26. Meghan
TWENTY-SIX
Meghan
SEVEN MONTHS LATER
I ’m walking down the street when I catch another glimpse of him through the crowd of shoppers. This has been happening on and off for the last couple of months. I could be on the bus and think I see him walking past, or see a flash of him while grabbing groceries.
I’ve thought about him every day since I left.
I've regretted how I turned tail and ran and that I didn’t tell him about the baby, but I haven’t had the guts to call him. What if he hates me or refuses to take my calls?
It’s an excuse, I know it is, but I promised myself when the baby comes I will call him. Or maybe write to him.
I’m sure it’s just my hormonal body playing tricks on me, like the first time I thought I saw him, and ended up running after some random guy. It’s safe to say he wasn’t pleased, nor was his wife, that a pregnant woman was chasing him down .
I’ve since learned to ignore the tricks my mind plays on me, so even though my green eyes have connected with his brilliant blue ones and it feels oh-so-real, I continue walking down the sidewalk and into Cute as a Button, the baby store I’m headed to.
Over the past seven months, I’ve cried countless times as I’ve prepared myself to become a single mom. Today, and for the last three months, I've had an overwhelming sense of guilt that he won’t get to meet his child if I don’t reach out, especially as he stopped calling the day I left New York.
Sometimes I listen back to the voicemails he left the night I resigned and told him to stop contacting me.
I know he was drunk when he called, his slurred speech and the times of the calls were a giveaway.
The messages alternated between begging me to reconsider and not leave him, to him expressing his anger at me for being a coward and not discussing whatever had caused me to leave.
I shake my head to clear the thoughts of him, because it only leads to my mood plummeting and me devouring at least a pint of ice cream. Instead, I try to focus on happier thoughts, like the fact my baby will be here soon.
I’m due in less than a week, which I’m sure my dad will be thankful for.
My nesting phase started at the beginning of my eighth month and he’s been an angel, putting up with my crazy hormonal demands.
He welcomed me home with open arms and has said I’m welcome to stay as long as I need, although I don’t plan on staying forever.
I have some savings left that will see me through for the next six months.
My plan is to look for a job in about a month and then start looking for my own place.
I’m looking at the tiny sleepsuits when the bell above the door chimes, announcing another customer.
I don’t look up to see who may have entered, instead, I pick up a sleepsuit for a newborn.
I admire its beautiful lemon-yellow color and white scrolled text with ‘Daddy’s Baby Girl’ embroidered across the front, at least until tears well in my eyes, obscuring my vision.
I soothingly rub my hand across my large bump, wishing them away.
I really don’t want to break down in public.
Putting the sleepsuit back on the rail, I continue looking through the rack of clothes as I compose myself.
I wish things could’ve been different.
I stick to the neutral colors as I peruse the rails—I don’t know if I’m having a little boy or girl.
When the doctor asked if I wanted to find out the gender I chose not to, but when I see outfits like the sleepsuit I just put back, I kind of wish I had.
A part of me didn’t want to find out because I wished we could’ve found out together.
As my pregnancy progressed, I realized how stupid I’d been because it wouldn’t have ever just been me, Cooper and our baby.
Hayley .
Her name pops into my mind and with it, the now familiar ache in my chest. During the countless nights I cried myself to sleep, I would wish I’d been enough for him, that he would’ve chosen me over her.
For a while after I left, I kept an eye on Cooper in the media until I couldn’t take the possibility of seeing him out with her.
To see them so in love, him looking at her how I wish he could have looked at me, it would have been too much for me to handle.
I refused to do that to myself. To allow him to have that kind of hold over me.
“Meghan?” I hear whispered from behind me, and I close my eyes in pain at the voice that has haunted me for the past seven months.
It can’t be him.
Taking a deep breath, I turn around and come face to face with Cooper Jackson. Staring up at him in shock, I exhale a shaky breath. I can’t believe that he’s actually here, that it’s really him. I want to reach out and touch him just to be sure.
