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I expected him to be shocked by this news and pull away, embarrassed to be present for this awkward exchange.
Finally, Chad responds. “What. How. When.”
He spits out words that sound like a grammar lesson and not questions. He’s shocked; it’s understandable.
Sipping the herbal tea grounds me, and I find my calm. “Remember the mine collapse, when everyone at the paper worked round the clock to give updates on theDailywebsite?”
Impatiently, Chad replies, “Yeah.”
“It was days before your birthday, and I was up for 48 hours, taking cat naps at the office.”
Chad huffs. “Yes, and when you finally came home, you slept through my entire birthday weekend at my family cabin. I remember.”
Crap, I don’t want to say this next part while Nate is sitting here, but he’s already proving to be a good friend. I assume he knows how babies are made. “Right. I did sleep a lot to recover. Except when I was awake to give you your birthday present.”
I cringe at the memory. Chad’s birthday present wasn’t exactly a turn-on for me, but he’d been asking me to do one specific thing for a while.
“And we were careful. You were on the pill,” Chad reminds me as if I didn’t know.
I take a deep breath. “Here’s the thing. While sleeping at the office, I forgot to take my daily pill, and…yeah. We got pregnant.”
Chad lets out a frustrated sigh.
“So…you need me to wire you some money so you can…ah…”
My breath shaking, I reply, “No, I’m keeping it.”
Another long pause. “I see.”
Quickly, I add, “I don’t need anything from you. I’m not asking for financial support. I thought I’d tell you and let you decide what you want to do.”
Chad blurts, “What I want to do? If it’s not about money, then what…I mean, we’re not getting back together.”
Why would he assume I wanted that? “No, of course not. That’s not what this is about.”
“Babies are expensive, Meredith.”
He says this like I don’t know. “No shit,” I say. A hell of a lot more expensive for someone like me than for someone born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but I don’t point that out.
Meanwhile, I’ve got a death grip on Nate’s hand. I peek at Nate, and he’s watching me with such intensity that it makes my heart hurt.
One small squeeze. That’s all it takes from Nate to wake me up.
I don’t have to put up with this shit. I deserve some compassion.
“Chad, I called because it’s the right thing to do. It’s immoral to keep it a secret from you. That’s it.”
“That’s it? So you wanted to lay on a guilt trip and ruin my vacation because you felt it was the right thing to do?”
Ruin his vacation? His entire life is a vacation.
A noise comes out of me that I don’t recognize as myself. Sort of a snarl. “When you’ve had time to process this and fucking grow up, let me know whether you want your name on the birth certificate. Other than that, you won’t be hearing from me again. Goodbye. Have a nice life.”
And with that, I hang up the phone and stare at the pieces of celery floating in my soup.
Sweet Nate says nothing.
I feel awful that he had to hear all that.
