Saving Her Billionaire

Abortion was an option, of course. She could just abort the fetus and move on with her life. She had a feeling that nobody would really blame her. She was not in a financial position to deal with the responsibility of a child, and since the father was somewhere she did not know she would have to deal with all of this on her own. Yes, abortion was a good option, and it was an understandable option. It was the option that she would use now, surely it was, for she didn’t want children in the first place.

She then began to think about that last part. Did Phoebe want children? She wasn’t sure if she did or did not, now that she thought about it. She had always thought of children as unnecessary burdens, as things that you would have to take care of no matter what. She did not like the amount of commitment that was required while taking care of a child. She did not like the fact that a child would distract her from her career, and would probably cause a lot of tension in her relationship. She did not think that she would like having a child, or at least this was what she thought until she was actually pregnant.

She began to think of all of the reasons she was thinking of to not have a child. Were they at all valid? She wasn’t all that satisfied with her career. It was a fine career to have. It paid fairly well, it allowed her to help people, it did not come with a workload that was so heavy that it would prevent her from having a life. However, it was not the best career that Phoebe could possibly have, and she was slowly starting to realize that it was too late to change things.

She couldn’t afford to go back to school. Her mother was already partially financially dependent on her, she needed her to keep this job and to take care of her. She couldn’t afford to change careers at this age, she would have to stick with this career at the very least for the next ten years so that she could stabilize herself. This meant that the baby interfering with her career was not going to be a problem anymore, she would be able to make the baby the focus of her life.

As for the problems that the baby could cause in her relationship, well there was no relationship to speak of which meant that there were no problems that the baby could possibly cause in that department. She would be able to give this baby all of the time in the world without having to worry about a partner that wanted her to give them time as well.

More than all of the aforementioned reasons, Phoebe began to realize that she quite liked the thought of having a baby. She quite liked the thought of having a little human being to take care of, a human being that would be entirely dependent on her. She liked the thought of a human being that would be raised in her own image, she liked the idea of teaching the baby to walk and feeding it and teaching it. She liked the idea of raising a child to be a good person and to love other people and in doing so contribute in some small but still very significant way towards making the world a slightly better place, and anything that allowed her to do that was something that was worth working towards.

She decided to have the baby. It was an odd decision, but she didn’t think that she would regret this. It was the first time in her life that she had been completely sure about something and that was enough for Phoebe. It made this child better than her education and her career, far better than her love life. It made this child one of the most important things in her life because it was the first thing she had ever been completely sure of. She liked the idea of telling the child in the future that it had been the first thing that she had ever been sure of. She liked the thought of how happy this would make the child.

She went to work. She had been assigned someone that urgently needed counseling, and she was happy that she would be able to help this person in their time of need.

“So who is this new person I have been assigned?” asked Phoebe. “Tell me about them.”

“He’s some really rich guy,” said Ben, the secretary of the counseling clinic. “His dad died and he went on a bender. Crashed his car into a tree after getting drunk. He needs to get past his emotional issues so that he can run his dad’s company.”

“That sounds interesting,” said Phoebe, and she meant it. This sounded like someone who would normally not get all that much sympathy. Even Ben, who was normally a very empathetic person, did not think that this man deserved sympathy after his father had died simply because he was rich. He didn’t think that this man deserved to be able to go on a bender and vent his emotional frustration simply because of the fact that he had more money than everyone else.

She wanted to be the person this man could vent to. She felt that if there was somebody in the world that deserved sympathy, it was the person that nobody thought deserved sympathy because that person would be truly and utterly alone.

Phoebe pulled the sheet of paper in front of Ben towards her and ran her finger down the list. The name of her new patient was right at the bottom, and when Phoebe read it she became utterly numb. How could this be? It was as if God was trying to tell her something, it was as if the universe was conspiring to make Phoebe’s life complicated.

After she had resolved to raise this baby on her own, she had been assigned a new patient and this patient was none other than the father of her child. The person that she would now be counseling was none other than Nate Friedman. She didn’t know how she was going to be able to handle this. How could she possibly counsel the man that had gotten her pregnant? How could she possibly counsel the man that she didn’t know how she felt towards, that she had such a brief but intense history with?

Chapter 8

Phoebe walked into the room and looked at Nate. He did not know that she was here yet, probably because he was too preoccupied to be listening for the opening of the door. He was biting his nails and he seemed extremely anxious. She did not know what to say to him. She did not know how to announce her entry into this room. There was a child growing inside of her, and he was the father. How could she possibly even start to talk to him about it? How could she bring herself to tell him that he was going to be a father soon?

