What Would You Do - original fiction

[libra_traveller]

What Would You Do

Shameful. That was the look on her face as she answered the door. She’d called me in a rush, begging for me to come over. She refused to explain why, but I came anyways. I always did.

“Lacey? What’s so urgent? I have a meeting in a couple hours and you’re encroaching on my prep time.”

“George, come in.” She said only that, and I walked in, ushered to her kitchen table where she shoved a scalding mug of coffee into my hands. I put it down and blew on my fingers. She didn’t seem to notice. Most of my interactions with her I came away with the feeling that she wasn’t completely focused on me. Yet now her preoccupation with whatever worried her was tenfold. She wasn’t even aware that she was wearing two different slippers.

“Sit down would you? You’re giving me a headache watching you.” I gestured with my tingling right hand.

She sat, all melodramatic sigh, then hit me with her gaze. The attention made me start to fidget. “George, you know I love you right? You’re my best friend practically since kindergarten.”

“Yeah, yeah. Punching and hair pulling really made us pals back then.”

“Anyways, I just wanted you to know that if anything were to happen to me, I give everything I own to you. It’s in my will and everything.” She pushed herself to her feet, relaxed. But I was anything but.

“You dying Lacey? Because this is a shitty way to tell me. I don’t want your crap alright. Give it back to your parents. It was their money that paid for it. Christ. What’s wrong with you?” I found myself pacing and shouting and didn’t know why. No, I did know why. I was scared. Because like she loved me, I loved her.

Lacey walked out of the kitchen into her living room and stood by the fireplace, gazing at pictures on her mantle. She yet again sighed like she’d expected this reaction. But then she deserved it for being so secretive. “George, I... I’m not dying, I don’t have some disease. But I’m in trouble, big trouble that could mean my death or just mess up my life in other ways. I didn’t want to burden you with it, but I guess I have no choice now. I don’t want to leave you not knowing.”

Trouble? I went from pissed realizing I was going to lose her, to nervous about how I was losing her. I sat down at the nearest chair which happened to be the farthest from where she stood. I turned my face away and took a deep breath. She started to speak, little tentative inquiries, and I tuned her out. I just wasn’t ready. My mind was a combination of being blank and in turmoil. One thought repeated itself. ‘It’s over.’ Again and again.

Eventually Lacey’s impatience pushed through my rapid thoughts as she slammed her mug on the coffee table spilling liquid over the wood. “You don’t even know what I’m going to say but already I see you hate me. Blaming me for what must be my fault. It always is. No wonder I kept this to myself, though it tore me up. I didn’t want to deal with you, like this.”

“You bitch.” My anger was back, clearing my head. “Whether it’s your fault or not, it’s certainly not mine so don’t throw this shit at me. Get on with it alright. What’s wrong?”

“I can see now you wouldn’t understand.”

“Bull.”

“It’s difficult to say, I don’t know all the details.”

“More bull, spit it out.”

“I’m pregnant.”

To say I was shocked, would be true. But more it really was not the conversation I was led to believe this would be. But then a Lacey with hormones would be overdramatic. “Is this the big trouble? Because I thought you would want to be congratulated. You have been trying to get pregnant for five years. Not that anyone ever wanted to knock you up.”

“George.”

“I mean, date after second date ruined because you tried to sneak the kid question in there.”

“George!”

“And then there was that ill advised attempt to find a suitable sperm donor.”

“Enough. I get it.” Lacey seemed to relax though the irritation stayed in her eyes, her lips were clearly amused. “This is serious.”

“Sure.” I found this anything but.

“You don’t know the whole story. As you so colorfully stated, I would do anything to get my own baby. But George, in a fit of insanity I guess, I made a huge mistake. I chose the wrong father. And I got pregnant without his knowledge.”

I could feel the color drain out of my cheeks. I was still missing details but suddenly a glimpse of everything that could go wrong was clear to me. “Specifics, now. I need a name, a time frame, and you need to explain exactly what you’re afraid this person or his relations are going to do.”

She sighed. “His name is Larry Welding. His father owns some big corporation in the south, something to do with flour. Whatever. He has money, and he’s a mean son of a bitch. Here’s the thing, Larry’s married.”

I couldn’t help it, I rolled my eyes. Of course he was.

“Well I can see you’re wondering why I chose him. It’s simple, stupid considering but simple. He has two boys already, beautiful and bright little boys. I saw those kids and I wanted one just like them. How else to be sure but to go to the source?”

She paused and I guess she was hoping I’d agree with her. All I could think was that she was more of an idiot than I’d ever suspected.

Shrugging she continued. “So anyways I went to functions with his wife who was a friend of a friend or two of mine.”

“Wait, you know the wife?”

“Yes, let me go on please. I gleaned from the wife just how unhappy their marriage was. When she’d drunk a little too much, she admitted she thought he may have been cheating on her. So from that I knew it’d be easy to get to him. Slowly I hung out with the family more and cozied my way into his bed. But he was so serious about not having kids outside his marriage. I wanted a child like his so bad that I lied about taking birth control and convinced him we didn't need a condom. He was so drunk he bought it.”

“Good god, Lacey. I’m amazed you didn’t just runaway with his boys.”

“I know. I mean the thought did cross my mind.”

I could only open and close my mouth in dismay.

“Just for a second. I wouldn’t do that. I know I’m an awful person as evidenced by all this, but I don’t maliciously hurt people for my own gain.”

I shook my head.

“Fine, okay. But I never heard sleeping with a guy to get pregnant being a criminal offense.”

“With someone like you loose it should be.” I stood up and went back into the kitchen. I grabbed a paper towel, shoved it in cold water and then flung it on my face. I really needed a minute, hell I needed a drink. Drying off my face I tried to think through the headache that formed as soon as I got her call. “Okay, I get that you did a despicable thing to the son of a powerful or at least powerfully connected person. But what makes you think you’re going to be beat up in an alley somewhere?”

“I didn’t say that, but yeah I’m scared. He’s going to find out, one of my bitches of friends will get it out to the wife. And the father doesn’t give jack about his son, but he has this family image that he uses for his products and business relations that if it seems I’m going to mess that up, he will deal with me.”

“So get rid of it.”

“What?”

It was clear cut in my head. It was a baby that she didn’t deserve, certainly one she went the wrong way about getting. “Get an abortion, it solves all the problems.”

“No.” I could see the flames shooting out of her eyes as she said it.

“No? Do you honestly think that going through with your twisted plan, a plan by the way that you seem certain will end in your death or at least you losing the baby anyway, is the way to go?”

“Yes, well no. Which is why I called you.”

“You said you called me to say goodbye and give me all your worldly possessions.”

“I called you to say goodbye just in case whatever action you came up with didn’t work.”

“No, I’m pretty sure getting rid of the baby will work just fine.”

“I said no. So what if I got the father’s sperm in the wrong way. It’s half of me, it’s in me, at this point it’s mine. Mine to keep and take care of. I know that I acted crazy. But damn it I was desperate. I’ve never been good at relationships and the whole sperm donor thing, their psych profile deemed me unsuitable.”

“I’d never guess why.”

“Shut it. George, please tell me how I can keep him or her. Tell me that I can be a mother, because as you can see, I plan to be one or die trying.”

“Shit.” She was in tears, and I always hated her crying. It was really unattractive and heart wrenching at the same time. I paced as I thought. The only way to make her pregnancy safe from the power hungry family would be to convince everyone that someone else was the father. And the only one stupid enough to agree would be someone who had a stake in the outcome. And the only guy who did was me. I looked at her, my crazy best friend, and told her, “I’ll be the father.”