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I dry my hands, grab my purse, and hurry to the pharmacy down the block. Buy three pregnancy tests and hustle back to work. Head for the nearest bathroom, pull out the three tests, and pee on them all. Positive. Positive. Positive. Oh, God. What am I going to do?
The rest of the day is foggy. Should go home, but then I’d be alone, and I don’t want that. I call Noah for comfort and get the recording to leave a message, and I won’t do that. This is too personal.
The end of the workday arrives, and I go home. Try Noah a couple more times, but still no luck. That makes me angry, or paranoid, or both.
I’m starving, so I make a sandwich and manage to keep it down. Soak in the tub for an hour after that. Get out, prepare for bed. It’s earlier than normal, but I’m spent. Decide to give Noah one last try and hang up when I’m told to leave a message. I don’t understand what’s happening. He must have looked at his phone by now. Must know I’ve called.
I plug my phone in and lie down and try to calm myself. Pleasant thoughts aren’t coming to me when my phone dings. Would rather Noah have called, but a text is fine. Take what I can get.
I haul myself out of bed and lumber to my phone to check the message. I’m unable to move. A chill washes over me, and dizziness ensues. I’m gawking at a photo of Noah with Farrah next to him, looking fantastic as usual. The caption underneath reads:Having fun. Glad you’re not here.
They’re at a nightclub or a gathering or something. How did Farrah learn my number, and why would she send me this? Guess the why is obvious. She told me to leave Noah alone, and I didn’t. Now she’s going after him.
My fingers shake as I hitFavoriteson my phone and tap Noah’s name. No ring this time. Straight to voicemail.
Now my mind is really racing. Why won’t he answer my calls? Why is Farrah with him? Why is he doing this to me?
I sit on the bed with my phone in my hand and analyze the picture again. My eyes water and I fall back on the mattress and drape my arm over my eyes. My phone dings with another message. I’m hesitant to look in case of more bad news, but how could that be possible?
Forcing my arm to move, I double-tap my phone. Time seems to lag as I stare at the screen. I’m hit with a jolt and leap from the bed and trot backward. Glance ceaselessly between my phone and the bed and the frame and the background. All the same. The only thing lacking between now and when the photo was taken is a naked Farrah Conner.
Receiving this news on the day I learn that I’m pregnant is devastating. I trusted Noah. Believed in him. Defended him against people at work who said he wasn’t the man I thought he was, and given time, he would kick me to the curb. “He’s a Dalton,” they would say. “And they can’t help themselves. They’re womanizers, and that’s all they’ll ever be. A tiger doesn’t change its stripes.”
The phone slips from my hand, and I drop down beside it and sit on the floor. The waterworks begin, and I flop to my side, curling up in the fetal position.
How?
Noah led me to believe that he couldn’t stand Farrah, but these texts prove otherwise. God, I’m an idiot. How long has he been sleeping with her? Is that why she nearly knocked me down on the street and warned me to stay away from him? Because I was intruding on her turf?
Well, I won’t be treated this way. Not now and not ever. And I’m sure as hell never sleeping in that bed again. I pull myself up off the floor and GoogleLast flight from New York to Chicago. There’s a plane leaving at 9:25, so if I hustle, I can make it.
I reserve a seat, call a cab, and pack as fast as possible. Call my immediate supervisor on the ride to the airport and tell her something’s come up and I have to quit.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sorry.”
“But we thought you liked it here?”
“I do. I just… I’ve gotta go.” I hang up and let my head loll. How could things go so badly?
Two hours and fifty minutes after taking off from LaGuardia, we land at Chicago Midway International.
I hate that Noah has done this to us, but he has, and I’ll never be able to understand why. But it is what it is, and I have to move on. Someday, I’ll tell him about the baby because he has the right to know. It just doesn’t have to be now. There needs to be a cooling-off period before I can ever speak to him again, and that could take a while.
Maybe a long while.
