In Love And War by Ruben Rivas (ebook offline txt) 📕

started vomiting for hours. A few days have passed and she started noticing she was getting over this sickness, she began to think about when she had her last period.

-Bethany- (with a confusing look on her face) “When was my last period.”

She said to herself. She than all of a sudden decided to go out for a walk, maybe the fresh air might make her feel better. While walking she sees a drug store (with a blank look on her face) and decides to pick up some pregnancy tests, rushes back home to take the test. First test she takes comes out positive, Bethany starts to feel nervous saying, “No, this can’t be”, she takes the second test also comes out positive, “No, no, no please No!” So Bethany decides to take the third and final test, while waiting for the results Bethany began feeling more nervous, while her hand shaking the test was ready, bursting in tears seeing it was positive, she could not believing this was happening, Bethany was not ready for a child, not yet. Later that night when Jake got home, he quickly noticed the house was a little too quiet, he felt something was up. As Jake calls out Bethany’s name out, he walks into the kitchen, nothing, walks over to the living room, also empty, so then walks up stairs and hears a little crying coming from the bedroom, walks up to the door and opens it, Bethany quickly gets up wipes her tears, acting as if nothing was wrong. Jake could tell something was wrong just by the look on her face.

-Jake- “What’s wrong?”

-Bethany- “Nothing, nothing I’m fine”

-Jake- “Then how come your crying,. Your not fine. Here sit down, what’s wrong?”

Bethany reaches into her pocket and pulls out the pregnancy test, slowly Jake takes the test, starring at it breathless, “Really,. Your pregnant?” Bethany nodes her head.

-Jake- “This is why your crying?”

-Bethany- “I’m not ready for a child, and neither are you, we aren’t ready.”

-Jake- “Bethany, this is a blessing to be in this situation, we can make this work.”

-Bethany- “How?, your already working two jobs and we barely make it for the bills.”

-Jake- “we don’t know that yet, we are just starting this life we have, we can do this, I’ll get more hours at work, or even better look for a better paying job,. we can make this work.”

-Bethany- “I don’t know.”

Starring her right into her eyes Jake gets on his knees an huges Bethany kissing her stomach.

-Jake- “Trust me, Ok,. Trust me.”

 

Chapter VII: Important News

 

The next morning they wake up thinking if they should announce their news so soon. Jake and Bethany gather their mothers to tell them, both more supporting than they expected them to be. They said they’d help with the baby when it arrives. Jake, Bethany and her mother the next day went to the clinic to really verify if a baby was on its way, and it was, she was four weeks pregnant. More tears were shared but of happiness. While Bethany was in the other room changing back into her clothes her mother was telling me she wanted to tell her daughter about her father. She had told me this back Cleveland but I thought it would have been a bad time to bring it up but she told me her decision was made. Later that day Bethany’s mother took her out for lunch to tell her some news of her own. She told her the real reason why they moved to Cleveland, Bethany’s father was back in her mother’s life, and they were working things out cause she still had feelings for him after all these years, that he was a changed man now. Bethany couldn’t agree with her.

-Bethany- “He abandoned us mom, he left you with nothing, to all of a sudden raise a new born baby on your own with no money nor a roof over our head,. You, hurt all those years, and now your just going to take him back,. Just like that.”

-Bethany’s mother- “Yes!.. I forgave him, you should too,”

-Bethany- “No,. I don’t think I can.”

-Bethany’s mother- “I love him, and I want him back in my life.”

Bethany walks away thinking to herself, she could not believe what she was hearing from her mother. When Bethany got home she saw Jake sitting on the couch drinking alcohol, she wondered what’s he doing drinking. She then saw a little card on the table in front of him, it was a draft card. “What’s this?” Bethany asks, Jake with no response looks at Bethany, she says,

“What is this! How come you never told me your enlisted, How come!? How come you didn’t tell me.”

-Jake- “I enlisted after high school, I never thought they’d draft me.”

Bethany with a down some look tells Jake, “What are you going to do? We’re expecting a new life in eight months.”

-Jake- “I know,”

-Bethany- “You’re going to have to go, there is no getting out of this one.”

The next day Jake went to Adams house to talk about what’s been going on. It turns out that Adam was also drafted to the same platoon as Jake. Jake felt a little more relieved that his a close friend was ganna be there. Adam more scared than Jake waiting for the time to pass, both were going to be shipped out a month from now. That month didn’t seem to take its time to get here, Day and Night thinking about the life of Bethany and my baby. how will she pay the bills, our mothers said not to worry but I just could not stop thinking about what I’m leaving behind, the birth of my first child, to watch him/her grow, the more I thought it the more it hurt. Then the time came, I was leaving, Bethany and my mother watching me board a plane, Bethany runs up to me giving me one last hug and kiss she than pulls something out of her right pocket and says, “Here I want you to take this with you, it will keep you safe” it was the little heart shape neckles I had given her in, giving her one last hug and kiss walking towards the plane All I noticed were the tears falling from her face making me want to cry but I held it tight, then we were off to new place a new chapter starting in my book.

