her notepad, before running off to find a doctor.

He arrived about 2 minutes later.

“So what seems to be the problem?”

“We’re not really sure,” Gena told him.

“I do not want to have this baby right now though!”

The doctor laughed and I narrowed my eyes at him.

Through gritted teeth I growled, “This is not funny in any way whatsoever!”

“I think it is,” Gena muttered to herself.

I whipped my head around to glare at her. “Shut it.”

The doctor did a couple of tests before declaring that I could go home.

“So there’s nothing wrong with me?”

“Not at all. You were just having false labor pains, it’s quite common to say the least.”

I let out a sigh of relief.

“You know, you could have had Oli in there holding your hand if you had just told him the truth,” Gena said as we left the hospital.