Page 8 of His Bittersweet Regret

“He said that?”

“He implied it, when he said we needed to give ourselves six months to see if this is really what we wanted.”

“Oh, Opal, I don’t even know what to say about that. Do you think he would have said that if he knew about the baby?”

“No, but then I guess, thanks to everyone always talking shit to him, that he would have eventually resented me, and maybe the baby too, if we were the reason he stayed after finally getting the courage to do what everyone else always wanted him to do.”

“Are you going to tell him?”

“Why?” It was an honest question as I turned my full attention to my best friend. Her midnight black hair was almost a match to mine, if not for the texture difference. Her skin was about five shades darker than my summer tanned, olive complexion. Our eyes were both brown, nearly the same shade. She had a model’s figure, tall and lean with a jawline most people would die for and eyelashes so thick and long, people always asked where they could buy them.

I had always been slightly envious of her beauty, even as she was envious of my relationship. “If you weren’t the most beautiful of us, you wouldn’t have been able to snag Marshal Kennedy and keep him bound to you all these years,” is what she used to always tell me. I guess she was wrong. My beauty faded for him. Something had faded between us without my knowing it. Why else would he leave me?

“You’re going to be parents. Both of you made that baby. He deserves to know.”

I sighed.

“I know. I’ll text him.”

“You can’t just text the man that he’s going to be a father.”

“Well, Beth, I would have told him in person. I had the whole gift bag and love letter about what an amazing man he is, how he was going to be the best father to our baby, and how much watching that process was going to make me fall in love with him over and over again. The problem is, he left before I could give it to him. He didn’t want anything else from me. So, now he gets a text.”

“Point made.”

“Well, what would you do?”

“Honestly, my first inclination would be to tell him immediately, so he doesn’t miss out on anything. Then again, you just made a good point. After the way he left you without even talking to you about it and preparing you first, I would forget to tell him for those ‘six months’. He wanted to go find something better out there, he can wait to find out about the family he left behind while he does it.”

“Why?”

“Because if you tell him before then, you’ll always wonder if the only reason he came back was for the baby. You already worried about whether or not he’d resent you both. I imagine that might happen in this situation. He’ll feel trapped.”

“Maybe, but if I wait that long to tell him, he’ll be angry because I didn’t tell him sooner.”

Bethany laughed. “Good. Serves the asshole right. Let him be mad, girl. He’s the one that walked out on you. It’s not like you weren’t planning on telling him yesterday when he so callously left you.”

“I guess. I’m still going to send him a text though. Even though what you’re saying makes sense, I think he deserves to know sooner rather than later, in case he wants to be there for doctor appointments and stuff.”

My shoulders slumped as I thought about how torturous it was going to be if he was there and then left me to go back to whichever flavor of the week he was sticking his dick in.

“What if he gets some other woman pregnant? What if he falls in love with someone else and I have to share my child with the woman he chose over me?” I asked my best friend.

Her eyes swam with tears the same way mine did. This was going to be awful, no matter how it played out. I took my phone out, ready to get this over with before I posed any more ‘what if’ questions for myself.

Opal: Yesterday, before you dropped your news on me and left, I had something to tell you. It was important. The bag would have said it all for me, but since you didn’t want to take it with you, this is all you get from me now: I’m pregnant.

It took ten minutes for him to respond after the message showed it was read.

Marsh: It doesn’t matter. Goodbye meant goodbye. Don’t bother me again.

I sucked in a painful breath as I handed my phone to Bethany. “Who in the hell does he think he is?” She started messing with my phone then.

“Please, don’t message him back,” I begged.

“Oh, you bet your ass I’m not! He’s blocked now!” She handed me my phone back so I could see that his number was indeed blocked. “Let that be a lesson to him. You told that cruel fucker that you were having his baby and he told you goodbye and to leave him alone. So, that’s exactly what you’re going to do.”

It was at that point, that the waterworks started all over again. Never, in my wildest dreams, would I have thought Marsh would respond that way when I told him we made a baby together. Then again, I never thought he’d leave me so coldly and without even talking to me about it first.

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