Page 11 of Unplanned
My trembling hand touches my forehead as if that will help me remember exactly where I messed up.
“Two days in a row last week.”
“Okay,” he says. “But it’s too soon to tell from last week.”
I bite my lip and confess the rest of it. “And three or four days sporadically the week before that.”
He takes my hand and says, “We’ll go to the doctor and make sure it’s not a false positive.”
Sweet, sweet Nico. “False positives are super rare. It’s the false negatives you have to watch out for. Also, Leela sent me home early after I ran out of a meeting because I had to puke.”
Nico doesn’t say anything else at first. Just slow blinks at me. He doesn’t get it. He just has to trust me that I am, without a doubt, pregnant.
I confess, “It’s all my fault…I sometimes turn off all reminders on my phone….”
“Hey, I played a part in it too,” he says with a little smile. He’s being brave for me.
“I should have checked when I realized…I didn’t read about how long it takes for the hormones to get out of my system. And then instead of tapering off sex…”
“We did it a lot more,” Nico says, rubbing the back of my hand.
I smile weakly, waiting for his real reaction, my eyes focusing on the rivulets of water trailing off his bronzed shoulders. The scent of his clean skin. The comforting scent of his drugstore shampoo.
I nod.
After what feels like an eternity of him just holding my hand, but what in actuality is probably only thirty seconds, he says wetly, “We’re having a baby.”
I look up from the stick in my hand to see his throat bob. “We’re having a baby,” I repeat.
He lets go of my hand and presses a thumb and forefinger into his closed eyes, but tears escape anyway. He chokes out, “We’re going to be parents. I’m going to be a dad.” His shoulders shake, and I can’t tell if he’s laughing or crying.
“Nico, are you okay?”
He uncovers his face then, and the next thing I know, he’s seated on the edge of the tub, and I’m somehow in his lap. The damp towel is wetting my shorts and the backs of my thighs, and his wet, warm arms are locked around me. “I’m more than okay. I’m…holy shit,” he says, smiling. He sounds like he’s holding back laughter, or shouting, or something else.
I’m so, so relieved. I don’t know what I was worried about. Of course, he’s happy. Hearing the truth out loud feels different from knowing it.
“It’s not how we planned things. We wanted to wait, and I screwed it up, kind of…”
He shushes me with a kiss. The softest, sweetest, lingering kiss. The same sort of kiss that we shared when we were barely eleven years old and kissed for the first time. Nico and I were riding our bikes on a summer day. It was shortly after his grandfather was granted kinship custody. He just wanted to see if we could ride our bikes all the way up to the overlook on the mountain road. We made it, but I’d had to stop and walk my bike halfway. Nico could have ridden up and back in the time it took for me to go for the rest of the way, but he stayed with me. By the time we reached the overlook, it was late, and we were both in big trouble. I remember he was sad about something —it was always about his parents—and I just leaned over and kissed him. It was just a peck. Until he kissed me back. A longer, sweeter kind of peck, one that broke my world open completely. That was the moment I knew I would love Nico forever.
That’s the kiss he gives me now, as we’re perched on the tub, with tears streaming down my face, finding out that we won’t have time to be together, just the two of us as newlyweds, for very long. That we’d better start saving money now. That we’re going to have to make some major changes, like find a bigger, two-bedroom apartment. Shop for a car seat. Buy a crib. The list of things to do and plan for now really outweighs anything having to do with the wedding.
Also, strangely, I feel a little bit empowered by that fact. What does a dress matter? What does a string quartet matter, or country club salmon, or champagne roses, or taper candles versus pillars? What does anything matter when a baby is on the way?
“What’s going on in that head of yours?” Nico says. “Talk to me.”
“You’re so calm,” I say. “Aren’t you scared?”
He laughs and gently squeezes me closer. “Becca, I’m freaking out. But I’m so fucking happy at the same time. There’s the ‘oh shit’ part of me, but also, this kid is going to be so loved.”
I nod, a knot forming in my throat. He’s right.
My shoulders relax as tears spill down my cheeks. Nico leans forward to kiss me again. I drop the stupid pregnancy test and hook my arm around him as he kisses me deeply.
“I love you so much, Becca.”
“You’re not mad that I screwed up?”
