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The next day, I was in the garden watering flowers. I was out a little too early, because I never woke up that early on a normal day. I got out of my house and stretched, yawning from the long sleep I had the night before.
I had thought a lot about the issue before I slept. I had thought about many scenarios that could happen and could not help but think about the worst-case scenarios too in case they later happened.
“Good morning!” I said to her, and she nearly mumbled her greetings back. She was not used to me greeting her first as I never did that before. Maybe she thought I was being too nice.
“You didn’t call me or text before you went to bed yesterday. Why?”
“I don’t remember when we ever had such conversations before going to bed.”
“It starts somewhere, don’t you think? Especially when we are expecting a child.”
“Hey!” she cautioned me and looked around. Her aunt was not nearby, thankfully, but I had talked too loudly and she didn’t like it. Her aunty was already beginning to ask uncomfortable questions about Claire's health, but she still didn’t want her to know about the pregnancy yet. Claire said Pauline didn’t seem suspicious that the former was pregnant. Instead, she seemed to think that she was sick.
“There is no one around us, Claire. You don’t have to look around, and you should trust me enough to know I’m more discreet than you would think.”
She wasn’t still comfortable.
“Is this how we will keep hiding from people? It’s already clear that people would not really approve of our relationship when the age distance is noted, so why stress it? Let’s get rid of it and never interact anymore. Don’t pretend. I know that is what you want.”
“No, you’re wrong. It isn’t. I really want to keep this child…”
I heard my front door creak and Claire backed off from me a bit. The door burst open, and Will came out of the house. He looked ready and dressed up for school, and I felt proud.
Will walked down the stairs and said a short “hi” to her before fist bumping with me and then leaving. He didn’t have a clue about what was happening, I hoped.
“Please, say yes. You will keep the baby and we will raise it as our own. Don’t worry about my son. I’ll break the news to him at the right time.”
She agreed to keep the pregnancy. It was not because of love or fear. She just wanted to keep it and had been convinced by me after a lot of assurances. The only thing she feared was how to break the news to her family. Both ways, they were going to find out eventually, and fast. But with every passing day, I found out that she didn’t care as much as I thought she did.
The funny part in all of this was that she felt I became someone else after I found out that she was pregnant for me. It was good of her to be bold and courageous enough to keep the child, but she still wasn’t sure. But I soon convinced Claire and showed her a part of me that dazzled her.
I was caring, and by this, I mean very caring. She said she liked how I made her feel in those moments. It made her feel that there was some hope for us to be together after all. I was not such a bad person, she finally reckoned.
I soon began to understand why they said a woman has a lot of keys to open a man's heart, and one of them was children.
"I know the truth is that you only care about your child in me, but I wanted to believe you love me for a bit, and you made no mistake in making me feel that way."
Eventually, Claire allowed herself to sink slowly into the comfortable life I was trying to set up for her.
Chapter Eleven
Claire
Jonahhadtoldmethat the moment he heard that I was carrying his child, he was happier than anyone in the world. He was elated and even excited to be a father again. It was as if he had missed being one, even though he’d spent a lot of his time making sure Will had a proper father figure in his life.
Genuinely, I had doubts. I was still so young, and some people would have thought he indirectly bullied me into having sex with him, either it was by controlling my mind or by anything else they could conjure up. I was old enough to know that people would cook up anything from nothing just to see you brought down to a level lower or similar to theirs. Not me.
So when I told him, I was surprised about how nice he had become recently. He wondered if I was a novice in such matters. Of course, he would have to sit up so I didn’t think about aborting his child anymore. He wanted to see the child, especially since it was a combination between us, and I was curious to see the result.
He hadn’t gone with me to the hospital to know the gender of the child. He wasn't sure if it was not too early to do so since the child was still young. He said he remembered that he had to wait a bit to see Will's gender too when he was a fetus.
I didn’t know how he did it, but he convinced me to keep the child. I was trying so hard to hide it from my family, but they were beginning to catch signs that things were not fully okay with me. It was crazy, to be honest.
“It's my Aunt in particular. She has been looking at me strangely and acting around me too. She asks questions like if I am sick or not. It’s getting uncomfortable, to be honest, but I don’t think I have much of a choice there, to be honest. I can’t avoid her as much as I would have loved to.”
The day I called Jonah to tell him that I had been found out by my aunt. He was not surprised at all. Pregnancy was not something to be hidden and he also knew it was a matter of time.
“Calm down! Tell me how it happened!” he asked while I struggled to talk properly to him. It was nerve-wracking for me and he genuinely pitied me because the bulk of it all would be on me considering I was housing the baby in my womb. Sometimes, he told me he imagined being a baby and snuggling comfortably within me.
