It's Complicated

Maria knew what she had to do.

She had to prove to Harry, once and for all, that the pregnancy thing was an absolutely dreadful idea. And since she had no classes that day, setting everything up would be simple. She knew that he wouldn’t be home from recording until about dinner time, and she could easily get everything settled by then.

The wedges she wore on her feet stood out among the tennis shoes and sandals everyone else seemed to wear, her more formal footwear probably not the most logical choice for taking a walk to the costume shop and the arts and crafts store about ten blocks from the flat she shared with Harry. A few people gave her curious looks, probably wondering why the already fairly tall girl would choose shoes that made her look like a giant, but she didn’t pay them any mind. Just because they were insecure about their heights didn’t mean that she had to be.

When she could finally escape into the light air conditioning of the costume shop, she brushed her hair out of her face and immediately started scanning the shelves. She knew they carried what she needed, since her friend had dressed up as a pregnant woman for Halloween during their last year of high school. All she needed was to find that fake pregnant stomach, and she would be set for her plan.

It took her about ten minutes of searching before she found it. It was as realistic as she could expect a costume would be, with a slightly squishy stomach, boobs that sagged over the rotund abdomen, and straps that would allow her to attach it over her own body. She knew that once she slipped the thing under her shirt, after a few alterations, Harry would get scared out of his perfect family fantasy.

The teenager behind the front counter gave a confused look when she made her purchase, but she didn’t offer any kind of explanation. It wasn’t his business, anyway, and if he valued his health, he’d keep his mouth shut. Well, if he even knew who she was, considering Harry and Maria kept their relationship so secretive that only the hardcore fans knew about it. And, for some reason, the pimply male didn’t strike her as the Harry-Styles-Fangirl type.

“Have a nice day,” he granted as he handed over the bag, giving her a small smile and checking out her chest.

She gave him a cocky, irritated smirk as she tore the bag out of his hand and stormed out to the bustling sidewalk, sending the bell above the door into hyper-drive. All she needed to do was get paint from the craft store, and she’d be done with her errands.



She threw her bags on the living room, finally back at the flat. Finding the perfect color she’d needed was not as easy as she’d anticipated, and she very nearly bit off the head of the old woman who was trying to help her.

But she’d kept her temper somewhat lukewarm, and she got a color that was close enough to reality in the end. So after going to the bathroom, washing her hands, and laying out a towel on the floor, she got to work.

Each stroke of dark pink paint she put on the stomach was deliberately placed, some of the lines thicker and bolder than others, but all of them sticking out like stop signs against freshly fallen snow. Toward the end, she made some of them blend almost to a flesh color, just so they looked a little more realistic and gave Harry a better idea of what she’d look like. The painted-on stretch marks were ugly and sad, and after Maria was done, she replaced the cover on the paint and stood to admire her handiwork.

Thanks to her years of moderate artistic ability, they really did look somewhat life-like. “Maybe I shouldn’t do videogame design,” she mumbled to herself, putting one of her nails in her mouth and biting down thoughtfully. “Maybe I should have done makeup in movies or something.”

After approving what she’d done, Maria left the work to dry, going into Harry’s and her bedroom to finish her work. When she first started to concoct the plan, she thought she might want to make her hair and face look messy, like she was completely exhausted from raising a kid, but that would contradict her message. This was supposed to convince him that carrying the child at all was a bad idea, not tell him that raising a child would be difficult.

So instead, she just put her hair up in a ponytail and fixed up her makeup so she looked normal. And then, just like she’d read online when she first found out she was pregnant, she drew the skin discoloration that she was certain she’d get on her cheeks and forehead. She was disgusted to read that the discoloration could happen other places, too, but she wasn’t about to put her makeup there.

Once her face was done, it was nearly four, and she knew Harry would be back fairly soon. She took a deep breath and ventured back into the living room, where the stomach was still sitting in the middle of the floor.

As gently as she could to make sure she didn’t smudge anything, she brushed the tips of her fingers against the angry-looking lines, smirking when it felt dry. She picked up her cell phone and sent a fast text to Harry, asking when he’d be home.

