Jeah, Whatever

Weeks passed by and Ryan’s visits to my house became longer. Many of the nights, he would just stay the night and at random hours of the night, I would find him on top of me, kissing me, begging for us to have sex. And often, I wouldn’t mind but at times, it became overwhelming.

Tonight, Ryan went out with Conor and I decided to stay in as I had to work at 7am. While he had the day off from training, I had an office to run.

I fell asleep at 11pm and was woken at 3am by my doorbell continuously ringing. I threw on one of Ryan’s sweatshirts overtop of me and went downstairs to find drunken Ryan at my doorstep.

“Hey, baby,” he slurred as I opened the door. He stumbled into my place, falling over himself in the entryway, I tried my best to keep him from falling face first.

“Ryan, are you freaking kidding me?” I complained. He leaned on me and kissed my cheek, just barely.

“Oh come on, I was just having a guys night, no harm,” he said as I tried to get us both to my room.

“Ry, it’s 3am, I have work, I can’t stay up like this,” I said, we made it upstairs and he stumbled into my bed.

I had never seen him this drunk.

“Oh Nat, you’ll be fine, I promise, come here, let me show you I love you,” he said, pulling me on top of him. He sloppily kissed me and his hands made their way to my ass. I got off of him.

“No Ryan, I’m serious,” I stated, I felt him groan as I got up.

“Why are you being so withholding right now?” He asked, not making much sense.

“Goodnight Ryan,” I stated, walking out and to my guest room where I would stay for tonight.

I hated that at times, he felt the only way to show love was through sex.

The next morning I went out to work, making the hour commute and left Ryan to my apartment. I was exhausted for my workday and not as alert as I should have been. I found myself sleeping at my desk.

“Natalie, you know I’m not a gossip but I think you should look online at this,” my assistant said, bringing her laptop onto my desk. I looked in disbelief.

Standing in a college bar, I saw images of Ryan and Conor taking shots of tequila off of different girls bodies. I saw Ryan even licking salt out of a girls belly button. I couldn’t believe he did this to me.

“I’m so sorry, but I couldn’t hide this from you,” she said. I straightened my face and stood.

“You did the right thing, Hannah, please cancel my meetings today,” I said evenly as I left the office and drove home.

When I got back late that afternoon, I saw Ryan was lying on my couch, holding an ice pack to his head.

“Ryan, what the hell happened last night?!” I yelled, he groaned and took the ice pack off.

“Damnit, Natalie, I don’t feel great,” he complained. I took the pillow from the end of my couch and hit him in the head repeatedly.

“Maybe you would feel better if you took more shots off some skank’s body,” I said, hitting him between each word.

“Ouch! Okay! Stop!” He stood, walking away from me. I threw the pillow at his face.

“What the hell are you talking about?” He asked confused. I pulled out the images and articles my assistant found online and shoved them in his face.

He looked up at me, a little pale.

“You have to believe that this was all just me being drunk and it meant absolutely nothing. I didn’t even kiss the girls,” he said coming towards me but I backed away.

“No but your tongue found its way into her bellybutton,” I snapped, he tried to grab my hand but I pulled away.

“I didn’t mean to! Conor and I met them while we were out and they told us we wouldn’t do the shots so we had to,” he explained. I began to laugh at the situation.

“Do you really hear yourself right now, Ryan? They told you that you wouldn’t do it so you had to? Are you in college still? Are you not 28 years old and a supposed adult making wise choices?” I asked him. He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Natalie, come on,” he tried to reason, coming closer to me.

“No, Ryan, you embarrassed me. Everyone in the world can see what you did last night. My family, my friends, they all can tell me how right they were right about you not giving up your ways,” I said, backing away from him.

“It was one time Natalie, one time,” he could see the hurt he caused and felt deep regret.

“No, Ryan, you don’t even know how to love me except through throwing yourself onto me. Since I moved here, our conversations have become scarce and all you do is sleep with me. I didn’t give up my life to be sex partners, I came here to be with all of you. I hate what we’ve become,” I said, I felt the tears threatening to come out.

“Natalie, we talk, we talk a lot, being in a relationship means also being there physically, I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately but I hate it,” he retorted. I threw another pillow at his face.

“Excuse me for wanting to be in a real relationship and believing you wanted the same things, get the hell out!” I shouted. He looked at me before looking defeated and storming out. I fell to the floor bursting into tears, thankful he didn’t see me cry.

I hated that we had only lived in the same place for almost a month and already fail at keeping it together.

I woke up the next morning with the world around me spinning. I sat up from my bed and immediately fell back down, feeling if I got up I would lose everything inside me.

My phone began to rang and I looked to see that it was my sister calling.

“Andy it’s like 5am your time,” I said hoarsely.

“So I can’t call you whenever I want?” She laughed.

“No you can, I just feel like I got ran over,” I closed my eyes to stop the room from spinning.

“Hungover? Come on, you never get hungover,” she laughed.

“No, fight with Ryan, I think I’m just stressed,” I said. I tried to open my eyes but the spinning didn’t stop.

“You’ve never gotten sick from it, just a stiff back, maybe you should see your doctor. But anyway, that’s not why I’m calling you,” she said, getting back to the reason she rang.

“What’s going on?” I questioned.

“Well Kate and I are kind of in Flo-Rida,” she laughed, I heard Kate scream in the background. I tried to sit up but immediately fell back down on my pillow.

“Ugh, and I’m sick, how long are you here? Shouldn’t you be in school?” I questioned.