It can’t really be him, right?
He looks good, wearing all black in a polo shirt, jeans and a bomber jacket. His eyes look tired and he looks like he’s lost some weight, but aside from that, he looks just as good as the day I last saw him.
It takes all of my self-control to resist the urge to reach out and touch him. We stare at each other for what feels like hours before he shakes his head and diverts his eyes to my bump. A look of pain crosses his face but he’s quick to hide it.
“I came to get you. To bring you home. I went to therapy to make sure I was the man you deserve. I couldn’t stop thinking about you, and I come here and find you like this…” He runs a hand through his hair while gesturing to my stomach with the other.
I can’t quite figure out what the look on his face is; the pain has gone, and it’s now replaced with a mixture of disgust and… regret.
“You met someone else and you’re… pregnant. Wow,” he scoffs, shaking his head, before turning on his heel and walking out of the store.
It takes my mind a minute to register what he’s said, as I’m still in shock that he’s actually here.
He came for me.
Blindly, I drop the items I’m holding onto a nearby counter and race as fast as my feet will carry my very pregnant body. I want to cry tears of joy that he’s here… for me .
“Cooper,” I call. “Wait. Please…”
He pauses on the sidewalk and looks up at the sky before turning around. A fat raindrop falls and lands on my shoulder but I pay it no mind as I continue waddling toward him, pausing when I’m about two feet away from him.
In a matter of seconds, rain has started to fall and big droplets descend from the heavens, coating us both. My rain jacket, that doesn’t zip up thanks to my bump, is barely protecting me and so my loose-fitting floral paisley dress doesn’t take long to become soaked through.
“I can’t do this, Meghan. I can’t stand here and listen to you explain away how you met someone else and you’re having their baby. I won’t beg for you—not when you’ve so clearly moved on. ”
He looks at me as if I’ve broken his heart, which is laughable. I know that can’t be true because I heard him in his office with Hayley.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him how wrong he is, that I haven’t moved on and he’s the only man I want but I refuse to be his second choice, when a pain rips through my lower back and abdomen.
It causes me to cry out and as I do, he closes the distance between us, grabbing a hold of my arm as I double over in pain.
“Are you okay?” he asks, the urgency and worry in his voice coming through clearly.
The pain passes after about a minute, and I slowly straighten, resting a hand on my lower back.
“I’m okay… I think maybe it was a Braxton Hicks contraction or something.” I wave him off.
“Are you sure?” I nod and he steps away, his hands dropping from my arms before he continues. “Maybe you should go home and rest. I’m going to go back to New York.”
“We should talk, Cooper,” I say, placing my hand on his arm while I beg with my eyes for him to not leave. Not yet.
Rain runs down my face and I’m sure I look like a crazy woman with mascara tracks on my cheeks and my wet hair plastered to my forehead. I don’t want him to go. Now that he’s here, it’s my chance to tell him about the baby.
“It’s not going to achieve anything. It was a mistake for me to come and I think it’s best if we go our separate ways,” he mumbles with one last look at my stomach.
Just as he’s about to shrug off my hand, another contraction hits me, and I grip his arm as I double over, crying out from the pain.
Okay maybe these aren’t Braxton Hicks.
“I’m going to call an ambulance. Something might be wrong.” The worry is back in his voice as he pulls his phone from his jacket pocket.
I keep my tight grip on his arm as I remember my breathing techniques from Lamaze classes.
“No,” I say, more forcefully than intended, once the contraction has passed. “I’ll take myself… I just need to get to my car,” I rasp out.
Not all of us are billionaires that can afford a newborn baby and an ambulance ride.
Standing straight, I turn in the direction of my car and tentatively make way toward it, hoping by the grace of God that another contraction doesn’t hit me.
My hand trails along the wall next to me as I use it for support, the remnants of my previous contraction still lingering. I can feel Cooper trailing after me.
“Promise me you won’t leave town until we’ve spoken?” I beg through clenched teeth.
