GLEE PREFERENCES

Please Let Me //J. St James

You never expected to become a mum at 17, well you never planned for it anyway. So, you almost had to do a second take at the positive pregnancy test in your hands. You knew it wasn't impossible, but you were naive enough that you didn't think it would happen after only one time without a condom. However, that was 9 months ago, and you had just arrived home with your newborn baby.

Your parents had tried asking you who the father was, but you never told them. It wasn't that you didn't know, but you knew that if you told them, they would expect him to be involved and you knew he wasn't in a position to do so. Jesse had too much of a life to commit to being a father, and you weren't interested in telling him only for him to reject your child. It was less painful that way.

Once you got home, you took yourself and baby Jonah up to your room. You laid him down in his bassinet, grateful that he didn't wake up, before flopping down on your own bed. A small tear fell down your face, which you didn't wipe away. You finally felt at peace enough to turn on your phone. It had been off for the last 48 hours so that you could focus on Jonah, without feeling like you owed anyone the time of day.

There were a million messages from the glee club group chat, they were trying to make plans for that night to go and see a movie, and they didn't want to leave you out.

'Sorry guys, I've got company!' You reply, attaching a picture of Jonah in his outfit for leaving the hospital.
The group chat erupted with message of congratulations and offers to babysit. You were so glad to finally share the news with them. However, you couldn't help but feel a bit alone. You then shared the photo to instagram, before being interrupted by Jonah's cry.
_____

The first two weeks were tough. Your parents helped where they could but they still had full-time jobs and you couldn't expect them to drop everything for you. After all, Jonah was your baby, not theirs. You had only been to school a handful of times, because you had to bring Jonah with you since you couldn't afford a sitter. You learned pretty quickly that high school isn't ideal for newborns. Glee club was a little easier because everyone wanted to hold him, but like everywhere else in the school, you kept hearing people speculate about who the father was.

You made it clear that it was no one in the glee club, so they got pretty creative with their guesses, and some were so outrageous that you wanted to just tell them, but you didn't want to get shunned from glee club for having a baby with the leader of the biggest competition at regionals.  At one point Finn even made a joke that it was him, since he saw you two chatting at a party a week before you got pregnant, but you laughed it off like everyone else.

You wished that you could come clean though, because then you wouldn't feel like you were living a lie. However, everyone was still so angry with Jesse for how he treated Rachel, and you knew that they would assume that he had chosen not to be apart of Jonah's life, which would only add fuel to the fire.
_____

Another week passes and you were struggling even more, and you found that you couldn't sleep when Jonah slept, because you were beyond the point of sleepiness and all you had left was tears. You took your phone out to share another post about Jonah, because that was all your profile seemed to be now, and found yourself writing a lengthy caption, about how much you loved him, but how difficult you were finding the transition into motherhood. You clicked post and instantly someone liked it. Jesse liked it.

You locked your phone, and tried to ignore the new swirling storm of thoughts in your head, but then it bussed again. This time it was a message from him.

'Is he mine?' It reads.
You don't want to reply.
'(Y/N) please I need to know.'

You shut your phone and walk away, then try and distract yourself by throwing a load of Jonah's clothes into the washing machine.

Your phone buzzes a bunch more times and you finally cave. It was time to start constructing the perfect response:

Jesse, I don't want to lie to you. Technically Jonah is your child, but I don't expect anything from you. I know that now isn't a good time for you to have o take care of a child, and i didn't want you to feel obligated. To be quite honest with you, i also didn't want Jonah to have a father who was only around when it suited him. I know i should have told you, but i thought it was what was best for him and that's all that matters to me now.

Jesse opened your message, but didn't reply.  You wanted to be angry, but this was exactly what you expected so you weren't going to try and fight it. It was just you and Jonah against the world. Until you heard a knock at your door.

The door swung open to reveal Jesse standing there with a bunch of flowers and a stuffed giraffe.
"What?" You whisper to yourself.
"Hi." He says, smiling at you.
"Hi." You reply, too stunned to move.
"I hope you don't mind me stopping by, but I figured what I had to say would be better if said in person." He says. "Can I come in?"

You open the door so that Jesse can step in, and then he hands you the flowers, which you take to the kitchen to put in water.

"I want all of it." He says leaning on your kitchen bench.
"All of what?" You ask, confused.
"All of the fatherhood expectations. All of the responsibility of creating a life." He says, confidently.
"No you don't." You say, shaking your head, almost laughing.
"No, (Y/N), I'm serious."

You go to speak but are interrupted by the sound of Jonah crying on the baby monitor.
"I should get that." You say, walking towards the room Jonah had been sleeping soundly in. Jesse follows you down the hallway but stops in hallway.

You pick Jonah up and start to rock him slowly to soothe him. You start to feel tense when he doesn't stop after a short while. That's when you feel Jesse's hand on your back.
"Here," he says. "Let me."
You hesitate at first, but then slowly hand him over, and he soon stops crying.
"Please let me help you." Jesse says. "Let me be in my son's life."

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Hey guys!

There will be a part 2 of this over the next few days hopefully.

Love xx