“Hello weekend! For the both of us, we’re in a car on the way to your house but if you’re stuck in bed maybe there’s a spare key we can use to get to you?” She asked. I instructed her on where the key should be.

We hung up and I emailed the office from my phone, stating I would not be in today. I would have to get Andrea and Kate to take me to the doctor. I laid in bed, eyes closed, feeling sick to my stomach. Did my fight with Ryan really cause all this?

Soon, I heard my front door open and Kate and Andrea were talking.

“Your mother does the most,” Kate laughed.

“Oh yeah, wait until you see the bedroom,” Andrea laughed, I heard them come up the stairs. I didn’t even bother trying to look okay, with these two, I could be whatever I wanted and they loved me.

“Hi sickling,” Andrea said with a soft voice. Kate came and crawled into bed with me.

“You don’t feel like you have a fever,” she said as she felt my skin.

“The world keeps spinning, I can’t sit up on my own,” I groaned. Andrea looked to me with concern.

“Why don’t we just take you to the doctor,” she said, grabbing my keys. The two girls helped me out of bed. I was a good five inches taller than both of them so they each held me up together and slowly took me downstairs. Andrea had my phone and bag in one hand and they helped me lie in the back seat.

Andrea drove to the nearest doctor office my GPS showed. I was helped out of the car once more and immediately, the doctors sent me back. I had them both come back with me.

“No fever, no bowel issues, it’s certainly not the flu, no sore throat either, I’m going to give you some Zofran for the nausea and hook you up to a water IV and then I want to take some blood,” the doctor said. The nurse handed me medication and put a water IV in my left arm. I held onto Andrea as she drew the blood.

As the medicine kicked in, I started feeling much better. Maybe I was just nauseous from the worry with my fight with Ryan. Maybe I forgot to eat like I sometimes do.

“Well, Natalie, we know what’s wrong, talk to me about your birth control,” the doctor sat down next to my bed. Andrea squeezed my hand as I got a little concern.

“I’ve never had problems with it before, is it okay?” I asked, worried I was having a reaction to it.

“No, it’s okay, I’m just curious if you wear protection during intercourse as well,” she began taking notes. Andrea and Kate both looked to me, curious as to if Ryan and I were really being all that safe.

“Well, once we committed to one another, we stopped since I’m taking the pill, it’s a very effective drug, I read up on it, is something wrong down there?” I began panicking, Andrea, stroked my hair, I saw her beginning to tear up a little bit, the doctor began to calm me down.

“Well, I want to put you up to a sonogram but Natalie, your blood results show a concentration of HCG in your blood, meaning that you are showing signs of pregnancy, it could be a fluke, this happens but I’m pretty sure you’re pregnant,” she told me, unsure to be happy for me or not.

“No, see, I’m careful, I take the pill, it’s effective, I can’t be pregnant, and I’m not married and my boyfriend screwed up last night so I can’t hear this news, I’m not pregnant,” I denied the claim that I even could be having a baby.

“Well let’s just hook you up to the monitor and see what we find,” the doctor said smoothly. I nodded as she put the sonogram machine next to my bed and lifted my shirt to look for life.

“Yeah, there it is, you see that small little round thing?” She asked all three of us, “I’d say you were three weeks pregnant,” She informed me. I looked to my sister and saw the tears that flowed, I began to cry as well. Kate came on the other side of me and made us both look at her.

“No, we’re not crying okay? Ryan and you need to talk about whatever sucked and figure out a plan for this baby, okay? Just talk to him. We don’t have to tell the parents yet, you two just need to talk,” Kate said, holding strong for us.

The doctor gave me prenatal vitamins to take and Zofran for when I feel sick in the mornings. She encouraged that I keep working out and eating healthily (apparently swimming is the best preggo workout..) and come back for a six week check up.

Andrea drove us back to my house. The car ride was dead silent. I looked at my phone and saw that I had missed calls from Ryan, three texts from him, begging that I just talk to him about last night. Andrea pulled into the driveway and we saw Ryan waiting at the stairs. Kate helped me out of the car and Ryan ran over to us.

“What happened?” He questioned, taking note of the state I was in and my appearance.

“I just want to go to bed,” I whispered. Ryan picked me up and let Andrea open the door.

“Natalie, we’re going to go take care of these prescriptions, you two talk,” Andrea looked to me and Ryan before leaving again with Kate. Ryan laid me on my bed and sat down by my side.

“You’re sick? Baby I’m so sorry I wasn’t here, that I have been a complete ass and idiot, that I did what I did, I’m so incredibly sorry,” he said, taking my hand and squeezing it. I blinked a few times before I looked at him in the eyes.

“Ryan, I’m pregnant,” I said, tearing up. He searched my eyes to see how real it was. His face gave me no reaction to what he was feeling, Ryan wiped my eyes and kissed my forehead.

“So what are we going to do?” He asked after a few minutes of comforting me.

“I don’t know, Ryan, I don’t know. I never thought I’d be in this situation. Babies are in my life plan, but not now, not like this. But I don’t think I can do, you know,” I said. He shook his head, understanding.

“I would never ask you to do something like that, only if you wanted to and if you don’t, we don’t go down that road. We will figure it out,” He wrapped his arms around me and held onto me tightly, I began to sob for the first time in his arms.

Six, going on seven months. We have only been together that short amount of time. No where near long enough to have a child together. And his job, my job and my parents, oh they were going to kill me. Ryan just held me there against his chest as I continued to sob, telling me it would all be okay, we’d work it out.

“Natalie, it’s okay, I’m here,” he said to me. Nothing from last night mattered anymore. We were going to be parents.

And worse, I was going to have to tell my parents.