“Meghan,” he all but shouts, causing me to pause in my mission to reach my car. “Something could be wrong. I’m going to call you an ambulance.” He barely gets the words out when my waters break, right there on the sidewalk.
Maybe if I keep moving, because the ground is wet anyway, he won’t notice. Thankfully, it’s quiet on the sidewalk, other shoppers having opted to take shelter in the nearby stores.
My panic sets in as another contraction hits me, keeping me frozen in place as I breathe through it. Okay, I’m actually having this baby today . This tiny human, the size of a pumpkin, is going to come out of me.
Out of my tiny vagina.
I can’t do this.
“Have you seen the size of a pumpkin, Cooper?” I blurt out.
“I can’t push a pumpkin out of my vagina.
My vagina is tiny… you’ve been in it, you know it won’t fit a pumpkin.
” Cooper looks at me quizzically, probably wondering where a pumpkin has come into the conversation, but I ignore him as I continue rambling.
“Oh God, I’m not ready for this. I thought I was, but I’m really not.
” I cry out as another contraction rips through me.
The rain continues to pour down as if taunting me for my predicament. Like someone’s having a laugh at my expense.
“Look at me, Meghan.” I raise my eyes to him. “That’s it. Keep your eyes on me. You’ve got this. We’ll get you to the hospital and they’ll be able to help,” he declares before looking back at his phone.
“Cooper?” I whisper, causing him to pause from calling 911. “Can you call my dad?” I plead, my eyes welling with unshed tears.
“I will once you’re in the ambulance,” he states, going back to his phone. I snatch it out of his grasp, holding it out of reach with a look of purpose written across my face.
I lift my chin in defiance, telling him to just try and wrestle with a pregnant woman. I’m not sure it comes across as that, not with the way my chin is trembling, and the tears that have started tumbling down my cheeks, mingling with the rain drops.
“I’m not going in an ambulance. I need you to call my dad. I can’t do this without him,” I practically shout at him.
“Okay, I’ll call him,” he soothes. “I’ll need your cell.” He holds out his hand for me to place my phone into. “Will he get in touch with your baby’s dad?” he asks, searching for my dad’s contact information, his gaze avoiding me.
“No,” I whisper, causing his jaw to clench.
“Do you need me to call him?” he asks through gritted teeth.
I shake my head before breathing through another contraction as Cooper calls my dad. This pain is unbearable. None of my classes prepared me for this.
My dad knows all about Cooper, but I don’t think he’d say anything to him, not given the reason for Cooper’s call.
I watch as Cooper speaks to my dad. He introduces himself before telling my dad I’m headed to the hospital.
There’s no conversation aside from that before Cooper hands me back my phone.
“Who’s your baby’s dad, Meghan?” he asks, his voice strained.
Shit .
Did I read this wrong. Did my dad tell him? I don’t answer him, so he lifts my chin, forcing my gaze to connect with his. My features tense as another contraction overtakes me.
They’re so close—too close.
Cooper drops my chin like I’m on fire, a look I can’t quite decipher swimming in the depths of his eyes before he blinks and it’s gone.
“I need to go.” I rush out as I turn back toward my car, hiding the pain that his reaction to touching me caused. Before I can make it more than two steps, he grabs my arm and halts my progress.
“I’m going to take you to the hospital, Meghan. But you need to tell me who the father of your baby is on the way,” he demands as he guides me toward his rental car.
Opening the door, he helps me into the passenger's seat before reaching over to buckle up my seatbelt. I can’t help but inhale his glorious scent; it’s Cooper but mixed with the freshness of the rain.
I’ve missed the smell of him.
He stiffens at my obvious inhalation before pulling away, shutting the door and walking around the car to his side. When he’s settled in, he starts the car, enters the hospital address in the GPS and pulls out onto the road.
It’s not until we’re two contractions into the journey that he breaks the tense silence.
“Who is he, Meghan?”