Chapter VIII: All Hell in Love and War

 

Day one away from home, hurting inside knowing Bethany’s back home pregnant with my child. It all started with registration, putting together the squads, over fifty men and woman in squad one which I was in, right away day one was hell and squad leader Henson said today is just going to be a sample, tomorrow the real training begins. At the end of the day I couldn’t lift my arms, too sore from the work out, it was tough to even sleep so much in head… More than seventy basic training days, running for three miles and marching for ten. Doing hundreds of sit-ups and pull-ups, the most hardest twelve to thirteen weeks were yet to come. Here they called it Boot Camp but I called it hell. Every day while we weren’t training I was writing to Bethany just needing to know how thing were back home. Bethany felt she wasn’t doing too well, she told me her father was moving back to California and wanted to really spend time with her, she kept telling me she doesn’t want him in her life nor our baby’s, but her mother kept insisting she had at least one day with him. It took Bethany a week to finally agree to meet her father, she felt nerves, she had never seen this man that is her father, never seen a picture nor knew his name. She was afraid she might like this man; she was always too young to understand what really was going on in her life she tried and tried but never succeeded. So finally the time came to meet him, not knowing what to say nor ask, even though thousands of questions were running thru her mind. A man walks up to her slowly with a look on his face as he’d seen a ghost, catches his breath and says,

-Jerry- “Hi Bethany, I’m Jerry, your father.”

-Bethany- “Hi”

-Jerry- “… hum, y.. you must have like a million questions you want to ask me.”

-Bethany- “No…”

-Jerry- “Well… I want you to know I’m sorry for not being there for you, I want you to know it wasn’t your fault or your mothers for what happened… When your mother was pregnant with you I thought I was the most amazing news I had ever received but when you were born, I panic… I didn’t know if I was ready yet, at first it seemed to me I was but I was just a teenager, a kid. So I left I didn’t have anything to give to you nor your mother, I regret every decision I made at that time.”

Bethany with tears running down her face starring into his eyes with nothing to say.

-Jerry- “I’m sorry…”

Bethany gets up and walks away just as he once did. Later that night she kept thinking of what her father had told her, she picks up the phone and dials her mother house,

-Bethany’s mother- “Hello”

-Bethany- “Can I talk to him?”

Silently Bethany’s mother hands Jerry the phone. “Hello”.

-Bethany- “I forgive you…”

That very next day Jerry goes to pick up Bethany to start getting to know each other better. Bethany at

first thinking this won’t be a good idea to get to know Jerry but she then had never felt better to know she has a man she can call father in her life now. She forgot about what he had done quickly. Time and time passing, Bethany feeling her belly getting bigger. Four months now that baby getting its figure, she sent me pictures of the sonogram, it’s a boy, tears immediately falling down my face as I read her letters. Everything going well with her back home, her father was going to head back to Cleveland for a week and wanted her to accompany him in his drive, and so she did. Bethany wrote me two more letters with pictures along the way during her trip. Arriving in Cleveland from their two day trip Bethany wanted to visit some of her friend from the last time she was here but took the rest of the day to rest. The next day while her father was out she decided to take a cab into the city to the coffee shop she had worked in, the manager quickly recognized, it’s only been about five months since she had left. All the same people still worked at the shop, all was going well that day, she saw all her friends even met new ones, talking about her pregnancy if she’s thought of a name for our baby, she said “Sam” the day had gone fast she was heading out the shop when she ran into Brian her ex-boyfriend when she was staying here.

-Brian- “Bethany, Hi?”

-Bethany- “Brian”

-Brian- “Hey I’m sorry for walking out on you back then”

-Bethany- “O.K.”

Bethany not really wanting to talk to this guy, she didn’t have a grudge on this man, she actually had forgotten about it.

-Brian- “How are you?”

-Bethany- “Good, just in town for a few days”

-Brian- “Oh you moved, I had no idea, So what’s new?”

-Bethany- “uhm… I’m pregnant”

-Brian- “What… congratulations, how long you been”

-Bethany- “Five months now.”

Brian with a confused look on a face “Are you sure your five months pregnant?” he said. Bethany

responded “Yeah.” Brian says “That’s impossible, cause we split up about five months ago” Bethany thinking about it turns away, “No, it’s can’t be” she said. She walked away for a about a block thinking exactly when did they split. Brian got into her head, she than cached a cab back to her