I stood there, my chest heaving, feeling a rainbow of emotions. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to slap, hit, bite, and fuck Stefan all at the same time. But most of all, I had a strong feeling of wanting to escape. Where was this coming from, anyway? “Are you just going to leave me in the lurch if you get a pro offer and I can’t follow?”
I didn't wait for an answer. I just I took off down the hallway, sobbing all the way to our bathroom, and slammed the door behind me.
Stefan
Watching Bella disappear into the bathroom, I stood there, confused and kicking myself. What was going on? I hadn’t told her for a thousand reasons. The main one was that I wanted to talk it over calmly with Bella when I was thinking clearly with my brain and not my dick. I was serious. I’d gladly tell Coach Carter to stuff a lax stick up his butt if there was no way I could take care of Bella. But that didn’t matter, and yelling at Bella only made things worse, a really stupid thing on my part.
I knocked on her door quietly after a few minutes, and Bella jerked the door open, her eyes wide with fear. Her shoulders tense, Bella waited as if she was expecting me to start yelling at her again. I realized how much yelling there’d been in our relationship, how much stress and how much difficulty, and I vowed to stop it, right here, right now.
I moved forward and pulled Bella into my arms, where she seemed to collapse with relief against my chest and began to sob. “I’m sorry,” I told her with as much conviction and emotion as I could muster. “I’m sorry for everything. For ignoring you, for the stress, for all of it. Bella, all I want is for you to stop being scared, because I’m not going to leave you. Not now, not when you have the baby, not ever. But I only have one thing to ask of you.”
Bella pulled back to look up at me, and I took a thumb and wiped away a tear.
“What?”
“Promise me that we keep being open and honest with each other. I can live without lacrosse, without my parents, without money, without being a pro athlete. I can’t live without you.”
We stood there for a long time, staring at each other, and I could feel Bella’s heartbeat against my chest. Each moment that ticked by seemed like an eternity.
When Bella finally answered, her voice had newfound strength within it.
“I promise.”
Chapter 38
Bella - Five months later . . .
“The baby looks perfectly healthy,” said the sonographer as I lay on the examination table.
I stared at the image on the screen, hardly able to believe what I was seeing, overcome by an array of emotions.
“Look, Stefan,” I said, pointing a trembling finger at the image, my eyes filled with tears. “Our baby.”
Stefan, who had let his hair grow out past his ears and sported scruffy stubble when he was too busy to shave in the morning, peered at the image, a proud look on his face. “It is.”
I placed my hands on either side of my stomach and peered down. I couldn't believe how big I’d gotten. It looked like I had a huge bowling ball stuffed inside my belly.
Despite the difficulties, Stefan was still here, just as he promised.
The most uncomfortable thing about it all was learning how to walk with such a burden. Stefan now jokingly called me “the waddle woman” whenever I had to move. Before, such a joke would have made me question Stefan’s love for me, but now, I realized that Stefan truly loved me.
Since that final, dreadful day that I’d accused him of being ready to leave me, our relationship had improved by quite a bit. Through working together and communicating, I’d learned to trust Stefan at his word, and I stopped looking for shadows where there were none. Part of it, I’m sure, was my hormones coming back into balance, but also the two of us learning how to be mature adults. Or at least more mature than we’d been.
On the downside, our parents hadn’t talked to us in months. Besides a few ‘how are you doing’ texts from my mom, I hadn’t heard her voice in what seemed like ages. I did worry about her, but there was nothing I could do to make her talk to me.
Grandma Emma had started to call to check on us often, though. When I asked her about my mother, she would reply that our parents were too stubborn to see the truth yet and were still being stiff-necked about our decision to continue on with our relationship and the baby.
When I asked about their marital status, Grandma Emma would say, “Honey, you know about as much as I do about that.”
It led me to believe that our parents were still in limbo. I supposed Terry was really fighting to keep my mother’s hand. I’d learned to let go of the anger at both of them and wish for the best. For their sake, I hoped they stayed together.