Pregnant with my two best friends

Chapter 7

A knock on the door brings Emma back to hard reality. A soft voice calls her name, asking her if she’s okay. The voice comes from Becca, the manager, a girl in her early twenties who goes to a community college in a couple of towns over. She’s cool. Emma likes her. Becca asks her to open the door and come out. When Emma does so, Becca is shocked to see how pale Emma has become. Becca then rushes her out the door and asks her not to come back until she feels better.

Emma walks home, happy to find that her mom isn’t in. It’s early. She’s probably out having her manicure and pedicure before picking Toby up from soccer practice. That’ll give her two hours of solitude. Her stepdad, Alan Roberts, will still be in the office by now. He’s usually home at around seven. Alan works for the local government with good position. Chief of something, Emma doesn’t really remember. He’s eight years older than her mom with two grownup daughters. His first, Amanda, is already married and lives in town with her husband but no kids yet. She’s only twenty-five, and a teacher. Since Emma wants to be a teacher as well, she idolizes her so much. The other one, Piper, is living her best life at Georgetown, her second year.

Emma likes and respects Alan a lot. She has a great relationship with him and her stepsisters. They all good people, very nice and down to earth. The thing is, and this saddens Emma, this husband too seems to not be enough for her mom. Alan is not rich by Alpequa’s standard, but he’s far from poor. He’s given her mom a comfortable life if her mom can just be grateful. Heck, he’s also given Emma a comfortable life. Emma really doesn’t need a summer job, she just has to do it or otherwise she’ll develop a cabin fever. At summer time. Go figure.

Alan is kind and supportive towards Toby too. He and Dave have managed to develop a good relationship over the years. Sometimes, when Dave comes to the house to drop Toby and Emma back, both men will usually make time to talk and tell harmless and mild jokes about her mom. Once, Emma heard them doing so and joined them. At first, she made both men jump out of shock of seeing her. They even had the decency to look embarrassed. But when she winked and grinned Chris’s style, the men laughed with her. It was all good. Still, Emma worries. She worries that one day Allan will have had enough of her mom’s shenanigans and leave her like Dave did. It might just be a matter of time before it happens. For all Emma knows, her mother is still heavy on her prey to land herself a minted man.

How sad, if she could just take the time to appreciate what she’s had. Both Dave and Alan are good men. Dave had loved her so much; her crazy ambition drove him away. The fact that he still cares about Emma shows how good of a man he is. Emma thinks deep in his heart, Dave still loves her mom. She’s not the kind of woman that can be easily forgotten. She’s just… too hot to handle, too expensive for a man with a cop salary. Alan’s salary is bigger than Dave, thank God for that. Hopefully, it will make her mom stays longer. He too, loves her mom very much. At least he hasn’t shown any indication that he has grown tired of her behavior. Yet, Emma finds herself continue praying for her mom to finally appreciate Alan, before he leaves her for good.

Now Emma sighs, getting really frustrated with herself. How come she thinks about her mom now that she’s the one with a problem. She’s missed her July period, and June too, assuming her calculation was correct. She’d dismissed that one as nothing but a fluke. Now though, coupled with her nausea, Emma figures that it’s time for her to buy a couple of home pregnancy tests. She needs to go to a town over to do that, she can’t risk being seen.

But then what? Emma longs to be able to talk to somebody. Not her mom, she’ll just make things worse. She can talk to her girlfriends, Jessica and Penny, but doubt that Parker and Chris will appreciate that. Her friends don’t even know that Emma’s been sleeping with both boys. They kind of suspected that her relationship with Parker had blossomed, that she and Parker had progressed from being only best friends to something more. Emma had never confirmed their suspicions, but she giggled every time they asked. So yeah, even though Jessica and Penny have been good friends to her, their friendships have never really been tested. Emma can’t really know for sure if those two will keep her secret. If one of them tells, then she’ll be in such deep trouble.

The thing is, it will take two more weeks before the boys come back. Parker is scheduled to come a couple of days before Chris. But still, two more weeks. Emma cannot wait that long. She starts to panic now. God, this is just too hard. She sobs and sobs, she can’t stop. Then she remembers her dad. She remembers the night when both boys faced her dad and told him that if something would’ve ever happened to Emma, they wouldn’t back away. Her dad, she must come to him. He knows how things started and he’s the only one that can help her now. Emma calls him, asking him to pick her up.

Her dad comes fast. Thank God. He comes before her mom and Toby arrive. Emma meets him at the front of the house and jumps to his car, asking him to continue driving. Her dad sees her tears but does not say anything. When he offers to take her for ice cream, she refuses, begging him to just drive them home. At home she tells him everything, crying when doing so, hoping to escape his wrath. And she does, escape his wrath, barely.

