Chapter 2: Tomorrow's the Day and Remembering How it All Started

Three days later: All I had done the past three days was cry, and of course, feel extremely horrible because morning sickness had so graciously started. I turned and looked at the clock. 6:15. I should be at class in one hour, but feeling the way I did, there was just no way that was happening. I took a shower, and returned to my room, where I was forced to stare at pictures of Brad and me, I had to get out of here. I had assumed Mom and Dad had come in once or twice, but I hadn't noticed. When I finally felt up to going downstairs, Dad didn't look at me, Mom did though. She handed me a glass with water in it, and I didn't know why. So I set it down. She pointed at the calendar, and at first I had no idea what she was doing, until I noticed I had tomorrow circled a thousand times, and I didn't have to get closer to it to read what I had written, Brad was coming home tomorrow. I turned to Mom, and I was a bad mixture of happy and nauseous.

"Oh, I guess that's good news, and bad news," Mom said

"Yeah," I said

"So…what do you think you'll do to celebrate his home coming?"

I tilted my head to the side, and looked at Mom, like, 'I think you know,' and she smiled and shook her head, then said very quietly, "Good luck, but whatever you do, don't tell your dad,"

I looked over my shoulder at Dad who was intently reading the newspaper in his usual suit attire he wore almost every day, and smiled. "Now that is a must,"

"So how are you feeling?"

"Uh. Not good,"

"I remember the feeling, it's gets better though, plus, you'll feel a whole lot better once Brad knows."

"I really hope so,"

That day went by fast, too fast. And before I knew it, it was the day he was coming home. For once, I was actually glad I had morning sickness, because I felt so nauseous anyway. After that epic was over, I had no idea what I could wear this was a big deal, and I had absolutely no clue what to wear, Mom said you don't start showing until you're three or four months along, but I could swear I already looked fat. I finally found something to wear, I didn't look great, but I figured that Brad hadn't seen me clothed or not clothed in three months, so I was almost 98 sure that however I looked wouldn't be the issue.

I was afraid to go downstairs, so Mom came up to see me, and looked happy to see me, "Dana, are you ready?" Mom said, disrupting my thoughts.

"Uh, yeah," I said

I was so NOT ready, I couldn't just TELL him, I mean this was a huge bomb to just drop on someone, and not to mention this wasn't just someone. Mom left, and went downstairs, so I tried so hard to swallow my fear, then I proceeded to the stairs, where I could hear Mom and Dad in the kitchen,

"……how it started with them?" I heard Mom say

"Um….I think heard that they didn't even know each other's names until about a month of nothing but…." he stopped to shudder, "Sex,"

Mom rolled her eyes and said, "No, dear, that's not how it was,"

"Phew! Then who was that?"

"I think that was her other boyfriend," Dad's face turned white, "I'm kidding!" she said

"Oh, dude…please don't do that,"

Mom laughed, "Phil, why don't you just ask her how their relationship started, no one would know better than her,"

"I can't ask her, what if I don't want to know,"

"Honey, chances are, you're not going to want to know, but if it'll make you feel better to know that it isn't what you thought at first, then just ask,"

I shook my head and laughed, then tried to remember how it actually had begun with us….It was April or May when we met, I was walking down the street on a beautiful day, and I walked past the coffee house, and then I saw him, by the fenced in area of all brightly colored flowers that spelled out, 'Boston City Square,' I think my heart stopped beating when our eyes met, he was in his Navy uniform, which was a huge plus, I assumed that he had just been stationed in town, and he was with a friend, also in uniform, but I didn't feel instant attraction to his friend, just him. Then I suddenly changed direction, and went to a bench close to them, but not too close. I pretended to be reading, but really I was planning what I would say to him. He and his friend talked quietly for a while, then he actually walked toward me. I thought I was going to die, what was he going to say? My stomach flip-flopped, and he casually said hello to me, I thought my stomach was going to explode, there were so many butterflies in it, so I tried to calm them down, and I also said Hello as casual and alluring as possible. He politely introduced himself, I did the same, but while he introduced himself as Brad Windsor, I introduced myself only as Dana, you don't add the Diffy until you know the person very well. Then we started talking, he said he's from here, (Boston) although I was born in New York, I lived in Boston for the majority of my life, so I gave him the gist of that long story, then somehow he and I hit it off, and I fell for him, hard. Although I hadn't intended for our relationship to become as serious as it did, it only supposed to be a fling. But that didn't happen, and I figured it had gone far past a fling when he told me he loved me, and I can't remember when we consummated our 'fling,' but it was before he told me he loved me, hence the point of a fling. It may have happened more than the one time before he told me he loved me….anyway, that isn't important. But somehow Mom and Dad remained clueless about how serious we were, but I denied it, because it was a 'fling'. After I had the chance to analyze the situation, I realized what we had was far more than a fling, because I noticed when he and I were 'together', it wasn't just passion and lust, like with anyone else, there was definite connection, and love that I felt, and I was almost scared because this was quickly snowballing into much more than 'fling' standards. But soon I realized I should stop being sad it wasn't a fling, and be happy I was in a relationship. So after about twenty 'consummations,' I decided I should tell Mom and Dad, they liked him right away, which was fabulous, and the rest is history.

Remembering that made me smile to myself, then I sighed heavily, and went down the stairs. Mom smiled brightly when she saw me, but Dad didn't look happy, sad, OR mad, he just looked…blank. I had a feeling he was still trying to digest the thought of Brad and me together that way, it was probably a huge headache, I figured that, because I tried to reverse the situation, the thought of him and mom…Um I'm going to need an air sick bag, that's just gross. So, I can see where he's coming from, but Mom didn't seem at all 'blank' about it, maybe it was because she didn't have to the thought of not being the only guy in my life now, or whatever weirdness Dad's go through when this kind of stuff happens.

"So, the moment of truth, huh?" she said

"Yeah. Yeah, it is," I said, then we all went to the car.