Saving Her Billionaire

“No,” said Phoebe guiltily. “No I… I found out quite soon. I could have had it aborted, I just chose not to.”

“You chose not to?” said Ruth. “Why would you do that? You didn’t want kids?”

“After I got pregnant,” said Phoebe, “my opinion changed. I realized that this child was what I needed. I realized that I had been waiting for something like this my whole life, a reason to settle down, a reason to feel important. This child was everything that I had ever wanted and it took a stupid mistake to help me realize that I had always wanted a family.”

“You couldn’t have realized this a couple of years ago while we were breaking up?” said Ruth. Her voice was starting to waver. She looked positively grief stricken. “You couldn’t have thought about the fact that a family might end up being a good thing in the long run when you decided that you would rather leave me than even think about having a family with me?”

“I’m sorry,” said Phoebe. “I don’t know what to say. Back then I had been so sure. I had thought that I knew exactly what I was talking about. I had thought that I would never want a family. I was wrong, I don’t know what else to say.”

“Where’s the father?” asked Ruth.

“He’s in the picture,” said Phoebe. “He takes me to my doctor’s appointments, he helps me take care of myself when I can’t do it myself. He helps me out.”

“He helps you out?” asked Ruth. “So you’re not together?”

Phoebe did not know how to answer that question. She did not know what the status was with her and Nate. They had never talked about it in those terms, about being together or anything like that. It had not been that simple. Right now all that Phoebe could think was that she loved him, and she didn’t think he loved her. His company was his priority, after all, and she didn’t blame him. It had been all that anyone told him to do his entire life, of course that was his priority. She realized that they weren’t together, that, based on all that he had said and how he had behaved, he was only in this for the baby.

She was wrong, of course. Nate did love her, there was no doubt about that. He loved her immensely, he was just scared of that love. He was scared because that love meant that he would not be able to do the thing that everyone else expected him to do. Hence, he had never told her, and he was afraid of the very thought of loving her. This was not his fault, he was a victim of his circumstances just as much as Phoebe was a victim of her own. However, all concepts of fault aside, the fact that Phoebe did not know if Nate loved her or not made her feel like her own love was one sided, and this lead to her saying what she was about to say next in answer to Ruth’s question about whether she was with the father or not.

“No,” said Phoebe. “We’re not together. I think he’s just in this for the baby, because he feels a sense of responsibility towards it. I think he just wants to be a father to the child and leave it at that because he has never indicated that he wants anything with me. I’ve thought about it a lot and I’m okay with that, him just being the father I mean. I’m okay with him not being with me because the baby needs a father more than I need someone to be with.”

Ruth reached out and held Phoebe’s hand. “Let me be there for you,” she said. “Be with me. I know you still love me, I know it. I know that you still feel the love that we have shared because I can see it in your eyes. Be with me, Phoebe, I’ll help you take care of this child, I will love it like my own. The father can stay in the picture and not have to worry about you, this will work out for him as well. It will work out a lot better for everybody like this, can’t you see? You won’t have to worry about anything else either, you can just be with me and let me take care of the baby for you when it all gets too much to handle.”

Phoebe was very tempted to say yes. The very thing that she had feared had started happening. She had started to disregard her feelings towards Nate. This was partly because she had seen Ruth and Ruth had made her forget everything that did not concern her because of how Phoebe felt about her, but it was also partly because of the fact that Phoebe simply did not know how Nate felt about her.

She was starting to get a headache. She was suddenly not so sure anymore. Why could there not be any certainty in her life? Why was she doomed to feeling like she would always have to question her feelings and analyze them until she could finally start to feel some semblance of control? Was a semblance of control the only thing Phoebe seemed to be able to get after all this time?

Phoebe got up. Everything was swirling in her head like a hurricane. Everything Nate had done for her, everything she had once had with Ruth. She remembered that she would have been alright with loving Nate and not having him love her back because they would be together for the child. Being with Ruth would really complicate things. The child would not understand what was going on. The child would feel confused and disoriented by the odd family structure it would be growing up in.

But Phoebe loved Ruth. She didn’t want to spend her life with someone that she didn’t love. She wanted to spend it with someone like Ruth, someone that adored her just as much as she adored them. She deserved that. She deserved a happy, loving family.

But, then again, so did the child. The child in her womb deserved a normal life. Wouldn’t it be selfish of her to give it a life in which it had two mothers and one father? Wouldn’t it be unfair to Nate, who probably would have wanted to be more involved in his child’s life? Phoebe being with Ruth would severely cut down on the amount of time he was able to spend with her. He would resent her for that.

Was she being selfish? Should she be so selfless as to sacrifice her own happiness?

Phoebe was standing but her world was spinning around her. Her headache peaked and she began to fall. She felt like she fell for days and days, that she was falling deep into a chasm but in reality she was only falling to the floor. Ruth got up and rushed to Phoebe’s side as her former lover fell unconscious to the floor.

The last thing that Phoebe saw before consciousness fled from her mind was Ruth’s face, but in her mind it was Nate’s face that she was looking at.