Her dad is so beside himself he throws a glass to the wall. The glass breaks into shards, making Emma shriek.

“Who’s the father, Em?” her dad asks, trying to keep his voice even.

Emma shakes her head. “I don’t know,” she answers meekly.

Her dad rubs the back of his neck. Sometimes he does that whenever he gets overwhelmed. “Emma,” he says slowly. “How many boys have you been sleeping with, sweetie?”

“Dad,” Emma says, shouting a little. She couldn’t believe her dad just asked her that. “I’m not a slut!”

“I’m sorry, sweetie. I didn’t mean it like that,” her dad says, hurriedly rephrasing his words. This is not easy for him either. “When you said that you don’t know, you meant the father of the baby is either Parker or Chris, right?”

“Right,” Emma says, turning away, couldn’t really face her dad. It sucks!

Her dad nods. He becomes silent for a while before finally ordering her to stay in her room until he comes to get her. Once he’s calm enough. Then they will talk. Right now, he just needs time to compose himself. In the meantime, Emma needs to call her mom and tell her that she will stay at his dad for the night. She also needs to cancel her slumber party.

Emma stays in her room for a long time, waiting with anticipation, feeling broken for upsetting her dad. Her dad has been so proud of her and her Princeton’s scholarship. Oh, God! What happens to Princeton now? From her bedroom upstairs, Emma can hear her dad cooks. It’s his way of trying to compose himself. Apparently, that helps, because he then shouts and asks her to come down so they can eat. The shards have been cleaned as well, her dad’s been busy.

Her dad makes vegetables pasta. It’s good and surprisingly doesn’t make her gag. She realizes that she’s hungry and starts munching away. Her dad doesn’t say anything, he lets her eat her fill. They eat in silence, but the silence is comfortable. When they’re done, her dad takes their plates and brings them to the sink, refusing her help, telling her to stay sitting. He then walks to the fridge to get her a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia, her favorite. She still likes it; she doesn’t feel like throwing up. So, she eats that too, ravenously.

Now completely full, she feels better. She feels like she can take on the world. Well, not really, but close enough.

“I’ll go and get you a couple of pregnancy tests,” her dad starts, without any opening. Apparently, he doesn’t find it necessary. “Then we’ll take it from there. If the tests come up negative, you and I need to have a long talk, but we can keep it just between us. Your mom doesn’t have to know. Nobody has too, not even the boys. But let there be a lesson here, sweetie. You know that, right? You guys have been reckless. I want none of that anymore. If the tests come up positive, we’ll go see a doctor tomorrow so we can be sure. I’ll take you to the hospital.”

Now Emma starts to silently sob. “We might run into somebody,” she says meekly.

“We’ll go to Manhattan, then,” her dad says. Emma nods but doesn’t say anything. Her dad reaches out for her hand and squeezes it tightly, comforting her. “Everything’s gonna be alright, sweetie, I promise. Those boys, they will have to take the responsibilities in this, too. Even if you don’t want to keep the baby, those boys will still have to know.”

“Our plans don’t include a baby in the near future, dad,” Emma says in a whisper.

“Well, tough luck, sweetie,” her dad says. “s**t happens. But Emma, you do have options here. You know that, right? You don’t have to keep the baby if you don’t want to. You just need to remember that you’re not alone in this. We all will be with you, the boys, your mom.”

Emma’s eyes widen. She has completely forgotten about her mom. She wonders why, perhaps because her mom’s not been overly motherly. Emma feels much easier talking to her stepdad than to her own mom. “Dad,” she starts slowly, biting her lower lips. What she wants to say now is a little difficult, she trembles a little. “If I’m pregnant and decide not to keep the baby, can we also keep this between us? Mom doesn’t have to know, Parker and Chris don’t either.”

“No,” her dad answers with a firm, indisputable tone this time. “No, sweetie. Sorry, but that is a no deal. It will be your decision to keep it since you’re already eighteen and it is your body, after all. We won’t take that away from you. But they must know.”

Now Emma sighs, she will not fight her dad on this. “Okay,” she says meekly.

Her dad stands up and lovingly messes with her hair. “Go get some rest now, sweetie. I’ll go to the pharmacy for those pregnancy packs.”

“Don’t go to the ones in town, dad,” Emma pleads softly. “People might see you.”

Her dad rubs his neck again, for a hundred times today it seems. “Okay, sweetie,” he says before slowly walking out.

***