Unexpecting (Unexpecting #1)

22. Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Two

“The nine months of pregnancy are peppered with joy and anxiety; excitement and uncertainty.”

A Young Woman’s Guide to the Joy of Impending Motherhood

Dr. Francine Pascal Reid (1941)

“ O h. Ohhhh! Morgan? Morgan… what are you doing here? Here—in J.B.’s bed? Here? You were down there?” I pointed to the stairs.

″J.B. came home and took pity on me having to sleep on the couch,” she told me, stretching her arms above her head. I couldn’t help but notice she looked very, very comfortable in his bed. Too comfortable to have spent the night there alone.

″But you said…”

″Hey. What’s with the party this early?” J.B. was standing in the doorway. I couldn’t help but notice he was wearing the same red striped boxer shorts that he had on the night we conceived. The night I got pregnant. The pregnancy that he didn’t know about yet, that I was about to tell him about after I got over the horrible, sick feeling I had thinking about him and Morgan.

A yawn split his face. “What’s up, Case?”

″Oh. Um.” I don’t have to tell you how the sight of Morgan totally took the wind right out of my sails. I wanted to take my sticks of pee and run back downstairs. This was not how I pictured this. I guessed I was not the only one who was thinking about sex last night. But how could they? This couldn’t be happening!

″I gotta pee,” he said as he disappeared into the hallway.

″Pee,” I whispered. “I’ve got to go.” I didn’t know where to look or what to say. I just needed to get out of there right now because I had a terrible feeling I might be about to cry and no one involved in this little scene needed that.

″What have you got in your hand, Casey?” Morgan called out just as I was about to make my escape.

I froze and glanced down in my hand, where I was still clutching the three sticks, each with its urine-saturated tip and a bright blue plus in the window. It was obvious what they were. How would I do this now? I should have taken a moment to prepare, even though there was no way in hell I could have prepared for this little scenario.

″I’m pregnant,” I muttered, still standing in the middle of the room.

″What?” Morgan asked.

″I’m pregnant,” I said a little clearer.

″Oh, my God!” Morgan shrieked. She jumped out of bed—I was happy to see that she was dressed in the pajamas I gave her to wear last night—and grabbed me in a bone-cracking hug. “Pregnant! How? Who? When? Why didn’t you tell me?” Morgan was clearly over the moon with excitement, laughing and clutching me, but all I could think about was that she just had sex with J.B.

″Aren’t you excited?” she asked. “What’s the matter? I’m so happy for you, I could cry!” And her eyes began to get wet and weepy.

″What’s going on?” J.B. asked, coming back in the room.

Morgan started to jump up and down. “Tell him, Casey, tell him, tellhimtellhimtellhim !”

Reluctantly I faced J.B., feeling much like I imagine Anne Boleyn must have felt as she faced her executioner that fateful day she lost her head. Fear and resignation—a sense of just get it over with. I showed him the pee sticks in my hand so there wouldn’t be any question of me not telling the truth. “I’m going to have a baby.”

J.B. looked confused for a moment before clarity set in. “You’re pregnant?”

There was absolutely no enthusiasm in his tone. That should have told me something. I should have left then, walked right out of the room and let him process things before I made the big announcement. Since J.B. was showing no excitement at all for the fact that I was pregnant, then how was he going to react when he found out I was pregnant with his child?

″I’m pregnant,” I confirmed solemnly.

Why didn’t I think about how there was a good chance he wouldn’t be alone? Not that I even gave Morgan a thought—why this morning of all mornings? Just when I finally put two and two together to have it equal pregnant me—why did he have to pick last night to get laid? And with my best friend?

″Wow. That’s—congratulations. Why aren’t you jumping up and down and waking up the whole house? What’s wrong?” J.B. asked, correctly sensing I was not as excited as the situation would call for.

″When did you go and get whatever you needed to have done? I thought you would have said something. Or maybe, hey, wait, is it David’s? You slut, you never said a word,” Morgan cried, oblivious to the gamut of emotions I was rushing through.

″I didn’t go anywhere,” I added, with my eyes not leaving J.B.’s. I had to admit, my gaze must have been pretty accusatory. “Unlike you.”

″Where did I go?” she asked in bewilderment. “What does—oh, Casey, no. No way.”

″What are you going on about?” J.B. wondered.

″She must have been a virtual smorgasbord for you,” I said bitterly. “Just lying there sleeping, all upset, so that you could take advantage of her! Being all needy and damsel in distress-y.”

″Casey, don’t,” Morgan said. “Don’t say another word.”

″What are you talking about? I thought this was about you being pregnant!” J.B. asked with confusion.

I jerked my head angrily toward Morgan. Now, I like to think I’m fairly laid-back. Like my sister, I do have a temper, but it takes a lot for me to get worked up about something. Normally. But this—bursting into J.B.’s room all excited only to find Morgan ensconced in his big, comfy bed—it’s obvious what went on.

