A Favor That Could Change Everything

Part 5

Dawson's smile dropped as she stared at her best friend. "To help you out, Stella, you don't ask someone to help you make a baby." She said it like it was the craziest thing she'd ever heard. "You ask them to fix your car, pick something up for you, help you move, give you a loan, but you don't ask them to help you make a baby,"

"It's not like I went up to a complete stranger and said, Hey, could you do me a big favor and knock me up?" she said sarcastically. "I went to someone I knew, trusted, and cared about," she said, looking at Kelly. Who just smiled at her.

"Stella, I get why you would choose Kelly, but I don't get why you wouldn't want to wait till you met someone special," she told her in a serious tone. "Don't you want to have a baby with someone you're in love with, someone you know that you could spend forever with?" Don't you want to get married?"

"I don't know," Stella said, as she ran her fingers through her hair.

"Just because your first marriage didn't work out doe...

"This has nothing to do with my first marriage," Stella said, cutting her off.

"I just don't understand this whole situation."

"There is nothing to understand about it Gabby; bottom line, I want a baby."

"What brought all this on?" Dawson asked, clearly confused.

Stella sighed loudly. "I'm thirty years old."

Dawson shrugged her shoulders. "So, am I; what's that got to do with anything?"

"Gabby, I love you, but you will never understand where I'm coming from."

"Try me, Stella."

Stella took a deep breath and looked over at Kelly, who was giving her a go-ahead look. "I'm jealous of you, Brett, Chloe, and now Lily. I want what you guys have."

"You will one day. You just have to be patient. Your time will come." Dawson said, giving her a sad smile. "Stella, I.

"Woman, have a time limit. Basically, we have until we're 35 to produce all the healthy babies we plan to have in our lifetime. After 35, risks of miscarriage and birth defects go up, as does the possibility of fertilization of sperm and egg." She said it in an annoyed voice, interrupting whatever Dawson was going to say.

"Stella, that's not exactly true; my cousin is 42, and she had a healthy pregnancy, a safe delivery, and the baby was healthy. Google is not always right. You have time; you are still young."

Stella shook her head. "Damn it, Gabby, you are missing the point." She yells. "I have been so unhappy this past year, and I needed my best friend; I needed support, and you were so wrapped up in your happy life to even notice how depressed I was. You have no idea how many times I tried to tell you how I felt, but every time I tried to talk to you, it turned into a conversation about Jackson or your pregnancy, or your marriage. "She sighed, "If it wasn't about, you or something you wanted to talk about, you didn't care."

And for the first time, Gabby Dawson was speechless. She stared at Stella as the tears fell, and her heart broke for her friend. "I'm sorry...

" Just forget it." Stella interrupted her. "It doesn't matter," she said as she walked into the bathroom and slammed the door shut behind her.