“Nate,” she said. He turned around and looked at her. He stood up immediately.

“Phoebe?” he said. “I…”

He looked like he had just narrowly escaped being run over by a truck. He looked as if he had just seen a ghost. He looked like he did not quite know how to feel about the situation that he was currently in.

“I had no idea that you were going to be my counselor,” said Nate.

“Clearly,” said Phoebe. “No doubt you would have avoided me if you had know that I was going to be your counselor.”

“No,” said Nate. “I wouldn’t have. I think it’s a good thing that we have met today, I think it’s a good thing that you are my counselor. I don’t think we would have ever met and… I don’t know, I guess I really wanted to meet you.”

“Really, now?” said Phoebe. She couldn’t help but feel pessimistic about what he was saying to her. How could he possibly mean what he was saying? How could he possibly be genuine right now? It was not possible, that was the answer. It was not possible for him to be genuine anymore, or at least everything that he would say would be perceived as disingenuous by Phoebe. She did not want to talk to him right now, not after what he had done to her, not after he had made her feel like trash.

She decided that she would use this to her advantage. She decided that she would tell him exactly how she felt, his feelings be damned. There was no reason for her to be afraid right now. She was not the one at fault, after all. She was not the one that was going to end up feeling miserable. She already felt miserably, very miserably in fact. So miserably that she could barely eat or sleep. The only thing that had made her feel better was, rather ironically, the fact that she was pregnant with this man’s child, this man that had had s*x with her and run off right afterwards.

No, Phoebe was going to take advantage of this situation. She was going to call him out on everything he had done to her, and she was going to make him realize that what he had done had been completely and utterly wrong.

“Sit down,” she said calmly. “We have a lot to talk about.”

“Yeah,” said Nate. He sat down, looking quite grateful for the fact that she was willing to talk to him right now. “I’m glad you want to talk, I mean… I think we connected pretty well that night.”

“Did we?” asked Phoebe. “If we connected so well, why did you run off like that? You seemed in a real hurry to get away from me. Could you please explain that to me? Was I really that disgusting to you after you had finally gotten what you had wanted from me?”

“It wasn’t like that!” said Nate. “Not at all, I swear. I hadn’t been trying to get into your pants, I didn’t think that you would even want to be s*xually intimate with me. I thought that you would… I don’t know I didn’t think that you would be attracted to me. Please, I will explain everything right now. I will tell you everything that I was thinking that night, everything that is going on, everything that was going on back then and since then. I will explain everything to you, Phoebe, I’ll explain it right now. I swear.”

“Fine,” said Phoebe, crossing her arms defensively. She wanted him to explain himself. She liked the fact that the memory of what he had done was unsettling him so much, it meant that he was not an asshole who felt like he did not need to explain himself. She wondered if he was really as rich as Ben had said he was. Rich people behave a lot differently than this. They behave like they have nothing to answer for. They behave like they have done nothing wrong whatsoever. She wondered how he could be so rich and still be so willing to explain himself and own up to his mistakes. She liked it about him, however. It made her feel safe.

“Explain,” she said, her tone a little softer this time around but only very slightly so.

“Alright,” said Nate. “My father had died a couple of hours before I met you. I… I was not dealing with it well. That’s not an excuse for anything, it’s a reason. I don’t expect you to forgive me or excuse me, I am just giving you a reason I swear. I am never going to ask you to not feel whatever it is you are feeling, because your feelings are valid and important.”

“Okay,” said Phoebe. “I appreciate that. Go on, please.”

“So now that my father is dead, I have to deal with a lot of things. I have to kind of… Well, I have to be the one that runs his company and that is a lot of responsibility. I thought that I had ten more years before I had to start running the company, I thought that I had time to enjoy my life because, well, I guess I thought that the day I started running the company would be the day I stopped living for some reason. I thought that I would no longer be able to enjoy my life. That was why I was getting drunk in that bar that night, because I felt like I would no longer be able to live anymore. I was running away from my responsibilities. It was an incredibly childish thing to do, but it was how I was dealing with things.”

“So when I talked to you,” said Phoebe, “you were just using me as a way to distract yourself from the death of your father?”

“No!” said Nate with a stricken expression on his face, “Not at all, Phoebe, not at all! I wanted to get to know you. I swear, whenever I meet new people I feel like running away, I never feel like talking to new people. But when I was with you, it was like something was completely different.