Country Lovin': Chapter Twenty

There was a continuous knocking on her door and she groaned as she rolled out of bed. She wondered if it could be the start of her montly visitor that was causing the stomach pains, but they didn't really feel like cramps. She just assumed that was the reason.

The knocking continued and she moaned as she made her way over to the front door. She looked through the small peephole and gave a half hearted smile. She unlocked the door and removed the bolt and opened the door. It had been two weeks since she returned home from Texas and her sister, Nadine, had come by at least once everyday just to see how she was, how she was feeling. She basically wanted to know what the hell had happened betweem her and Jessie.

"Val! Oh! You look terrible!" She said as she walked through the door. She moved into the living room and sat down.

"Well, I don't feel all that hot either." Valene said as she sat down next to her sister.

"Let me go make you some coffee." Nadine said standing and walking into the kitchen. She stopped, turned around and placed her hands on her slender hips. "So, when are you going to stop avoiding it, and tell me what happened between you and Jessie? Did he do something? Was there a fight?"

Valene smiled and shook her head. "I wasn't avoiding it. I just didn't think it was important for you to know."

"Important for me to know?! I'm your sister. I have unlimited privilage to know about these things." Nadine informed her.

Valene just sighed and leaned her head back, she was not feeling all that well, and she was heading towards the fact that it wasn't her monthly visitor. "I'm sorry, Naddie..I didn't mean for it to sound that way. I just... I wasn't ready to explain anything yet. Jessie didn't do anything. It was me. All me."

Nadine looked at her quizically. "All you? What did you do? Most importantly, why?"

Valene gave a soft chuckle. "Because I was stupid. I thought the best thing for him was for me to leave, and the best thing for me was to leave him so I didn't hurt myself again....but I'm more miserable then ever without him. I think..I..I think I fell in love with him Naddie." Valene confessed looking down at her hands which she held in her lap.

"Oh Val. Why don't you call him? Or..something?" Nadine asked.

"Because I'm too afraid. I'm afraid that he'll hate me...and I don't know what I'd do if I found out he hated me."

"He'd never hate you. Not if he loves you like you do him."

"Why would he love me? Look at me!"

"I am looking at you. You're beautiful, smart, sweet, funny. You're sophisticated and you're just...you're you, Val. You're you, and he loves you. I can tell."

Valene blushed and looked up at her sister. "You are too sweet to me, sis. I doubt I'm all that."

"Well, I don't."

Nadine walked into the kitchen and began to make the coffee. As it began to brew, Valene started to get a sickening feeling in her stomach. She started to get up and wondered if she'd make it to the bathroom.

"Val? Hun, are you okay?" Nadine asked as she watched her sister run to the bathroom. She followed her in there, to see her sister bowed before the commode, throwing up what looked to have been the night before's dinner.

Valene reached up and hit the lever and pushed it down. She slipped back and let her head hit the wall. "What's wrong with me? Huh sis? I just took one whiff of that coffe and it was like it had this...effect on me. I woke up this morning and I'm having these stomach pains and I feel like I should just toss myself out the window."

"Oh Val, don't say that. Why don't we take you to the doctors. Let them find out what's wrong. Maybe it's just a cold." Nadine suggested.

Valene looked up at her sister, standing in the doorway. "Okay."

o o o o o

Valene sat on top of the examining table, watching the clock. She had just finished her examination and she was waiting to hear back from her doctor. It had been at least five minutes, but it felt more like an hour. She knew it couldn't be anything serious. Most likely, she just had a bad cold. Just what she needed. A bad cold was not what she needed when she went to work. She'd spread to everyone and they'd spread it back, and everyone would have it eighty times over before it finally died off.

She sighed deeply and she found that her mind was wandering off to Jessie. She didn't know what she was going to do about it. She had to do something, but what...she didn't know. She was too afraid, to scared to call Jessie, to apologize. She knew she'd have to do something sooner or later. She just...she knew it would be hard when it was time to face him, to stare him in the eye and tell him that she loves him and that she hopes he loves her to, and to forgive her for her stupidity. She smirked to herself and shook her head. In a billion years would he forgive her.

There was a soft knock on the door and it opened. Dr. Rumsfeld stuck her head in through the door and smiled. "Sorry it took so long. I found I had to run a second test."

Valene looked up at the clock. She had been stuck in thought for almost an extra forty minutes. She returned her attention back to the doctor, who was in her late thirties with curly auburn hair and beautiful green eyes. "What second test? Is it bad?"

