Chapter 10

I checked my phone for the time once again, I’ve been waiting for Eva to show up for the past fifteen minutes in our favorite coffee shop, but she kept texting me that she was almost here, fifteen minutes ago. 

It has been exactly two weeks and a few days since I started questioning my sexuality and ignoring my girlfriend out of guilt. I didn’t ignore her throughout those times, instead, the following week after Jonas and I had that discussion in my room which somehow led to a make out session, I called her one evening and apologized profusely to her about ignoring her right before asking her if she could hang out that evening because I needed to talk to her, she informed me that she had quickly traveled home to do a few things and would be back in a week plus time. It was like a silent agreement between us after I ended the call that we wouldn’t hit each other up until she gets back to school, she didn’t hit my phone up and neither did I, she didn’t text, I didn’t also... and worse, the guilt I felt when I first got kissed by Jonas reduced drastically as those days went by with nothing from her.

She shot me a quick text last night, telling me she was already back in school and that she also had something to tell me, I had a feeling she was about to break up with me due to lack of communication or something along that line, but I just couldn’t find it in me to feel hurt. I didn’t even have a right to be hurt seeing as I’ve been falling asleep in Jonas’s arms for the past one week.

Jonas and I got extremely closer than we were in the following weeks after we both had that talk in my room on a Friday night. Somehow, we moved to just grinding against each other in our clothes to jerking off together with our dicks sliding against each other, and then to us taking a shower together one evening which led to him giving me a blowjob once we got to my room because it was closer to the bathroom, I couldn’t return the blowjob because I was just barely wrapping my head around the fact that my body was responding enthusiastically to a guy’s touch, but Jonas never acted like he expected me to return the act, instead he had grind naked against me on the bed while kissing me senseless and controlling the kiss with his grip on my wet hair until we both came that night, which, like most nights, ended with us cuddling till we fell asleep.

I still haven’t gotten bold enough to the extent of giving him a blowjob till date, but we’ve kissed heavily once in his car, in broad daylight- that was a big deal for me since I knew how much gay people hated being with a closet case- in Joey’s words. 

And no, Jonas and I are not in a relationship, because technically, I still have a girlfriend.

And to this very day, I still wasn’t sure if I was completely gay or not.

I glanced at the time once more. Three more minutes and I’d be heading home. It was already some minutes after seven and I really don’t want to be stuck in a traffic late at night unnecessarily, my eyesight was shit in the dark.

I glanced up when the diner door when it dinged like I’ve been doing since I got here and heaved a small sigh on sighting Eva as she stood still in the middle of the diner and quickly glanced around. I threw my hand up and waved at her, her eyes met mine and she quickly made her way towards my table and sank into the seat before me.

“I’m so sorry for keeping you waiting, I really am,” she said while puffing out small breaths as if she ran all the way here. I told her it was fine and took a long glance at her. Her eyes seemed to have shrunk in, and her hair was covered with a beanie, but a few strands floated around her pale cheeks…she looked different.

I hadn’t laid my eyes on her in over two weeks, and I had to say she looked like she had lost weight, which had to be quite a lot of weight for it to be this obvious.

“Are you alright?” I asked immediately as I reached for her hand and drew it in mine on the middle of the table between us. She nodded her head and tried to smile, but her eyes watered at the same time. My eyes widened in horror, and I quickly clasped her hand in mine and squeezed it. She chuckled hoarsely and tried to wipe the tear that managed to slip out with her fingers but another one trailed one trailed out, then another, until tears were streaming down her face from both eyes.

“Shit. Eva, what’s wrong?” I demanded, but she shook her head and pulled her fingers from my clasp and dug out tissues from her bag to clean the tears off her face. I glanced around and was grateful no one had noticed when she started crying.

She sniffed. Her eyes looked even deeper at this point and now that I look closely, she looked like she’s going through a really hard time.

“You know you can talk to me about anything, you know I’ll help so far it’s in my power. Please talk to me,” I said to her softly, but she only sniffed and kept on glancing at me then at her fingers placed on her thighs. This was definitely not how I saw this night turning out when I was getting ready to see her this evening. I had thought we were just going to talk about our relationship, and then she was going to demand we break up, that was how it all played out in my head... but here we are.

