The First Omega || NaNoWriMo 2019

Chapter 20

 "Hey, you doing alright Ryan?" Michael asked softly, watching me from the doorway. I'd had to sit down, my feet throbbing from the morning rush. At five months along things weren't getting much better.

Every week seemed to bring something new to my pregnancy. Between swollen ankles, a shift in my center of gravity, and the way people stared I was ready to be done with this. The only plus was that I could eat again, and the food stayed down. Of course all I wanted to eat was pickles and mangos for some reason.

"I don't know how women do this... Everything hurts." I grumbled slowly moving to get up from the crate I'd made into a seat. Michael came over, offering me a hand, adding to my irritation. "I'm fine. I can get up on my own."

"Sorry, sorry." He backed away hands in the air. "I just know you've been complaining about losing your balance a lot lately."

"Yeah, well I don't like being coddled either. I told you and Dreece I wanted to take care of myself. That's not going to happen if one of you keeps coming running every time I move." I growled managing to get up. The hurt on Michael's face was hard to bear, "Sorry... It's been a long day. I'm trying to find an apartment for me and the baby and it's not going well."

"What's wrong with where you're at right now? I know Dreece doesn't mind you crashing with them." Michael asked.

"Nothing is wrong, but I want to live on my own, and baby need room to grow. We don't have any spare rooms at Dreece's apartment. Plus..." I trailed off, not sure if I should bring up Rhett or not.

"Plus you're worried about Rhett finding out about this." Michael finished a bit angrily, making me wince. "Look, I get it. You have your reasons but I still think it's unfair that you aren't even giving Rhett the choice to be a part of his own child's life."

"It's not that easy..." Michael held up their hands cutting me off.

"I don't want to hear your excuses. I just know that if you think Rhett would be a bad parent then it's your loss. He loved his niece with a passion before she passed away." He turned away, fed up with being around me. Our relationship had been strained ever since he'd found out that I was carrying his cousin's baby. "Plus you can't do this on your own, no matter what you think."

"Maybe not... but I have to try." The words were whispered to an empty store room. Taking a few more moments to steady myself, I returned to the front of the store, ready for the day to be over.

Closing time was almost upon us when the door rang, a familiar white coated man strolling into the coffee shop.

"So this is where you ran off to is it Ryan?" The smell of chemicals made me gag, my eyes turning to the graying visage of Andrew. "I'm surprised you were even able to get a job at a dump like this. After all, you still had me as a reference on your resume."

Horror floored me. I'd wondered if Andrew had somehow had a hand in ruining my attempts to get back into a lab, but I hadn't even thought to remove him as a reference.

"Hello, and you are?" Michael moved to stand next to me, offering me silent support as I pulled myself together.

"Andrew." He replied, looking Michael over. His expression turned my stomach. It as one I'd seen many times before, but chose to ignore when we were dating. "And who might you be?"

"Not interest." Michael sneered. "And I'm sorry to inform you but we are closed so you're going to need to leave now."

Anger furrowed Andrew's brow, making him look even older. He turned back to my, his eyes roving over my body before stopping on my stomach in surprise.

"So... I see the rumors of your topic for your dissertation are true. You've continued with your idiotic male pregnancy scheme after all." Andrew sneered, his eyes flicking between my stomach and my face. "And now you've gone and used it on yourself like a fool. All of your research will be invalid because you're no longer impartial. You'll never be a true scientist, now."