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Before: Being Pregnant Sucks


Nick


I grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler as I swung past it on my way to the last costume change. The fans were all screaming, thundering, making the poles that held the stage up vibrate. I unscrewed the cap and poured the water over my head, shaking like a dog so my hair pinged water in every direction.

"Jesus Nick," Kevin snapped. "I don't need a shower."

Howie sniffed the air, "Actually I think all five of us need one, but that's okay."

"GoodLordTheyreLoudTonightAren'tTheyLoudTonightItsCrazyHowLoudTonightTheyAreIsntItCrazy?" Brian bounced by.

Kevin looked like he was remembering why he quit.

AJ pulled his shirt off and threw it at my face.

I caught it and threw it back. "Gross," I said, "You almost got your arm pit sweat in my mouth."

"Then we'd be sweat brothers," AJ snorted.

Kevin was methodically changing from one outfit to the other.

"I'm fucking exhausted," I complained, sitting down.

"Aren't you going to change?" Howie asked, throwing my clothes at me.

I held them in a ball on my lap.

"IsItSeriouslyJustMeOrAreTheySuperSuperLoudTonight?" Brian spazzed.

"Brother needs some riddalin," AJ said, thumbing at Brian.

Kevin eyed me, "You okay there, cubby?" he asked me, seeing I still hadn't started undressing.

"Yeah," I answered.

"You sure?"

I nodded.

"You've been quiet all night," Kevin commented.

I shrugged. Then I stood up and started changing.

AJ swung his arm around my shoulder on the way back out to the stage a minute later. He waited until the other three guys were a couple paces ahead of me, then he said, "It's her birthday."

I nodded.

"You ain't called her?"

I shook my head.

AJ sighed.

"Do you think I should?"

He thought about it for a few minutes. "I don't know dude. Do you want to?"

I nodded.

AJ shrugged, "Then do it."

"Maybe."

"For now, let's go finish this show, ey?" he grinned, then slapped his hand against the center of my back, "I'm really fucking glad we're on tour again, I missed this. I missed the smell of the stage lights." He galloped ahead of me.

"Yeah," I said to his retreating back. I sighed. But I hadn't missed it as much as I thought.




Ashley

I was stuck on the couch.

My stomach felt like I'd swallowed a beach ball. I waved my arms and legs, feeling ridiculously like a turtle that had flipped over on the beach. But my stomach just wasn't bending to let me get up. I slid forward, carefully pushing my ass right to the edge of the couch and grabbed onto the arm of it, struggling to get up to my feet. It took seriously about fifteen minutes for me to go from sitting down to standing up. I had literally broken a sweat. And by the time I was up, I almost couldn't remember why I'd wanted to get up in the first place.

It didn't help that it was about a million degrees outside and the fucking air conditioner was broke in the apartment. I'd asked Chris about a thousand times to call someone to have it looked at, but he still hadn't yet. Instead, he preferred to come home from work late and bitch that the apartment was hot when I asked why he didn't come home earlier to be with me.

I waddled slowly to the kitchen, my hands on my back for support.

It sucks being a human whale.

Being pregnant sucks.

I stood in the kitchen, winded from walking all the hell the way out there from the couch, and leaned against the counter top, breathing deep.

I was so huge that our doctor had tested me like fifteen times to make sure I wasn't carrying multiples. But every time he checked, it was just excess water weight. I felt like I was carrying octuplets like that lady on TV.

I struggled to squat down to get a pan out of the cupboard, and pulled myself back up right, grunting like I was trying to foist a baby elephant. I put the pan on the stove and waddled to the cupboard to get the stuff to make Chris's dinner because he'd texted me like a half an hour before and asked that it be ready when he got home after going out drinking with the guys from work.

I rubbed the small of my back while a steak cooked on the stove top - five minutes on each side - and potatoes baked in the microwave. My spine ached like crazy. I sighed and waddled to the stool in the corner, lowering myself onto it with a heavy sigh. "Oh my God," I muttered, closing my eyes and leaning against the counter.

I remembered being nimble and skinny and looking good in clothing. Now, I pretty much had to wear sweatpants all the fucking time because that's all that would fit me. Chris didn't like that. He made comments all the time about my sweatpants and me looking ugly. I felt like shit and his comments didn't help. The only thing he didn't have any negative comments about were my boobs which were all swollen up like crazy and barely stayed in any of my shirts except my Journey shirt that I'd stolen from Nick so long ago that even Chris didn't know where it came from originally...

Nick.

The name was red hot in my mind. I'd heard that the Backstreet Boys were on tour, that Nick was out there on stage killin' it, that people were generally accepting of his scar. I hoped that he was happy and successful. But I hadn't seen him since the wedding, when he'd taken my hand and put it into Chris's and then run out the door.

The last image I had of Nick was him kneeling in the foyer of the church, literally begging me not to marry Chris.

I wished so much I had listened to him.

I wished I could call him to tell him that.

I'd do anything to turn back time and just change everything.

I closed my eyes and thought about the night when Nick and I drove to the Nevada state line, about that moment when Chris had texted me I found the pregnancy test earlier and I cant wait any longer did you take it yet? and everything that I'd wanted had taken a backseat because I'd realized I wasn't making choices for just me anymore.

Suddenly the fire alarm was going off and I looked up and realized that I'd forgotten to flip Chris's steak and it was smoking like crazy. I struggled to my feet and quickly waddled over, stabbed a fork into it and flipped it, revealing a heavily burned underside. "Fuck," I swore. I grabbed a hand towel and waddled to the fire alarm, waving the towel at it like crazy, trying to get the thing to shut the hell up. Meanwhile, the phone started ringing on the wall. "Oh my God! Are you fucking kidding me!?" I shouted. Still waving the towel, I grabbed the phone, "ONE SECOND HANG ON," I yelled into it, over the shrill wheeeeeeeet, wheeeeeeeeeeeeet, wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeet of the alarm. I threw the phone onto the counter, waving the towel even more vigorously.

When it had finally shut the hell up, I sighed in relief. I grabbed the phone off the counter. "Hello?" I said into it, carrying it as I waddled back to Chris's steak.

"Ashley?"

I blinked in surprise. No way in hell was that him. No way in hell. I'd just been thinking about him.

"Ashleyyyy?" he called, "It's me, Nick."

"Nick," I said his name, breathless. Whether from all the waddling back and forth I'd just done or from sheer surprise to hear his voice again, I'm not sure. Probably both.

"Happy Birthday," he said.

It was the most beautiful thing anyone had ever said to me. And I started to cry. Because, you know, that's what you do when you're pregnant.