To give me credit, it had been a pretty stressful couple of weeks, what with the David stuff and my mother’s little announcement the other night, so I think I must have been a little on edge. I’m also guessing hormones—OMG, I’m pregnant! —were playing a part, so I was a little less rational than usual. And unfortunately for him, all this junk I had going on had mixed together into a whole bunch of pissed-off at J.B.

″Huh?” J.B. said. He didn’t have a clue .

″Casey, J.B. slept on the couch,” Morgan told me urgently. She grabbed hold of my arm. “He insisted on giving me his bed, but he stayed downstairs. I was up here myself the entire night. You ran right past him on the couch on your way up here.”

″You woke me up, falling up the stairs,” J.B. accused.

″Yes, but—oh. Oh. Downstairs.”

″All night,” she said quietly. “And me up here. It was nice of him to let me sleep here, but I wasn’t that grateful. Or that needy.”

Once her words sank in, I felt pretty stupid. “Oh. So you and him never…”

″No,” she said quietly. “I wouldn’t do that. I told you.”

″Oh.” This was so not how I pictured this. I stood in the middle of J.B.’s room still holding my pee sticks and not knowing how to continue.

J.B. cleared his throat. “I have no idea what just went on here,” he said, in a voice that told me, yeah, he had a pretty good idea but he was not going to say anything. “But can we just take a step back for a sec and start again? You’re really pregnant?”

″Really pregnant,” I could only mumble, since I was feeling pretty stupid right then. “Sorry,” I said to Morgan.

″Forget about it. So—who?” Morgan let out a gasp. “Oh, no, it’s not Mike’s, is it? That would be too terrible to think about,” she shuddered. “But you didn’t sleep with him, did you, so how could—?”

″It’s not Mike’s. Thank God.” I turned back to J.B., but this time I could barely look him in the eyes.

″Then who?” Morgan demanded.

I could see the realization hit J.B., hit him like a knockout punch so he actually took a step away from me. “No way.”

″I’m sorry,” I cried immediately. “It doesn’t mean anything. You don’t have to—”

″What are you talking about?” Morgan shrieked. “Casey, whose baby are you having?”

″Mine,” J.B. answered.

To say the whole scene was not what I ever imagined is kind of like saying Canadian winters can be a mite bit chilly at times.

″Really?” Morgan goggled at me. “J.B.?”

″I never intended—yes, I wanted to get pregnant, but I know you don’t and I would never, ever, in a million years do that to you,” I pleaded to J.B., who headed stiffly to the bed to sit down, with a stunned expression on his face. Morgan stared at both of us like she was watching a tennis match. “I never even thought that was the time I could get pregnant, so how could I—I mean, I know it was now, but then, when we, you know, did it, I had no idea and I—”

″Are you sure it’s mine?”

J.B.’s cold words cut cleanly through my heart like a surgeon’s blade. They set me back so much I didn’t even have time to get pissed. I was sure I’d be pissed later, though.

″Yes. There hasn’t been anyone else.”

″She never slept with Mike, did you, Casey?” Morgan asked helpfully. She threw an arm protectively around my shoulders.

Now whenever I think back to this little scenario, I have a wave of love and devotion for Morgan. Not two minutes ago, I was unfairly accusing her of having sex with J.B., but instead of holding that against me—like I might in the same circumstance—she jumped in and prepared to defend me and my honour, without even knowing the whole story.

″And David?” she prompted. I shook my head. “You say it’s J.B.’s?”

″But how?” he asked with more than a touch of anger. “We used—”

″They’re not always 100 percent,” Morgan said, sounding not unlike how my grade ten sex education teacher used to lecture the class. I didn’t think J.B. appreciated the tone, however.

″But you’re on the pill,” he added.

″Casey’s never been too consistent taking that thing, have you?” Morgan smiled indulgently at me and gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze. She’d been privy of the many times I’d scrambled to remember what birth control pills I’d missed.

″I think it’s yours,” I told J.B. tearfully. “I mean, I know it is. I’m sorry.”

″I don’t see how—” He ran a frustrated hand through his hair.

″It was an accident, okay? I never thought—I never meant to… with you. I never meant to with you.”

″I wouldn’t have gone near you if I’d known.” J.B. looked at me in time to see the flash of pain cross my face. “Sorry, but you know… Jesus, Casey, what do you want me to say?”

″I don’t think either of you should say anything more, in case you say something you’ll regret,” Morgan warned, still with her arm around me. “Come on, Casey, let’s go down to your place.”

I looked at J.B., hoping he’d say something positive. He was just sitting on the edge of the bed, rubbing his face with those big hands, those hands that touched me, caressed me—we made a baby together. J.B. and I made a baby. We—

″Fuck!”

He obviously wasn’t happy about it.