I think about five. Why? Are you going to make me supper? ;)

Not in your wildest dreams. I’m just curious.

Harry didn’t answer her next message, so she ventured into the kitchen and pulled out some chicken that she’d make Harry cook after she delivered her message. Out of the two of them, he was indisputably the chef, and Maria had no desire to challenge that fact.

About five minutes of five, Maria stood up and took off her shirt, tossing it to the floor. When she put the stomach up against her own, she could feel her abdomen muscles twitch against the chilly material, but it soon warmed up to her regular body temperature. The fake boobs fit somewhat against her own, though it was clearly made for someone with a smaller chest.

After she was satisfied with how it fit, she pulled her shirt back on, swallowing when she saw how far the shirt had to stretch in order to cover the whole thing. It looked strained and in pain, which was not how clothing should have to look to cover someone.

Not long after she settled back on the couch, the front door opened, admitting Harry to the flat. “Hey…Maria…” he trailed off, his eyes widening. “What are you doing?”

Getting up was difficult for Maria. She had to stretch out her arms to her side, lifting herself up, her stomach sticking straight up into the air. “How was work?” she asked conversationally, like nothing was off.

But his eyes were still glued to her middle, his face filled with shock. “Maria, what’s going on? What did you do?”

“This is what I’m going to look like,” she told him. “This is how big I’m going to be when I’m about to give birth to whatever this child turns out to be. Is this what you like?”

“Maria…” His voice sounded like he was choking on something.

Without another word, she lifted up her shirt, exposing the lifelike stretch marks she’d taken time and effort to construct. And just as she expected, his face twisted with subtle disgust. He hated what she could look like just before birth, and he wasn’t dumb enough to think that all of the symptoms would go away.

“I want you to tell me something,” she demanded, refusing to let herself get emotional. “I know that you want to raise this child, but tell me something for real: if I looked like this,” she gestured to her exposed “stomach” and blotchy face, “would you still love me? Would you still want to cuddle with me at night, kiss my forehead when you walk by, whisper sweet things in my ear, try to have sex with me? Be honest.”

He turned away from her, hiding his face so she couldn’t see his true reaction. And then, she heard it. The sniffles, the hitched breathing. She saw the way his shoulders shook ever-so-subtly.

He was crying. Reality had hit him so hard that he didn’t want to deal with it. He didn’t want to look at her again. He’d glamorized what would happen to her in the upcoming months, that there would be some miracle of birth, but pregnancy was ugly and terrible. Maria would get fat, and, her absolutely worst fear, Harry would no longer be in love with her.

As much as she hated to admit it, she felt that Harry’s love was what kept her whole, made her feel like she mattered. To most other people throughout her life, especially to people who knew Jess first, Maria was just a bratty younger sister. But to Harry, she’d been sexy, beautiful, desirable. Her greatest fear was that the pregnancy would ruin that, and she’d never be able to find someone who thought as highly of her as he did.

“Harry,” Maria breathed. “Are we going to be realistic now?”

He wiped off his face and turned toward her. His eyes were red, and the tears had made tracks down his face that were impossible for Maria to ignore. “I can’t believe you’re doing this,” he muttered. “I can’t believe that you want to kill this child so much that you’d dramatize what will happen.”

“I’m not dramatizing anything!” she argued. “This is going to happen. And just face it! If this is how I look while I’m pregnant, you’re going to hate me, and you’re going to walk right out that door and leave me with a child that I didn’t even want.”

“Maria, you’re such a dumbass,” Harry shouted back. “I will love you, no matter what you look like. Because I love you. I don’t keep you around because you’re fun to bang when I get home from work. I keep you around because I want to come home to you, because I want to talk with you, I want to be with you, I want to cook for you, I want to watch television with you. Your looks may have attracted me to you, but my feelings are so much more complicated than that now. I’m not going anywhere, ever.”

She swallowed back emotion as she stared at him. But she still wasn’t convinced. People said shit like that all the time. She was sure all the abandoned teen moms had been assured by the fathers of their babies that those fathers would never, ever leave them. But they did.

And Harry would, too.