And If... {completed and edited 2024}

And If... I hadn't told him ?

TINASHE'S POV:

⥬ 6 Years Ago ⥭

I was beyond nervous as I looked down at my stomach, not believing that it was possible. Was it really happening ? What was I going to do ? The shock, caused by the news and which still didn't go away, wouldn't let me think properly. Why was this happening to me ? And why was I asking myself this stupid question ? I obviously knew why this was occurring. I was educated enough to know that since Richard and I were sexually active, there was a possibility for me to get pregnant. I knew it was a possibility, but didn't think much of it when we were doing our thing.

At this very moment, I wished I decided to stay a virgin until marriage. I really should have.

But it was too late now to regret and have wishes about the past. Everything was already done and I was going to have a baby. Well, we because I was definitely not doing things alone when this little human being was created, so I was surely not going to deal with the consequences of our act all by myself either.

Abortion was out of the question. I didn't believe in that. I will never be able to kill my own child because I knew how much it would then weight on my conscious. Forgiveness will be something hard to give to myself for doing that. Plus, this innocent human did nothing to deserve that. I wasn't doing it and I won't change my mind. This was my personal opinion, and I'll forever stick to it. I simply couldn't see myself doing this atrocity.

I will never be able to forgive myself.

Now that I was clear on it, I couldn't help but wonder how in the hell we were going to raise this baby ? We were only nineteen and twenty years old. We weren't full adults yet, although we were doing grown folks business; what brought us into this situation.

Of course, we already had this conversation before. We wanted to get married and have kids, but not right now. It wasn't the right time for us. We both wanted to be financially stable before to cross that bridge. We wanted to achieve our goals first, and nothing was done yet.

We were still studying in the University of California, in our sophomore year to be exact. I was in law, working my ass off to become a successful lawyer, while Richard was in economics and management, although his ultimate dream was the NFL and it had been this way since he was a little boy. Economics and management was a plan B in case things weren't working in his favor.

College life was already very stressful, so with a baby in addition, how was it going to be possible to make it through ? How were we going to do this ? I knew I wanted to finish and graduate before anything, and I knew it was the same for Richard. This new situation of ours will only complicate everything. Or give us more strength and motivation to do something with our lives ?

Who knows ?

I rubbed my still flat stomach, trying to find a real plan, but nothing came up. My mind was in shambles. A lot of different thoughts were going through it and I couldn't really think straight, so I decided to busy myself with something else, thinking that my worries will go away from a moment.

But they never did.

I looked around his room as I shook my head at the mess. Richard was a disorderly person. Clothes were everywhere; the bed wasn't made; piles of papers were covering his desk; and there were a lot of unidentified objects under his bed. How was he living here ? And how was he supposed to raise a baby when he was living like this ?

I continued to shake my head, thinking about all the changes and growth we will have to do before the baby's coming. A lot needed to be done. I waited a few more minutes before starting panicking again. Why was he not here yet ? Where was he at ? What was he doing ? I told him it was important to be here on time when I called him earlier. I couldn't wait any longer to tell him the news.