Trigger Warning for Chapter Section

This chapter has content that may upset women who have suffered from a miscarriage. I will post a short snippet in the description if you wish to pass on this section.

Chapter 2

After a couple weeks I settled into Jesse’s apartment and while I was happy to be there Adam could drive me up a wall. He picked on me and said I was a teacher fucker finding the fact that I was in this situation hilarious. Jesse had proposed to me the previous week making our relationship more official than it already was. I was turning eighteen next week and Jesse was ready for it. I already celebrated it with every one of my friends, but he was doing something special for me. I laughed as he and Adam would walk into the kitchen both wearing nothing and they would look at each other as though the other one sinned, but no not themselves. Kaila and I would sit on the couch wearing mostly their clothes and tell each other about how crazy they were, when she stayed over on Friday and Saturday nights. 

It was nice staying in the apartment and away from my father. I cleaned and cooked for Jesse while he was away at his summer job in Massachusetts teaching underprivileged kids and he bought me nice stuff. It was a weird relationship, but sadly none of my friends knew about it. It was such a complicated thing and it broke my heart to know that every day I was lying to my friends about where I was and what I was doing. It was worth it though as I looked around saw everyone that was sitting around me and the good times we were having. It was a gift and a new start to my beat on life.

“What happened, Adam?” I asked as he walked in crying one day.

“She’s fucking my best friend, Edward. I walked in on it with a $90 bouquet. It’s supposed to be our one year anniversary today.” He collapsed on the couch.

“What are you going to do?” 

“Alice is coming up. I just called her.” 

“Are you talking about the Alice I used to live with?”

“Yeah, that’s who I’m talking about.” 

“You idiot, who do I live with?!” 

“Oh shit! Ask him to bring you out to dinner. No wait. That’s a bad idea she’ll just keep coming back.”

“I’ll just act like dating my old science teacher is cool. As long as she doesn’t open her big mouth and tell my entire town.”

“She won’t do it if you talk to her about it. Isn’t he getting a job up here anyway?” 

“He’s trying to get a job with the local high, but he’s not sure if they’ll accept him. He’s definitely a good candidate for the position though.” 

“Thank you so much for being okay with this.”

“Hey, it’s my job.” 

There was a silence in the room for a while as I flipped through the television channels nervously. There were so many things that could have gone wrong in a situation like that, but Jesse and I had prepared for the worse. Even all the ideas and escape routes were nothing compared to the real thing as our relationship stood the on the line with a chatty college student who couldn’t really keep her mouth shut about anything. Although our relationship was legal now if she pieced it together she could get us into a lot trouble. I twiddled my thumbs waiting for her to arrive and tried to keep calm about the situation. Suddenly there was a knock on the door and it slowly opened along with a quiet voice searching for people.

“Hey, Adam, I’m here to be your somewhat friend.” She walked in and looked at me. “What are you doing here Jackie? Aren’t Adam and Mr. Rees the only ones… Wait a minute.” 

“Yes. You, Adam, me and Jesse are the only ones aware of this. I haven’t told another soul, so you need to keep your mouth shut about this.”

“I promise I won’t tell a soul. Cross my heart, sew my lips shut and hope to die. If I speak of this to anyone I will suffer the worst curse known to man.” 

“Thank you. You have no idea how nervous I was about all of this.” 

“Let’s go in the other room, so we can sit and talk. No offense Jackie.” Adam left the room with Alice.

I called Jesse and talked to him as he drove home explaining the situation. It was hard to do because sometimes he could be a little over reactive, but he stayed calm and gave his opinion. He told me to stay calm and that everything was going to be okay. He trusted Alice and I trusted her, so there was nothing that could go wrong. It was funny how the one situation he was supposed to freak out at he handled the best. Grace under pressure probably or just pure trust in a close friend of mine. He stayed on the phone with me and talked through his day telling me stories about his students. He always loved talking about them as he went through the process with them attempting to better their lives. I heard his car outside right after I hung up with him and a huge grin came across my face. 

“I love the way you handle the situation at hand.” Jesse came in and sat on the couch across from me. “There’s another problem you may have to deal with. Here are your tests from the doctors. I haven’t read them yet.” 

“Let’s see. Oh my god.” 

“What’s wrong?” 

“I’m pregnant... I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant!” 

“Oh my god, I am so happy! I’m having a baby. I’m pregnant in a non-awkward way!” 

“Oh, babe, I guess the first time is the lucky time. I don’t think I’ll be able to ever be this happy, afraid, happy, excited, and surprised all at once ever again from this moment on.” 

“What about school?” 

“Key word is semesters; I will be out for the winter semester. Actually, spring. I’ll be back on my feet by fall semester and will take a full year on with my baby by my side.” 

“More good news; I have a new job at the local high. I’m actually head of the department. I won’t even be teaching freshmen this year. Seniors and juniors only for my first two years; the biology and earth space, and agricultural teachers get them.”  

“I’m proud of you honey. Now we should be proud of everything you do and our relationship.” 

“We need to wait a little longer. Your dad is throwing me a good-bye party; he gave me your invitation. He thinks you’re in the dorms, so he gave it to me to give to you. He really misses you.” 

“Yes, he misses watching me walk around half naked like I need a quick fuck. I don’t miss him at all. I guess you need a quick answer.” 

“I still have to go and get all of my stuff at the school. Why don’t you come down with me and say hi to Jared. He and Megan are happy as hell. She wants to have you help choose the name for the baby. Well they actually want permission to name it with your middle name. They really love you. You should be happy for that.” 

“I guess I should, but you know I am not really a big fan of her. I just want her and Jared to be happy.”   

“How are we going to play the party game though? We need some way to go in together and come out together.” 

“Leave it all to me.”

