“I could’ve been here,” I say, trying to keep my tone in check. “I could’ve planned my leave for when the baby comes, but now I’m here and I’ll probably be gone when you give birth.”
“I’m—”
“Yeah, I heard, you’re sorry.”
Needing to get away before I say something I might regret, I turn around and walk out the door. My parents call my name, but I ignore them, slamming the door behind me.
I’m about to get in my truck and take off when I hear Micaela call my name.
“I can’t do this right now.”
“Ryan, please,” she begs. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“What did you think would happen by hiding this from me? You didn’t even try to get ahold of me. No letter or email. I have my phone.” I pull it out of my pocket. “Not a single text or phone call. So, please, Micaela, tell me… what the hell did you mean to happen?”
Micaela
Ryan glares at me with a myriad of emotions shining in his eyes: anger, frustration, confusion, but the most prominent is hurt. I hurt him with my actions. I was strictly thinking about my own self-preservation when I made the decision not to tell him about our baby. I was blinded by the distance between us, but now that he’s standing in front of me, I can clearly see how wrong I was.
With the door open, our parents are standing in the doorway. Everybody is quiet now with their attention on me. I stay focused on Ryan, though, because he’s the person I owe an explanation to. The person who was affected by my choices.
“I know it was wrong, but I was scared,” I admit, just as my stomach tightens with a contraction. I wrap my arms around myself, closing my eyes momentarily to get through it. When I open my eyes, they’re filled with tears, but I refuse to let them fall. I did this, created this tension, and I need to take responsibility. “I told myself if I didn’t tell you, then you weren’t the dad, so when something happened to you, and you didn’t make it back here, I wouldn’t be losing the father of my baby because you never knew you were.” Somebody gasps from behind me, but nobody says a word.
“Please don’t fight,” I plead, making eye contact with everyone. “It was my choice, not my parents’. Mine. I didn’t do it to hurt any of you, but I get now how it did. But please don’t blame them. I’m an adult and I chose not to tell anyone.”
I look back at Ryan. “I know that’s messed up,” I say, taking a deep breath as another contraction hits. “But you know how messed up I am from losing my husband. Every time I thought about telling you, I imagined you getting killed over there, and I couldn’t do it. I’m so sorry. I know it doesn’t help, and I can’t—” My breath is knocked out of me as another contraction overtakes my body, the pain almost unbearable. “Take it back,” I finish.
“It hasn’t been twenty minutes,” Ryan says.
“What?”
“You said your contractions are about twenty minutes apart. It was only maybe five minutes between them in the house and then not even two just now.”
“Two?” my mom says. “Are you sure?”
“Every time she has one she holds her stomach,” Ryan says, pointing at me as another contraction hits, this one worse than the others. I squeeze my eyes shut, taking deep breaths in and out until it passes.
“Micaela, is that true?” Mom asks.
“I think so,” I breathe. “They’re coming closer now and”—I double over in pain, and Ryan catches me—“they hurt.”
“We need to get you to the hospital,” Ryan says, wrapping his arms around me and walking me to his truck.
“We’ll grab your stuff and meet you there,” Mom says.
The drive to the hospital is filled with uncomfortable silence, and I hate that it’s because of what I’ve done. I spent several days with Ryan, and from the very first minute we spoke, it was always comfortable. So the fact that it’s not now makes me feel sick inside, especially since we’re about to bring a baby into this world. A baby we created.
Ryan parks and we go in through the main entrance, going straight to the labor and delivery ward. I’ve preregistered, so once I give them my name and show them my license, they bring me back to a room so they can assess me. After I’m changed into a hospital gown, the nurse sets me up with monitors across my belly and chest to monitor the baby’s and my heartbeat, and then the doctor comes in and checks me out.
“Your water hasn’t broken, but you’re almost completely dilated. Since you’re already thirty-eight weeks, I would like to break your water and push you along rather than send you home only to come back again.”