This Wasn't Suppose to Happen

The weeks passed slowly as my stomach grew and my hormones raged out of control. No one was safe, especially not Nate. I had let work know that I was expecting, not like I could hide it any longer once I stopped losing weight and gaining it like crazy.

I was fighting with my closet and cursing the fact that none of my clothes fit me yet again. Reaching for my trusty boyfriend jeans, the only pair that had managed to fit during the past 4 weeks, I started to pull them on. “God damn it”, kicking them off I let out a steady stream of curse words. My bed was piled high with clothes that no longer fit and I was running late for my appointment.

“Janelle? You okay?” Nate’s head popped around the half closed door. “Yeah”, I muttered as he pushed the door opened and entered. “OMG Janelle, put some pants on. I don’t want to see girl parts, my eyes!” He cried as he dramatically put his hands over his eyes.

“I can’t put pants on, nothing fits”, I yelled at Nate as I picked a pair of jeans off the pile on my bed and threw them at him. “Nothing at all”, I kept throwing clothes at him and he kept trying to dodge them.

“Woah, Janelle, calm down”. Nate scurried into the bathroom. “God, hormones are making you crazy”, he said as he peeked out through the crack in the door.

My anger had vanished and all of a sudden I was crying, sobbing and sniffling while trying to wipe the tears away. “Janelle?” Nate must have thought he was safe because he slowly pushed open the bathroom door and cautiously stepped back into the bedroom.

“I’m going to be late for my appointment and I have to deal with Sid and I have nothing to wear. I can’t do this today; I don’t want to be a Mommy…. I want my Mommy”, I cried as Nate wrapped me in his arms and we flopped down onto the floor.

“Shush, it’s okay Janelle, it’s all going to be okay”, he said over and over again as he continued to rock me. Once my sobs subsided, he released his hold on me. “You are a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for, I know you can do this and I’m going to be here every step of the way”. I knew he would be, it was the way he was. Ever since both my parents were killed in a car accident 5 years before, Nate was there through it all.

He got up off the floor and walked over to my closet, reaching up on the top shelf, he pulled down a pair of yoga pants. I can’t believe I kept them; they were an impulse purchase when Nate discovered there was a hot yoga teacher and decided to join up for his class. I couldn’t let him go alone, so I bought yoga pants and went to the class trying to be a great friend only to find a room full of gay guys along with a gay yoga instructor and clothing seemed to be optional. Traumatized, I ran out of there and got home as fast as I could; threw the yoga pants in the closet and we never spoke about it again.

But here I was, struggling to pull them up, thankfully they were snug as could be, but I could get away with it. Nate grinned, no doubt remembering the incident and I just shook my head to let him know that I wasn’t in the mood to go there.

“I gotta go”, I told Nate as I shoved my feet into a pair of zig techs and grabbed my jacket. “I’ll wait here for you”, Nate said as he gave me a hug and I headed out the door.

Pulling into the parking lot of my doctor’s office, I tried to steady my breathing. I was doing everything possible to try not to think about Sid’s reaction to the paternity results. Just as I was contemplating on driving away and getting the hell out of town, I saw his Range Rover pulling into a parking space two rows over. He got out and pulled his grey and black hat down over his eyes and pulled the collar of his jacket up.

It was now or never, I got out of the car and headed towards the entrance, walking into the doctor’s office just behind Sid. I registered and took a seat, not bothering to acknowledge him or look in his direction. I was going to take cues from our last appointment and be stoned face. If he could do it, I could do it.

“Miss Jones? You can follow me”, the nurse waited while I got to my feet and then led the way to one of the offices. “You can have a seat in here, the doctor will be in with you in a moment”, she said as she closed the door behind Sid.

“How’ve you been?” he asked after a moment. I rolled my eyes and turned to look at him. “Oh, so now you’re concerned”, homeboy was doing nothing to help with my hormones and I cursed myself as I felt my eyes filling up.

“Forget it, I don’t want to know”, he muttered as he dramatically turned his head away from me to stare at the wall instead.

“You have no idea how hard this has been on me”, I said softly and I could see the muscles in his neck relax. He turned his head back towards me and I was certain he might have said something relatively nice but we were interrupted by the doctor’s arrival.

He took a seat behind the desk, opened the folder and looked at the results. Glancing up at us, he closed the folder. “Well folks, the results are in. It is 99.9% certain that…”

“Hold on”, Sid’s words stopped the doctor in his tracks and we both glared at him. What on earth could he possibly have to say and at this particular point in time? What was going on here?

“What?” I asked as I mentally kicked him in the head.

“I just wanted to that I’m sorry for acting like an asshole, you didn’t deserve it. Even if I’m not the Father of this baby…”

“Well Sidney, congratulations, you are indeed the father”, the doctor interrupted him and I watched as the blood drained from Sid’s face. He became a pale grey color and I thought he might pass out; but then he turned bright red and jumped up. Reaching for the folder on the doctor’s desk, he hauled out the test results and read them for himself.

The color drained from his face again as he sank down into the chair, in such shock that he couldn’t even speak. “Are you okay?” the doctor asked and Sid gave a weak nod.

“Do you guys need a moment?” he asked and Sid again gave a weak nod. The doctor walked around the desk, patted me on my shoulder and walked out of the office.

The sound of the closing door must have knocked Sid out of his trance because he jumped up for the second time that day and started pacing. “What the fuck am I going to do?” he muttered over and over again as I watched in shock. Should I say something to him? Was he in the middle of having a nervous breakdown?

I sat in the chair and watched in surprise as he continued to pace and swear and talk about his life being over. I had never really seen anyone freak out like that, I had no idea what to do. Finally, just to stop the pacing, I stood up and grabbed his arm.

“Look Sid, don’t worry about it. I told you from the beginning that I just wanted you to know, you can walk away and I will not hold you to this child. It’s not something that you have to decide today. Go home, think it over and you can choose to walk away or you can be a part of this. I won’t judge you”. Sid looked at me, “are you serious?”

“I am serious, just go and do whatever you do to relax”, I gave him a smile and patted his arm; thankful that he was no longer looking like he was on the verge of having a complete breakdown.

“Okay, take care and I’ll be in touch”, he said as he gave me a smile that I was used to seeing in fan pictures. You know the one, the one where it looks like he couldn’t be bothered to exert anymore energy to give a decent smile. Oh well, at least he wasn’t yelling at me, I would take anything at this point.

He left the room and the doctor entered a moment after. “Is everything okay, Janelle?” he asked as he sat back in his chair. I nodded. “You’re looking good Janelle, you’ve gained some weight and you’re right on track”, he told me as he made some notes in my chart.

“We will arrange for another ultrasound for next week to make sure the baby is developing correctly. We ran some other tests and they all came back fine, so it looks like you’re going to have a healthy baby and if you’re lucky and the baby cooperates, we might even be able to tell you the sex”.

The doctor was being overly happy and I tried to match his mood, but I failed miserably. What happened with Sid kept playing in my mind. I couldn’t believe that I told him he could walk away, he wasn’t my favorite person in the world, but this baby deserved a father. That much, I knew. The ball was now in his court and now I just had to sit back and wait to see what he was going to do.