AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Oh no. Oh no, no, no.
Listen. I know that this far, as you’ve read my story, it might seem like I make bad decisions. It might seem like I’m a grown woman who has no idea what the hell I’m doing. That’s fair. I don’t, in fact, have any idea what the hell I’m doing.
But this?
Rudy and Phil showing up in my hospital room not twelve hours after I’ve gotten major surgery?
This is bad, even for me.
This must be in the top ten worst moments of my life. My stomach bottoms out, and I just know things are about to get much, much worse.
Rudy freezes, standing awkwardly next to the bed, his hand still gripped in mine, eyes on the man in the doorway. “Phil? What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I was just going to ask the same thing.” My ex-boyfriend is holding a bouquet of flowers, and I notice they look like the sad kind of bunch you get at the grocery store. Nothing like the gorgeous bouquet Rudy brought.
Then I feel like a maniac, because why the hell am I comparing flower arrangements when these two men are shooting daggers at each other?
“Um…” I blink as both men turn to face me.
Something horrible crosses Rudy’s face. He glances down at my stomach, then back at my face. “You’re pregnant?”
“Wait.” Phil takes a step forward. “I thought they had you in the oncology ward because of a bed shortage or something. But…you have fucking cancer?”
I flinch, tearing my gaze away from my ex to look at Rudy. I don’t know what I want to see in his gaze, but it’s not the harsh coldness in his eyes. He straightens up, his hand dropping from mine. His brows tug together and he searches my face as I try to find the words to say what I feel.
“I wanted to tell you,” I finally whisper.
Rudy takes a step back. “You’ve been pregnant this whole time?”
“Are you fucking this guy?” Phil asks, stepping up to the other side of the bed. The two men tower over me, and my eyes flick from one to the other. My heart starts pounding and I close my eyes, feeling trapped and claustrophobic and so fucking stupid.
This is my own damn fault. My fault for getting involved with Rudy. My fault for telling Phil where I am. My fault for getting pregnant in the first place. I knew my birth control prescription had run out, and I knew it had been three days since I’d taken a pill by the time I filled it again. But I still chose to have sex with Phil, didn’t I?
I don’t know if the cancer is my fault, but it sure as hell feels like it.
“Iliana,” Phil snaps. “Answer the question.”
I hate when he does that. He treats me like a child and scolds me like he has a right to. I frown at my ex, wondering what the hell I ever saw in him.
“You left, Phil, so I’m not sure what business of yours it is who I sleep with. You have some nerve waltzing into this room telling me I’m wrong for moving on, when I was the other woman without even knowing it. Or did you forget that you have a wife and kids waiting for you at home?”
“Ex-wife,” he spits.
I blink. “What?”
“I left her. I’m here, but I find you shacked up with someone new? Didn’t take you long.”
“You left your wife for me?” I whisper, more bewildered than anything.
In all the possible outcomes of my situation, Phil leaving his marriage to come raise my baby with me didn’t even register on my radar. When Phil told me he wanted me to abort my child right before walking away from me, I thought that was the last time I’d ever see him. I was glad for it, too, naïve as I was at the time. I was convinced I could do everything on my own.
That was before the cancer diagnosis.
My mind reels, and I remember Rudy is there when I see him walking toward the door.
“Rudy!” I call out. “Wait.”
He pauses at the door, eyes flicking from me to Phil and back again. “I shouldn’t have come here,” he says. “This was a mistake.”