Dr. Rumsfeld laughed. "Oh Lord no." She laughed and walked over to where her small counter was on the opposite wall. "When I was looking over everything I had examined and wrote down, I noticed that you uterous was blue, so I went and performed a pregnancy test just out of curiosity and I found out it was positive."

Valene felt as if she had just been punched in the gut. "Wha...wha..what did you just say?"

The doctor just laughed. "Hunny, I just told you that you're pregnant."

"Oh Lord." Valene said sliding from the table. She walked towards the door and felt her knees go weak and she was starting to feel light headed. She closed her eyes to make it go away, but she was finding herself getting dizzy and finally the world went black.

o o o o o

"Valene, hun, are you okay?"

Valene softly moaned and opened her eyes. She had fainted on the floor of the doctor's office. It had to be a dream, right? No way could she be pregant. If she was pregant, that meant...Oh Jesus.

"Are you all right, Miss Zimmerman?" That voice belonged to Dr. Remsfeld.

Valene sat up. She was still on the floor and the doctor had used smelling salts on her. "Yea..I'm okay. I just have one major headache."

"What's wrong, Valene?" Nadine looked at the doctor. "What's wrong with her?"

The doctor laughed. "Oh nothing darling, she's just pregnant. That's all."

Nadine's jaw fell and her eyes were big as saucers. "Are you serious?"

"Serious as leaves are green in the summer time." Dr. Remsfeld said with a smile as she helped Valene stand.

"Oh Jeeze. You have to talk to him now." Nadine said, looking at Valene as she helped her sister to the car.

"I know...I know." Valene replied as she sat down in the passenger side and buckled her seatbelt.

Nadine crossed over to the driver's side and climbed in, also buckling her seatbelt as well. "Which means, you have to do it soon. If Jessie doesn't hate you now, he will once he finds out you went and carried and gave birth to his child and never told him."

Valene sighed and laid her head back. "I'll just go and do the noble thing. I'll tell him in person."

As Nadine started the car, she looked over at her sister. "You mean you're going to go back down to Texas?"

Valene nodded. "It's the only way. I'll feel too much like a chicken shit if I just called him and told him over the phone. I have to do it in person. It's something I have to do."

Nadine nodded and pulled out of the parking lot and started on the ride home. "That does sound very noble of you. When do you plan on heading out?"

"Well, I figure I can always look up the tickets on the internet like I did before and just get there as soon as I can. He needs to know. We definitely need to work something out."

"Need any help?" Nadine offered.

"No sis, I need to do this on my own. It's something I have to do on my own. I put myself in this perdicament, not you." Valene sighed heavily and leaned her head back against the headrest.

o o o o o

The doctor had prescribed some medication for Valene's stomach aches and the sligh headache which had not been formed by her faint spell in the doctor's office. It was safe for the baby she was now carrying. She groaned at the thought of it. It wasn't a bad thing, she always wanted to be a mother. It was just the way everything was turning out. She wanted to start a family after she was married.

She clicked on Internet Explorer and began her search onto getting a plane ticket for Texas. She had done it before and never thought she'd have to do it again. She never thought that she would've met Jessie either, but she had. It wasn't something she could go back and change. This baby she was now carrying, was proof of that.

She sighed as she clicked on the button which secured her ticket for the next day at two in the afternoon. She'd have to be up by nine and ready at eleven. She had two days. Two days to face up and tell him her big huge secret. Sighing again she signed off the internet and shut down her computer; her body was tired from the long day and nothing but sighing could express her tiredness.

She grabbed her prescription bottle and empty glass of orange juice and walked into the kitchen. She washed out the glass and placed it into the dish washer and set it, then placed her bottle on the counter. She stretched and walked lazily into her bedroom and slid onto her bed and absent mindedly grabbed the sheets.

She looked out the window and took a deep breath, releasing it slowly. She only hoped that Jessie wouldn't completely hate her. She wanted him to be apart of their baby's life. She hoped that maybe she could move to Texas and they could be at least friends and if things went okay, that maybe they could become something more. She rolled her eyes and then rolled onto her back. Stop dreaming Valene. He'll never want to marry you.

She tried to dismiss the thoughts from he mind. She needed sleep. Her body needed sleep. She turned onto her side and hugged her other pillow close to her bosom and soon fell asleep.

"Country Lovin': Chapter Twenty-One"