Love Sick

Chapter 2 - Surprise!

“Is it just me or does it suddenly reek of fish in here?”

“I have too many jokes in response to that,” my best friend Liz answered lazily, not taking her eyes off of her menu.

Liz and I were roommates at UCLA and quickly became best friends. She was a bridesmaid at mine and Tom’s wedding a few months after we graduated school, and we still made the time to get together every couple of weeks now that we no longer lived together.

That weekend, I left Tom at home fixing up the little backyard in our condo we just rented in downtown Claremont, a couple of hours away from UCLA, where we met as freshmen. Liz waitressed at a café in Los Angeles while she studied for the LSAT; she was not only hilarious but brilliant too.

I placed my forehead on the table, breathing in the scent of the plastic Cheesecake Factory menu.

"Oh gawd, what is that stench?”

“Maria, what do you think it is?”

I groaned. “Stinky fish?”

“It’s the stench of a fetus growing inside you.”

I snapped my head up so quickly, I almost knocked over my glass of water.

“What?” I exclaimed. The couple next to us glanced over before turning back to their salad appetizers.

Liz smiled at my reaction, pleased that she just told me something that I apparently hadn’t thought of.

“You’re probably pregnant, crazy!”

I gasped. “But how?”

Liz grabbed the piece of bread in the middle of the table and ripped off a piece, “Well, when a boy and a girl like each other, they do a special dance without their clothes on … “ she began.

“Oh, shut up!” I put my hand over my nose so I could smell my lotion instead of that nauseating stench.  My cheeks burned red, and I felt the warmness trickle down my neck.

“Relax, Maria, you’re married now,” Liz said. “It’s not the biggest scandal in the world. Let’s enjoy our lunch and then we’ll go across to Walgreens and get you a pregnancy test.”

I stared as Liz nonchalantly buttered her bread, acting as if the world as I knew it wasn’t hanging in limbo. She was always the voice of reason, keeping me calm when I freaked out whether it was about a looming assignment deadline, my impending wedding, or now, a potential pregnancy just months into my marriage. 

“You don’t think this is all happening too fast?” I asked her quietly. It was hard for me to explain that I was terrified at the thought of being pregnant with my husband’s baby. We just got married. We planned on going on our honeymoon later when we had saved enough money. Yeah, I was mature enough to graduate college, get married, and move in with my husband, but was I really ready to be a mom?

Throughout lunch, I didn’t mention my pregnancy fears again. Liz diligently attempted to keep it off my mind, ensuring there wasn’t a lull in conversation. She segued from topic to topic, asking about my little brother Matt’s state debate competition and my social work internship with the county. I filled her in on Tom’s new job as a nurse at our local hospital, and Liz told me about the new woman that she was seeing. 

I was the first person that Liz came out to. I remembered our first year at school, one day I got back from class and Liz was sitting at her desk, staring at the wall with her back straight as a board. 

“You okay?” I asked as I placed my bag on my desk and faced her. 

“I have something to tell you,” Liz turned towards me, looking as if she’d just seen a ghost.