I stood up with a huge smile on my face and walked to the bedroom. It was about six o'clock and I still had to take shower. I knew it was time to stop drinking and start eating a little healthier. I stripped and began to run the shower hoping that Jesse would hear the water beating the floor and join me. After hopping in I saw the silhouette of Jesse as he undressed and joined me. We almost never took showers by ourselves anymore even when we weren’t looking for shower sex; it was just a nice feeling for him to join me. I could not shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen to me though, something that would make me cry, but Jesse’s failed attempts at washing his feet distracted me and cheered me up.

Another few weeks passed and I was around 6-7 weeks waiting for the ultrasound to see the baby. I had only told Alice, Adam, and Jesse told AJ who I still hadn’t met as of yet. I kept the news to a small group to still keep our secret from the world where timelines would reveal what had happened. I was fretting about the party following week knowing it was a huge mistake to even attend. I could not walk away from my fiancé for an entire day while my father flaunted me, but I still needed an excuse not to go.

“Jesse! There’s blood everywhere! I don’t know what to do!” I ran into the room screaming.

“Put on some pants, honey. We’ll head to the hospital as fast as we can." Jesse said calmly. 

I got a new pair of pants on and attempted to calm myself down before we headed out. We got into his car and sped to the hospital rushing inside still in absolute shock from all the blood. I stopped at the desk and explained what was going on and they immediately brought me back to a room. I held onto Jesse’s hand while they pulled in the ultrasound machine into the room and asked me to pull up my shirt. I sat up before they put it on my stomach. I immediately tensed up as they put the gel knowing that there was more than likely bad news coming. The nurse placed the camera on my belly and moved it around for a bit. I waited for an answer to my question, but I had already guessed what was coming.

“Ma’am are you pregnant?” The nurse looked at me.

“Yes, I found out about three weeks ago. Why do you ask?”

“We think you have had a miscarriage.” 

The OB/GYN came in shortly after and redid the ultrasound taking pictures of my uterus, but he stopped and confirmed what the nurse said. I looked up at Jesse and he had finally broken down from the news and was crying. They sat down with me to talk to me about what was going to happen over the next few weeks with my body. The OB and nurse both apologized again and they left the room for me to take it all in. I was trying to distract myself in my mind with the upcoming wedding in Vegas in a few weeks, but everything was sinking in and I was slowly checking out.

I called my dad to let him know that I wouldn’t be making it to the party and he seemed to just shrug it off. I laid in bed waiting for the discharge instructions, but ignored Jesse attempting to distract me. I stared at the ceiling holding back tears and listening to all the noise outside of the room. I couldn’t figure out what I did to deserve this type of misery, but knew that it was probably something bad enough somewhere. Jesse ran his hand through my hair and kissed my forehead lightly. The nurse came in and dealt with all the paperwork with us and left the room. Jesse stood up from his seat and I sat up at the edge of the bed struggling to function.

“I know you’re sad right now and so am I, but we will get through this in time and have another one. Then we can show off us and our baby to everyone.” Jesse smiled at me. “All my students will wonder what a dork like me is doing with a hot babe like you.”  

“Well we do have some things in common to deal with each other.” I looked up at him.

“Come on, let’s get out of here.” 

“We’ll grab some fast food. Do we have money from my last paycheck?” 

“Just enough for McDonald’s. We spent the rest of it on new clothes, so we could be able to look nice for the new year. Are you staying in the dorms?”

“I have to because I’m a freshman, but we’ll still see each other.” 

I took Jesse’s hand and headed for the door ready to get home and start on the next project. I had to go home and help Adam clean his room before Alice lost her mind about the mess. Although it was only supposed to be temporary it seemed Adam was sticking around now. Jesse loaded me into the car and we started the short trek back home. I was ready to get home to change, eat, clean, shower, and sleep. I was still quite upset from the loss of the baby, but I knew that I couldn’t sit on it today or it would be hard to keep going for the rest of the week.

As I walked in though I decided to go straight to bed without helping Adam. I just wanted to curl up in the king size bed and let the pain and depression swallow me whole. I walked right past Adam who was already working on his room and shut my door. I fell into my bed leaving the lights off and curled into the blankets completely covering myself. I let myself cry for a little before deciding I should get some sleep, and pray I wouldn’t wake up not knowing happened. I took a deep breath and smelled Jesse’s cologne, but could also smell someone cooking. I had one small final thought and closed my eyes tightly until I drifted off into sleep.

I woke up in a big t-shirt, and rolled over to see it was three o’clock in the morning. I stretched and felt Jesse roll over, as my body slipped from his grip. I was worried he was going to take the loss harder than I was where he wasn’t showing much reaction. I was hoping that we could keep fighting through this and our relationship would come out stronger on the other end. I felt a hit of hunger in my stomach and stretched again before getting out of bed. I walked out to the counter, grabbed a banana, quickly ate it, and went back to bed. For four days I stayed home sick, ignoring every little call, and almost every sign of life in the apartment including Jesse.

“Listen, girl,” Alice looked at me. “you need to get out of bed and get to work. It’s Wednesday.” 

“Leave me alone.” I groaned, “I’ll be up by next Monday for work.” 

“I’m bringing you out on Friday; I want to get you a makeover. You have ‘til next Friday to get off your ass. You can’t miss your own wedding.”  

Thursday morning I made my first appearance outside of the walls of my bedroom beyond going to the bathroom. Jesse was in Rhode Island with AJ as far as I knew and it had been weird not seeing him for a few days. I had spent the last few days wishing that I could just die from the physical and emotional pain. When I walked out of the kitchen though the front door opened and Jesse walked in. He turned around and saw me standing there and his eyes lit up. He ran over to me and picked up swinging me around like a princess in a movie which cheered me up pretty quickly. The next day I returned to work where inquisitive minds were at work, but I kept to myself