Prego and the Phoenix 🐇↩️✔

Arabella - Six

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder so they say. Some people behold beauty in weird ways.

******************

I open the door to head off to school but find Bourne in my way.
"Um, hello?" I say, looking up at him.
"Oh, hi.... Uh... I was just wondering if you'd like a ride to school? I know you catch the city bus to the nearest bus stop but I thought maybe you'd like to ride with me...?"
I blink at him and he gives me a nervous smile. Well, I guess he is trying so there is no use in being mean.
"Sure. But don't drive fast."
"Okay. You don't have your own car?" I asks as he opens my door up for me.
I look at his hand on the handle but get in as he comes around the other side, jumping into the driver's seat since it's a Convertible.
"I did but my ex took it in the divorce." I say with a frown.
"How did that all work out? I mean, the marrying and divorcing? You're only eighteen..."
"It's a long story."
"There's a pretty good drive to school. Tell me."
"I'm not going to just pour out all my secrets to you on the first drive. I said that you had to try and convince me."
Bourne smiles and I realize that behind that nicely trimmed beard of his, there are dimples.
"Alright, you caught me. I just want to make things easier on us. Secrets coming out are easiest."
"Well are you planning to pour out your big secret, whatever it may be?"
Bourne's smile falters and he looks at the road with too much intensity.
"Not yet."
"Then I shan't be pouring out mine."
"Touche... Then can you tell me what you thought when you found out you were pregnant?"
I look down at my belly, not seeing a pooch but knowing it's there, just waiting to expand and ruin my love life for six more months. When Bourne sees me all bloated like a fat cow, he'll drop this act... He'll leave me...
"I wasn't happy."
"Why? Babies are fun."
"You're crazy, you know that? Babies are fun for you! You don't have to have your body shift into something foreign and unknown to you! You don't have to thought of as a slut because you're pregnant."
"You're being a bit hysterical..." Bourne says with an arched eyebrow of fire. "Can you calm down for a little bit?"
"Why? Am I too hormonal for you?" I spit.
Bourne stops the car at a red light and turns to me. There is no anger on his face but his eyes of gold show a different story. There is fire in those eyes and they look like they are about to shoot laser beams at me. Not what I was picturing when I thought I wanted to see his wrath incurred by someone to see this famous no expression anger. But I didn't want it to be done at me.
"Listen, Arabella, if I didn't want to be with you I would have never talked to you. I would have ignored you and been on my way. Obviously, there is something I like about you or you wouldn't be in my car, you understand?" he says calmly, as if there isn't a furnace blazing in his stare.
The light turns green and he drives on to school, both of us in silence. If nothing else, if the baby belly doesn't scare him off then my hormonal thrash of accusations surely will.
"I'm sorry, Bourne... It's just... ever since the school found out I was pregnant, I've really seen who my friends and family are in this time of crisis and so far, none of them have been very supportive."
"Understandable. If it makes a difference, I'm here for you."
For now... "Yeah... so... Um, how about your tattoo? Do you really have a tattoo of a phoenix rising from the ashes on your back?"
Bourne suddenly gives this horribly adorable grin to me.
"That's a secret you can only find out in the dark."
I am taken aback by the completely inappropriate and very sexual sentence he has just uttered and for some reason, I find it hopeful.
"So there is a tattoo?"
"Yes. But what of, you'll have to see for yourself. If you gave me the chance."
"You realize that I'm pregnant and yet you make sexual jokes?"
"No one ever said pregnant woman didn't look sexy. Not that that's what I plan here or that I'm the type of guy who 'takes whatever' but you keep telling me that you're ugly and fat when all I see is beauty and love. A girl our age is rare to keep a child for the very facts you're telling me and yet you're risking your reputation, life, and body to harbor your child. It's honorable."
I look down at my hands in my lap as Bourne parks the car in the parking space. I suddenly feel him take my hand in his and he kisses my knuckles.
"Until we meet again." He suddenly frowns. "You didn't bring lunch."
"I wanted pizza." I say with a smirk as I get out of his car with some difficulty.
He watches me from his car, and I can't help but feel a little guilty for being so hard on him. He seems like a reasonably nice guy and seems to genuinely care about my wellbeing and my feelings. But why? Why would he want me to feel like this just to leave me in the end? The logic baffles me.