Page 5 of Maggie

Chapter 2

Wylder

Wylder rushed into his girlfriend’s apartment. “Morissa, I’m here. What’s wrong?”

Morissa stood from the couch and sobbed. Tears rolled down her face. Her red hair looked uncombed and her cheeks were bright red from her crying. She wore pajamas, and the only light was the glow from the TV.

Wylder crossed the room to her and pulled her into his arms. He cradled her head to his chest and brushed a hand down her hair. His heart thudded in his chest. Something must be seriously wrong for her to be so upset.

He said, “You said there was an emergency. I rushed right over. What’s going on?”

“We need to talk!” she wailed.

“I’m here.” He smoothed a hand down her hair and kissed her temple. “Tell me what happened.”

“I got my period!”

Wylder froze. Did he hear that right? “Wh—what?”

“We aren’t pregnant. I got my period,” she sobbed.

What? He had to be mishearing something. She couldn’t have said what he thought she did. He swallowed hard. “I didn’t know we were trying.”

“It was supposed to be a surprise!” she wailed, and smacked a fist against his shoulder. “I wanted to tell you good news for our anniversary this month.”

“Shhh. Calm down. Let’s talk about this.” Wylder coaxed her to sit on the couch and sat beside her. He took her hand. “Tell me what’s going on.”

She sniffled and tears rolled down her face. “I wanted a pregnancy to be a nice surprise for our anniversary, but now it’s ruined.”

Wylder’s stomach dropped. This woman was nuts. They’d never talked about any of this. He liked her, but he didn’t think they were that serious yet.

“Morissa, this is a good thing. We still have to talk about babies and the future. We haven’t talked about any of it. There needs to be a conversation first.”

She sobbed. “I wanted a romantic anniversary where we could plan our future together. You and me and our little one.”

He had no idea what this was about. They’d always been safe. They’d never discussed kids. “It’s okay. We have all the time in the world. Next Saturday will only be our six-month anniversary.” He tried to stay level-headed and calm.

“I’m sorry, Wylder. I wanted it to be perfect. I tried.” More tears rolled down her face.

Wait, what? She tried?

“What do you mean ‘you tried’? We’ve always used condoms, and you said you were on the pill. We’ve always been safe.”

“I stopped taking the pill when we became official.” She sniffled.

Red flags blazed at him. She never told him that. She’d even tried to convince him to come inside her last week on the idea that she was on the pill.

“Still, we’re using condoms. Sure, accidents happen, but I never thought pregnancy was likely,” he said, exasperated.

“I’ve been poking holes in the condoms. I wanted everything to be perfect for us,” she cried.

“Whoa!” Wylder shot to his feet and backed away from her. “No. I’m not ready for kids. What the fuck?”

“Wylder!” Morissa sprang to her feet and stepped toward him.

He held his hands up and inched toward the door. “I’m sorry, Morissa. You’re insane. Who does that? You can’t force me to have kids right now. I can’t do this with you. Any trust I had for you... It’s gone. I can’t be with you.”

“What? No!” Morissa screamed, and Wylder bolted for the door.

---