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Fortunately, I didn’t need to. The second line appeared after only a minute or so.
I was pregnant.
CHAPTER20
***WESLEY***
Itried flagging down Sloane, but she was in a hurry to leave and didn’t even say bye to me. She’d been acting odd since that morning and strangely absent. Typically, we spent so much time together that it was a wonder that nobody in the office ever suspected anything (or, if they did, they kept it remarkably quiet). Today, outside of the morning meeting, I didn’t see her at all.
From the moment we first formed a romantic relationship, I’d prepared for its eventual end. That was just the way my mind worked. After all, all good things must come to an end sooner or later. But this ending came about so soon and suddenly. And, most troubling, unprompted. Everything was going fine as recently as the night before. But she came in that morning with a distance in her eyes and an unusual lack of enthusiasm. And an unusual lack of intimacy. It was as if she’d been replaced by a completely different person. One who didn’t have the lust for life or excitement that she did. I could still see sparks of the Sloane I knew, but they were covered by a blanket of fog and malaise.
That blanket shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Every once in a while, I saw a hint of sadness behind her smile, though it never completely took over like this. In fact, I was almost surprised that I hadn’t seen it before. Being someone like her, who always appears happy, must be exhausting. I couldn’t do it. For a while, I didn’t even believe such people truly existed. I assumed it was all an act.
My mom, for instance, appeared to be that happy-go-lucky person. Whenever she saw any of her close friends, she made sure her make-up was perfect and she was in great spirits. She’d chat about whatever gossip was on their minds, compliment their new outfits, and ask about their lives. Everyone always felt happier around my mother.
The second the friend left, however, and it was just family around, the façade disappeared. While there were moments of genuine happiness in our life — and, in growing up with her, I learned to tell the difference between when she was putting on a show and when she was being herself — she was also a deeply sad individual and would often come crashing down. Planes could only stay aloft so long before running out of fuel.
I wondered if perhaps that was the case with Sloane. There was no shame in being sad, but some people had a difficult time showing it. As if it was embarrassing as somebody catching you naked. And I point that out as a lifelong member of the Hide Your Feelings Club. For so long, I’d tried to keep a neutral tone — particularly around the office — and avoid any emotional or personal connection in either direction. That seemed more professional to me. What I’d learned — mainly in the time since I began seeing Sloane — was that a manager could be just as effective, if not more so, if they put on a smile and tried to bond with their agents as well as their clients.
As much as it pained me to admit it, the office culture auditors had a point. It was all touchy-feely and eye-roll-inducing hippie nonsense at first, but it worked. People who enjoyed their work environment did better work. And, in turn, it helped make it better for everyone involved. I’d noticed it even in the short time since Sloane and I had gotten together. It wasn’t just her and me who were happier — everybody in the office was in better spirits. They weren’t quite shouting “Rah rah!” and jumping into pyramid formations, but everyone in the office had an extra pep in their step that even the most cynical among us would be hard-pressed to deny.
Unfortunately, the opposite could be true, too. Knowing something was wrong with Sloane made it difficult, bordering on impossible, for me to focus. I wanted her to reach out to me for help, but if she didn’t come to me when she was in the office, it was unlikely she’d reach out now that she’d left.
I closed my office door and sat back in my chair, staring at my phone, hoping that it would ring with a call or a message where she let me know what was going on. Phones don’t work that way, though. If you want to talk to someone, you could stare at the phone until the cows came home, but it wouldn’t ring. No matter how much you wanted it to happen, you could never will another person into calling you.
Instead, you have to be the person to pick up the phone and call them.
What if she doesn’t want to talk? I asked myself. I didn’t want to be a bother. Of course, she had the option of ignoring the call. Or even hanging up if she didn’t like the way it was going.
God, I hoped she wouldn’t do that.
That was a worst case scenario, though. The fact remained that calling her forced the ball into her court and she had to respond. If she didn’t want to be bothered, I couldn’t force her to answer.
That made perfect sense to me, but there was also the fear that I could make things worse by calling. Then again, what if I made things worse by not calling? Preferring to do something over nothing, I grabbed my phone and, without giving myself the chance to stop, I called her.
As the phone connected and began to ring, I tapped my fingers nervously on the desk, trying to think of what to say if she picked up. I still hadn’t figured it out when the call went to voicemail, so I just spoke from the heart without thinking too much.
“Hey, Sloane,” I said. “It’s me. Wesley. Just checking in on you to make sure everything’s okay.”
I wondered if I should go into any more depth than that? Should I tell her that it felt like something was off with her? Should I mention that I thought she was avoiding me?
Or should I tell her how empty I felt without her nearby? That even the thought that our relationship might be ending was enough to render me useless as a human being?
No, it was too much.
“Call me back when you get a chance.”
And then I hung up and put the phone down. I wasn’t going to call her again. At least not tonight. So now I truly was left staring at the blank screen on my phone and watching the time move by, one minute at a time, waiting for her response.
It felt like eternity until she did, but it was only a few moments, and it was in the form of a text message.
I’m fine. Just need to be by myself for a while.
That was it. I waited a few more minutes for anything else, but nothing came. I tried formulating a response, but in doing so, I became distracted by some commotion occurring in the main business area of the office. I stepped out of my private area to see what was going on.
Abigail, our newest agent, was confronting Courtney, who was laughing.
“What are you talking about?” Courtney asked.
