The Song

Part Sixty-Two

FLASHBACK CONT…

As soon as we got to the apartment in LA I dumped my bags on the floor and went straight to the bed. It was another trip to the city of angels and I was starting to feel the wear and tear of being a road wife.

“Babe do you seriously feel that bad?” Aston asked.

“Sick to my stomach,” I groaned.

“What do you think it is?” he asked, sitting next to me on the bed and running his hand through my hair.

“No idea,” I sighed.

“Bad food?”

“Nah, it doesn’t feel like that.”

“Well then, explain how it feels,” Aston said.

“Ast…” I sighed.

“I’m trying to help!”

“The thought of eating makes me want to vomit. The car ride here made me want to vomit. Talking about this makes me want to vomit. God it’s almost like morning sickness.”

“Wha—what?” Aston asked.

“I mean I’ve never had it, but everything is putting me off right now,” I said, leaning my cheek into his hand as it came to stroke my cheek.

“You don’t think you could be…”

“I don’t know, I don’t think so. We said we didn’t want to and we were so careful.”

“Should we get a test just in case?” he asked, “I’m worried now.”

“You’re such a worrier!” I smiled, “Honestly let me sleep and I’ll be fine. Back to normal by morning.”

“I don’t know Jess…” Aston pressed on, “We should probably do a test and check.”

“Fine, do what you want,” I said, brushing him off.

“I’m going to go get a test then,” he said defiantly, “We’ll do it and then move forward.”

“Yeah ok, wake me up when you’re back,” I sighed, curling up in a ball and scrunching my eyes shut tight.

I really did feel terrible. Everything seemed to make me feel sick, but I didn’t have any other symptoms to indicate it was the flu or something. We’d been so so careful, but there was this little niggling in the back of my mind that something wasn’t quite right. I couldn’t be pregnant, could I?

I drifted off to a restless sleep, trying to put my mind off of the situation that was presenting itself at the moment. I was literally just into a deep slumber when Aston got back, shaking me awake. “Babe, I got a test. Well four but…”

“Gosh Ast…” I groaned, “Can’t this wait till morning?”

“We need to know now.”

“Babe.”

“It’ll take five minutes, please?” he begged, pushing the bag towards me.

“Fine,” I groaned, throwing the duvet off of me, “So you’ll leave me alone to sleep.”

I took one of the tests from him, wandering into the en suite and ripping open the box. I scanned the instructions and then did what I needed to do, leaving the test on the counter as I went back and climbed into bed.

“It says wait three minutes,” I said, closing my eyes.

“Jess what are we gonna do?” Aston whispered.

“We do whatever the test says,” I replied, “If it’s positive we have a baby, if it’s not we don’t and we move on. We said we didn’t want one yet, remember?”

“I know but… what if it is positive? Are we ready?”

“Ready or not, it’s our kid.”

“You’re right, we’d figure it out.”

“Wanna go check it,” I said, pulling the duvet to my chin. There was a weird tension between us and really I just wanted to go to sleep and wake up with everything back to normal.

“Sure,” Aston said quietly.

I watched him get up and go into the en suite, taking a minute before coming back.

“Negative.”

“Well then I have a bug.”

“Can I take you to the doctor tomorrow?” Aston asked, “Just in case this is something serious. Or the test was wrong.”

“Fine yeah, just let me sleep,” I said, burying my head in the duvet.

I couldn’t believe it, but I was actually crying. I’d actually wanted that damn test to be positive and it wasn’t. I couldn’t let Aston see me though, we’d agreed we didn’t want a kid, why would I all of a sudden change that for us?

“I’m going for a drink with the boys,” Aston muttered after a minute.

“Ok bye.”

I heard the door slam shut and then I threw the duvet off of me, going to the en suite to inspect the test myself. Aston had already dropped it in the bin so I had to pull it out to have a look.

“Negative,” I whispered, dropping it back in with the trash, my heart breaking just a little bit.

I ran some water and wiped off my face, crawling back into bed. I still felt like hell and I really didn’t know what was wrong with me, but it was pretty clear I wasn’t pregnant.

--

The next day I woke up, Aston still asleep next to me. I didn’t feel nearly as queasy as I did the day before, so I got up and made a cup of tea and some toast.

“Hey,” Aston groaned, coming into the kitchen.

“Big night?”

“Bigger than it needed to be.”

“Fun.”

“You want me to take you to the doctor?” he asked.

“I’ll take myself,” I said, “You worry about work.”

“You sure?”

“It’s fine Ast,” I bit out. I don’t know why I was annoyed with him, but I was.

“You don’t have to be short with me.”

“Whatever,” I muttered, going into the bedroom and picking out some clothes.

We didn’t say much to each other the rest of the morning, and as Aston went off to work I found myself headed to the doctors alone.

After a quick check-up, where I found I had a stomach virus, I was back at the house curled up in bed. I still felt pretty terrible about everything: the illness, the baby thing, and how I’d been with Aston.

But it didn’t matter, throughout the whole trip there was a noted tension between us. We hardly spoke to each other at all, and as things started to blow up I questioned what the hell was going on. Aston and I never fought. And now, I couldn’t stand the sight of him. All because I knew I wanted something he didn’t. And it hurt. But I couldn’t say anything…