“Jen, you okay?” Lucy poked her head around my door and I smiled embarrassed. Here I was in bed with Hamilton again after just telling Lucy how much I hated him.
“Yeah, I’ll be right out.” I waited for Lucy to leave the room before slipping out of the bed and putting my clothes back on. I looked down at Hamilton sleeping and smiled, I hoped I was having a boy; I’d love to have a little Hamilton running around. I walked quietly out of my room and went to the living room to talk to Lucy.
“Lucy, I’m pregnant.” I blurted out as soon as I saw her. “I’m pregnant.”
Her eyes got wide as saucers. “What? Are you sure?”
“Yes. Omg, can you believe I am pregnant?”
“Whoa, what!” Lucy grins. “This is soo cool. I’m going to be an aunt.”
“I know. I’m soo excited.” Lucy and I danced around the living room.
“Shit, we need to get jobs!” All of a sudden Lucy was really serious. Maybe we need to move Jen; we can’t even afford this rent now. How are we going to save for a kid?”
I didn’t know how to answer her. I didn’t want to tell her that Hamilton wanted to marry me and I wanted to say yes. I just didn’t think she would understand.
“I don’t know Lucy. Where would we go?” I paused. “I mean we can’t afford to pay a deposit for a new place.” We already knew we weren’t going to get this deposit back as we had used it to pay rent a few months ago.
“Maybe we can move to Colorado like we talked about before and maybe Hamilton will pay child support?” Lucy looked at me hopefully. I wanted to tell her that I was going to be living with Hamilton, but didn’t know how to tell her. Here she was making plans for us: for me and my baby.
“Yeah maybe.”
“We’ll be rich Jen. You can take him to Court for child support if he doesn’t want to pay.”
“Yeah, we can buy a house in Aspen and ski all day. No more jobs to us. Thanks baby. Thanks Hamilton.” I played along not wanting to hurt her.
“I think not Jenny. I think not.” A deep voice interrupted us and I looked behind me and saw a murderous looking Hamilton staring at me. Oh shit, how much had he heard?
“If you even think that you can use me to run off to another State while taking my money, you are sadly mistaken. You may be a money grubbing whore but you will not take me for a ride.”
I looked at him in shock.
“No Hamilton. I need to explain. You don’t understand.” I grabbed his arm.
“I think I understand enough Jenny. Your gleeful laughs woke me up and then I come out here to hear you talking about using me so you can move to Aspen and live a life of leisure. What I didn’t get from that was what you intended to do with our baby?”
“I didn’t mean it, Hamilton please listen to me.” I pleaded with him as he walked to the door. I could see all the light gone from his eyes and he looked at me in disdain.
“I suggest you get yourself a job Jenny. I won’t be paying for anything until I get a DNA test.” And with that he slammed out of the door. I fell onto the couch in tears. What had I done? Lucy looked at me in shock.
“What’s going on Jenny?”
“He wanted to marry me Luce, he wanted to marry me.” I cried.
“He did?” She looked at me incredulously. “But what, oh my.” She realized that our conversation has misled him as to my intentions. “Go after him Jenny, go and explain.”
“No, Lucy. What’s the point? He will always do this to me. I’m not strong enough to deal with a man like him.”
“Jenny, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay Lucy. It’s okay.”
And then I went and cried myself to sleep. I was jobless, broke and about to have a baby.
Chapter 7
It’s been 3 months since that day: the day that Hamilton left me in my apartment and walked out of my life. I had tried hard to ignore the pain that was emanating from my heart. It didn’t even make sense; certainly not to Lucy and not to me. How could I be in love with a man I had only met twice? I didn’t know. All I did know was that I was carrying his baby and he wanted nothing to do with me.
After I had taken the test and we had found out I was pregnant, I had been dismayed and then exhilarated. He wanted to marry me and I thought, deep inside that he may even love me or grow to love me. I know that sex doesn’t mean as much to men as it does to women but I had thought we had had a real connection. The joke was on me. He hadn’t even contacted me since he walked out of my life. Granted he thought I was a gold-digger and had tried to trap him for child support but that wasn’t the truth. I hadn’t gone to him to tell him the truth either because I was mad. How could he treat me like this? How could he think this of me? It seemed to me that it wasn’t worth it. I wasn’t going to even bother with a man that never gave me the benefit of the doubt.
“Hey Jenny, I’m home.” Lucy rushed in laden with bags.
“Pay day?” I smiled. Lucy and I had been lucky enough to find jobs at a local bookstore and while we were still barely getting by, we were able to pay the rent.
“Haha, you know it is goof,” Lucy was excited. I felt a little pang of jealousy. I wasn’t able to go on shopping trips on payday now that I was saving for a baby. Our rent was expensive enough as it was and I didn’t know how I was going to pay for daycare when the time came.
“So what did you get?” I was excited to see Lucy’s purchases. There was nothing like living vicariously through your best friend; especially when she allowed you to borrow her clothes.
“Ooh, what, Oh Lucy,” I cried in delight when I opened the bags. They were filled with teddy bears and diapers. “Oh, you shouldn’t have.” I looked at her sternly. “I don’t want you spending the few dollars you have on me Lucy.”
“Jen, it is no problem. You know that I want to help. I am so happy to do this. Trust me. I’m going to be a God-Mom, trust me I want to do this.”
“You are going to be the best God-Mom ever.” I reached over and gave her a huge hug. Tears were running down my eyes because I was soo excited.
“I wonder who that is?” Lucy looked at me quizzically as someone knocked on the door. “Did you order anything?”
“Ooh, yes. I ordered a crib.” I grinned at her. “I know, I know. It’s early days still but I wanted to get it set up already. I rush to the door and open it.