Marie and I sat there trying to formulate a plan. Surely I had to tell Jared, right? I just couldn't keep something this big from him, but would he care? I mean. . . he was independent, and we never discussed kids because that was just too early.
"I can help with the medical a stuff, or the baby stuff." Marie whispered.
I shook my head and gripped her hand. It was too much to ask her to help, she had her own life. "It's okay. "
"I'll go call Derek, we can cancel the date." Marie says standing up.
"Its okay. I need to do this. Jared needs this." I say standing up next to her.
She look at me confused, "Who's Jared?"
I realize I never explained to her what brought me here, or who's baby I was carrying. "He's the baby daddy."
Marie nods and looks at the ground. I could tell she had a lot of questions, but she didn't ask me any of them. Instead, she dragged me to her closet and told me to wear what I wanted.
"Thanks Buddy." I smiled at her. It was the first genuine smile since I flew to Greece.
Marie smiled so big and looked as if she was about to cry. Then she suddenly blurted out, "My Buddy is having a baby!"
I roll my eyes at her and go to her closet as she laughed to herself. She apparently had her clothes already picked out; black slacks with a scarf type of cloth that wrapped around her back then crossed at her chest and tied behind her neck. It was a little out of character to the Marie that I knew, or used to know in high school, but people change.
I glossed over her closet and pulled out a stunning silver, transparent Nehru jacket. It was a high low top and also very thin. It needed am undershirt, which I just happened to have under my tulle top.
I hold it up and face her, "Can I wear this?"
She nods and smiles, "That was originally going to be for you but then I forgot to send it to your mom so she could give it to you. So yeah technically its yours."
I close my eyes and hold back a laugh as I pull it off the hanger. Marie laughs as she slips on her outfit. I take off my top and replace it with the Nehru jacket. We both walked into the bathroom to do our make up.
"Okay. It has been around 15 years and I still suck at make up. In exchange for borrowing my shi-" Marie starts.
"My shirt." I giggle.
Marie rolls her eyes, "Whatever, " she laughs, "Can you please do my make up? Because you love me."
I smile and nod. I do her make up, a soft smokey eye and then mine, a natural palate color. Not long after that did we have our shoes and head to the restaurant.
As we pull up, I see Marie's girlfriend talking to a man around our age who I assumed to be Derek. I glance at Marie out of the corner of my eye. She fixes her lip stain the the rear view mirror and smiles over at me. When she realizes I was peeking at her, she frowns, "Did I do something?"
I shake my head and smile at her, "Nothing. Thank you."
As if to say thank you, Marie smiles and hops out of the car. I do the same and we both walk up to the restaurant together. We pull back the doors and immediately Marie's girlfriend Allyna brings her into a hug and then follows up with a kiss. Derek awkwardly looks up from the tile and half smile. Before looking back down again, he notices my bump. His eyebrows twitch, then he looks up again and smiles fullheartedly. Derek didn't speak much, but he really didn't have to with his body. His shoulder-length brown hair was held back in a pony tail that rested between his shoulder blades. His muscles stretched out of his while button up and black pants. The vest he wore framed his chest relatively well, I have to admit.
Marie and Allyna step back, still attached at the hip and sigh a bit, "Dawson, this is Derek. He is the manager of my shop and also long time friend of mine."
Derek extends a hand towards me, which revealed a couple veins in his forearm. He didn't seemed too bothered by the fact that I was pregnant. That word made me choke up a bit, and I shove it all down to deal with later. I grabbed his hand and smiled back at him. He nodded his head, then finally spoke in a low, scruffy voice, "I've heard a lot about you. Marie is very infatuated with you."
I smile and retract my hand, "Well she's an incredible woman and I'm happy to still be friends with her."
Derek nods again before the waiter comes and gets us four. As we're walking back, my phone began to buzz.
"Excuse me, I need to get this." I say, falling back and heading outside. I pull my phone out from my back pocket and see that its Jared, trying to contact me again.
I sigh, I really did need to talk to him. I didn't know if now was the right time exactly but, nevertheless we needed to talk. I reject the call, it wasn't time yet. Hearing his voice was too much to handle right now and sending a text about this type of stuff just wasn't right.
I lock my phone and rush to catch back up to the rest of them.
*Couple Hours later*:
It was around one in the morning when Derek dropped me off at my parent's house. He walked me up to the door and bid me goodnight. Before he left he asked if I wanted to go a yoga class with him. How he knew I liked yoga, I had no idea, but I agreed.
"I'll see you Thursday then." He smiles and he starts to head back to his car.
I nod and say goodnight before closing and locking the door. I shuffle over to the couch and sit down, then it hits me, I'm still pregnant. Closing my eyes, I begin to think about all I have to do to prepare for the baby. There were birthing classes and diaper costs and bottles to buy and baby showers. First things first, though, was to make sure the little thing was okay.
I grab the notepad that sits on the coffee table and pull a pen out from the mantle then begin to formulate a list of all I would need to do in the next two months. Tomorrow I was to call the doctor and make an appointment for an ultrasound.
Making the list, I start thinking about about how I could've missed something so fucking crazy like this. I mean, I was coping with Evana, and with writing, then there was Greece with Jared, and then the aftermath of Greece with Jared. Even then I was really out of it, rarely paying attention to myself. I was mostly so indulged in my novel that I wouldn't have noticed if Hell froze over. However, it did start to make sense, the morning sickness, the aching, and my hair growing quite rapidly.
Shaking my head, I try to throw those thoughts out for now and focus on the list. I wrote down what I would need in terms of basic needs, then things I could go without, then luxuries.
Suddenly I felt a little nudge on my stomach. I look down to see a bitty lump sticking out of my stomach. It was the baby kicking. Gasping and covering my mouth, my eyes get watery as I watch the little one move around. It takes a few minutes before the baby settles down and stops moving. Then, I place my hand on top of my bump and whisper, "It'll be alright little one."