“You said you wanted to talk, right?” She asked, completely ignoring what I said about a minute ago.

How was I going to bring the reason why I came here up without coming off as insensitive?

“Yeah, I did. You see...” I started to say but she cut in. “You’re breaking up with me, right? I totally get it.”

Wait, what?

I thought she was supposed to be mad...

“I seriously have to tell you something, Andy,” she continued and I watched her eyes fill up with tears, but she quickly wiped them off on her sleeve. I felt my heart pinched with pain as I watched her sniffed into her jacket before glancing up at me, it was already too obvious that something was wrong and we both there was no use denying it.

“Talk to me, Eva. You know you can tell me anything.” I laid my palms open in the middle of the table as an invitation for her, but she glanced at the outstretched gesture and looked away. When she finally looked back at me, she whispered quietly, her voice hoarse from crying, “I’m pregnant, and it’s not yours.”

I blinked at her like she had suddenly developed two heads, my mouth parted in shock as I slowly withdrew my open palms from the table and placed them on my thighs instead, feeling extremely cold all of a sudden even though a coat was wrapped around me.

“What?” I asked while staring at her weeping face once again.

“I swear to you, it was a mistake. It wasn’t supposed to happen, we were supposed to study together, then one thing led to another until we were having sex, and more sex...” she whispered hoarsely while I stared at her unblinking with my lips pursed.

“Oh, it wasn’t a one-time thing?” 

“I know I don’t have any excuse whatsoever, but you were just never around, and I was going through shit. I was depressed, but you didn’t know while he was able to tell something was wrong even though we’d only spent a few days studying together. You were never around for any of my breakdowns, Andy, none,” she snapped this time, shooting me a cold glare as she spat the words out fast.

I glanced away and swallowed emptily, I knew I was a shitty boyfriend from the start, I just didn’t know I was this shitty. How the hell was I supposed to know her mental health wasn’t in a good place when she was always happy and smiling around me?

I breathed out a long sigh.

I glanced up when I heard her sniff, her face void of any anger, only tiredness remained- and sadness. I didn’t know what it was that she was going through, and she just wouldn’t tell me, but I knew she was going through something.

“I’m keeping the baby; I can’t take an innocent child’s life,” she said after sniffing again and I smiled at her a little even though I felt like shit. I knew her heart was just too soft to even consider an abortion.

“How are you going to take care of the baby? Are your parents aware? Was that why you traveled home? What about the guy? He’s aware, right?” I shot her a lot of questions all at once since I didn’t know what else to say.

Nothing justifies cheating, I know. But I did cheat too.

“Yeah, I went home and told my parents about it. My dad said he isn’t going to be paying a thing concerning my school anymore since I went to school to go after dick instead of my studies anyways, my mum said I should remove the baby first, then she could take me to my dad’s twin brother’s place so we could go plead for them to come over to our house and convince my dad to rethink his decision. I told her I was never going to kill an innocent baby and she slapped me, called me ungrateful and ordered me to leave the house and never return until I come to a reasonable decision.” She paused, sniffed and wiped her eyes with her sleeves before continuing. 

“And Yeah, he knows about the baby, I told him about it immediately. He said he wasn’t ready to start a family yet since frankly we were never in love with each other and a marriage could never work out, and that we’d have to go remove the baby together. We fought and I blocked him on social media, he knows where I live but has never bothered to reach me since...” She trailed off and glanced up at me before continuing quietly in a tiny, quivering voice which sounded so much like she was going to burst into tears once again. “I’m so fucked.”

I didn’t know what to say after listening to her pour out her heart to me in a tiny voice, instead I stretched my palms out in the middle of the table and nodded at her with a smile when she glanced at my face, she hesitated for a moment before slipping her cold fingers into mine. I squeezed her hands tightly and told her it was going to be alright countless times that cold evening, even when I knew it was far from being ‘alright.’