I sighed and sat down on a chair next to the couch cross-legged. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “He seemed really surprised.”
“No kidding. Yesterday he was the king of the campus. Now he’s your baby daddy.”
“Oh god, don’t say that.”
“What, baby daddy?”
I cringed. “Yes. Please, stop.”
“Sorry, but it’s true. He didn’t, like, freak out and run away, did he?”
“No. He actually seemed to take it well, I guess. Maybe. I couldn’t tell. But he did want to meet up again.”
“That’s a good sign.” She typed some more and then looked up. “Email to the health people sent. I’ll let you know when your appointment is.”
“Thanks. I’m nervous to see him again. I just don’t know what I want from him.”
“Doesn’t matter what you want though, does it? He’s the father to this baby, and if you’re keeping it, he better help out.”
“Yeah, I guess.” I leaned back and sighed. “He’s just such an asshole. I barely know him and he already drives me crazy.”
“You’re not going to marry the guy, are you?”
“No. No way. That’s not on the table.”
“Then don’t stress about it right now. You’ll work it out.”
I nodded. “Yeah. You’re right.”
Harper smiled at me. “And listen. When are you telling your parents?”
“Never,” I said, and stood up.
“You have to tell them soon,” she called after me as I retreated into my bedroom, not wanting to have that conversation. “They need to know. They can help!”
I shut my door and clenched my jaw.
My parents weren’t going to help. Or maybe they would, but it would come with some incredibly powerful guilt and judgmental conversations.
The problem was, my parents were incredibly devout Catholics. The idea that I’d have sex before marriage was an abomination to them. I couldn’t imagine telling them that I got pregnant, let along slept with a guy. They’d try to make me marry him or something, maybe something worse. Right now, I couldn’t handle that sort of stress and pressure.
No, right now I had to handle this on my own. I had Harper, who was being a huge help already, but basically that was it. I had to get through this myself.
I had no other choice.
A few hours later I was in the library, trying to study.
I was a biology major, and I wanted to go into sports medicine or maybe some kind of research one day. There was good money in sports medicine, but research was my real passion. I was amazed by the human body, and especially by the extreme limits of what humans were physically capable of. I wanted to get involved in more studies that looked specifically at athletes, but those tended to be super competitive at a school like MD.
As I turned the pages of my book, bored but determined to get some studying done, my phone buzzed. I glanced down at the screen, already deciding I was going to ignore it, but I paused at the message.
It was from Gibson. “What are you doing right now?”
I frowned, picked up my phone, and typed a reply. “I’m in the library studying. Pretty boring.”
He responded right away. “Where in the lib?”
“Second floor.”
I waited for his response, but there was nothing. After a minute, I assumed he just lost interested, so I went back to reading.
Bodies and body parts. I was reading about the musculature system and trying to decide what sort of project I wanted to embark on for my final project when someone loomed up behind me.
I turned around. Gibson grinned down at me.
“Hey there, momma,” he said.
“Don’t,” I said, shaking my head. “No way.”
“Got a second?”
“I guess.”
“Come on.” He turned and started walking away. I had to shut my book and get up fast to keep up with him.
He wound his way through the stacks. Finally we ended up in the back corner of the building, on the opposite end. He opened up a door and we stepped inside.
I was surprised by what I saw. It was a study room, but it was way nicer than anything I’d ever seen for regular students. The carpet was clean, there was a new television mounted on the wall, and there were even fresh snacks on the table.
“Where are we?” I asked him.
“This is the athletics study lounge,” he said. “Clearly it doesn’t get much use.”
“Oh my god. Are you kidding me? This is just for athletes?”
He grinned. “There are certain perks.”
“Of course there are. You people can throw balls real far, so of course you get the nicest study room on the entire campus.”