in the hotel room, waiting for a viable idea and a solution to present itself. I also sat, waiting for my phone to ring and hoping that one or the other of them would call so that we could all talk and get on the same page with this. But I couldn’t push. I had to sit here and wait until Clara was ready. I couldn’t swoop in like the rich guy from the outside and make a bunch of promises about how everything would be great. Because this time, it wasn’t something that money could fix. Clara had to be ready to want to deal with this with me, and right now, she was not. All I could do was sit here in my crappy hotel room and wait. I pulled the dog up to my face and pressed the soft fabric against my nose. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. I could tell that Clara had slept with it. It smelled like her.
Just this one last time, even though I felt alone, I would wait. Because this time it mattered. This time I didn’t really want to leave; I wanted to stay.
21
Clara
I was in a complete and utter haze. I didn’t know which was up. Scott had taken me to the doctor the next morning after our big blow-out. And sure enough, I was definitely pregnant. I was dazed and a bit confused as we rode home from the doctor’s office together. The night before hadn’t lasted long. My brother had caught up with me, he had apologized for acting like an ass, and then he had apologized again since he knew that he had acted like a really big ass. We didn’t talk about much after that, aside from making an appointment to go to the doctor the next day.
DeShawn had left right after I had run off, and by the time Scott and I had both cooled down and came back into the house, DeShawn had already gone. I felt bad about yelling at him to leave and let me be alone. I wanted to call him and apologize, but I didn’t know how to do it because the truth was that I’d acted like an ass myself. None of the three of us had handled the situation yesterday with a lot of grace. And I was aware that I had probably been the one to handle it the worst. At least it was all out in the open now—the pregnancy and the feelings between DeShawn and me. There was no longer a need to sneak around and hide any of it. That was why I couldn’t stay too mad at Scott; we’d all made mistakes.
I lay on my bed, wondering what DeShawn was doing right now and if he was sitting inside of his hotel room, doing the same thing and wondering about me. I noticed that he took the stuffed animal back, and that made me kind of sad. I could have used a snuggle right now. But I understood why he would take it. He had left it with me when I was sick as a gesture of love and affection, and then the next day, I had screamed at him to get out and leave me alone. It made me sad that he had taken it, but I deserved it for the way that I had acted.
Then I started to think about what the doctor had said at the appointment. And to be very honest, I started to wonder if I was going to keep the child. If I kept the baby, I wondered if my life would ever turn out the way I wanted it to. Or if I would go from being tied to one responsibility that I already couldn’t keep up with to another. I wonder what DeShawn would think about it and if he was worried about the same things. I had a feeling that if he was lying in bed worrying right now, then chances are he was worrying about me. If I could go back and change the way that I had handled things, then I would have.
Scott tapped on the doorframe and asked if he could come in. I answered him with a small nod. Then he came and sat on the edge of the bed.
“Are you thinking, or are you feeling unwell?” he asked, checking to see why I was still just lounging around in bed.
“Thinking,” I answered.
“About the baby?” he asked.
“Yes, and