LA Baby ♡ Manhattan Dreams Sequel

21. Delaying the Inevitable

Dad gets a hotel for the night but he's back first thing in the morning. And he's making breakfast. "Dad, I can make my own food" I point out, laughing at his dramatics. I could only imagine that Josh would be the same way when he found out, making sure that I don't lift a single finger. Ever.

"What if you burn yourself? Or fall?"

I roll my eyes, watching him flip a pancake in the skillet in front of him. "Then I go get a bandage or nurse a bruise for a few days. Dad" I laugh even harder as he plates my food and slides it across the counter towards me. "I'm only a few weeks, not a few months." I had finally done the math and figured that I was perhaps a month at most. Of course I couldn't be one hundred percent sure until I went to see a doctor but it was the best guess...though it seemed crazy to think that I've already been growing a tiny human inside me for a month without realizing it.

"I'm aware...as your boyfriend should be." He had been doing this all morning too, getting in little digs about the fact that Josh is clueless as ever. He didn't quite understand my stance on not telling him until we were face to face but I didn't care. I had made up my mind and I wasn't changing it. For anyone.

"He will be. Soon." Another couple weeks. I could manage that. Unfortunately, what I couldn't manage was another minute of this damn morning sickness. Three bites in and I'm running down the hall and losing the contents of my stomach into the toilet. I swore if pregnancy was this horrid the first time around this might be it. I didn't know if I could do this multiple times. But if I didn't keep it-. I lean back against the wall, thinking of handing my baby over after it's born and my heart aches. "Do you think mom thought about giving me up?" I ask when my dad walks into the room and leans against the doorframe.

He shrugs. "I think she had to have. She was young and her marriage wasn't perfect." Understatement of the century. My relationship was better than my mother's marriage to my father. "But I don't think she regretted keeping you, even for a second."

I sniffle. "I doubt that. I ruined her life." Shawn's face contorts in dismay as he scrambles down to sit on the floor with me.

"Maya. You did not ruin your mother's life. You changed it in a major way but she never, ever regretted the choice she made to keep you. Nothing brought that woman more joy than the fact that she was your mom, not even being my wife." I chuckle, wiping at the few tears that have escaped down my face. "She may not have agreed with your life choices at the time of her passing but that was only because she wanted to avoid this." This. The baby. History repeating itself. I was another statistic now, just another daughter of a teenage mother who followed in her footsteps.

"She'd be so disappointed in me, wouldn't she?" I ask, looking at my dad through my tears.

"She wouldn't be thrilled" he agrees, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. "But she would be sitting here on your other side, telling you the same thing I'm telling you." He kisses the top of my head and I breathe out a sigh as I rest my head on his shoulder. "Accidents happen every day and we can let them ruin our lives and blame everyone else for them happening or, we can take responsibility for them and fight to make our lives better not despite them but because of them. No matter what you do about this baby your life will be forever changed and it's up to you to make the best of it. Do you understand?"

Damn. Dad was good at pep talks. Who knew? I nod my head and he smiles, reaching forward to wipe my tears. "Good. And don't coop yourself up in here, okay? You don't have to punish yourself forever. You do deserve to live a normal, young adult life...at least until the baby gets here."

I chuckle. "You're saying that like I'm surely keeping it."

He shrugs, standing up off the bathroom floor and reaching his hand out to me. "I only say what I think." And with a roll of my eyes and no argument to spare, I take his hand and stand up to get ready to face the day.