I froze as my heart rate increased in my chest. My mouth dried out and I couldn't even say one word.

"What.The.Fuck.Is.This?" he asked again and all I could get out of my mouth was a stammered I'm sorry.

"You're pregnant." he stated and I nodded.

"How long have you know?" When I couldn't get the answer out fast enough, he repeated the question in a loud voice that made me flinch and that was when Leo came into the kitchen.

"Bro. Calm down. Whatever it is, you don't need to.."

"Shut the fuck up Leo. Maya how long?"

"Two weeks."

When I said it, he was silent for a moment before he chuckled. "Two weeks and you didn't think I needed to know? You had all the time to think of getting an abortion but you didn't think I had to know about it or is the baby not mine? Maybe you fucked around and got pregnant and didn't want me to find out so you decided to get rid of the evidence before it becomes obvious."

I shook my head as my hand reached out to touch his hand which he pulled back. The last thing I wanted was for him to think that. "No. That's not it. The baby is yours but-"

He cut me off by muttering "fuck this." before turning to leave the kitchen. I moved to follow him but Leo shook his head, motioning me to stay before he followed his friend out. I heard the entrance door slam shut first when he left, then close softly when Leo left. I numbly pulled out a chair and sat down as the pot boiled away behind me. It was when the smell of burnt food permeated the air that I moved to turn off the stove. Looking at the charred contents of the pot, I thought of starting from the beginning. Who am I kidding? No one is eating dinner this night.

Taking my seat again, I remained there until I heard the door open again about an hour later. It wasn't slammed this time around but somehow, I knew it was Keith and he was alone. He came into the kitchen and sat down opposite me. I just looked at him. His eyes were angry but his fave had no expression on it. After a moment, he asked the question I had been dreading since he left the house angrily. "Why?"

I couldn't remember ever being as angry as I was at that moment as I watched the woman I had all but said I love you to tell me the reason why she didn't tell me she was pregnant with my baby and why she had even considered aborting it without letting me know. It hurt.

I hadn't gone snooping around in her room. Leo had kept going on and on about how he wanted to use her game console to play the Walking Dead game I told him she got. I had gone upstairs to get the console and chuckled when I saw the open book on her bed. I had called her a nerd and looked at it to know what she was reading only to see the words written in her writing. Confusion was the first thing I felt, followed by rage and then disappointment. Maya was the homeliest person I ever met and I loved that about her, and to find out that she wasn't so different after all was a huge kick in the guts. What floored me wasn't just the fact that she was pregnant and didn't let me know but that she had thought of having an abortion without even letting me know that I was going to be a father.

"Bro you shouldn't have gone snooping around her private things." Leo said when I finally calmed down and I glared at him.

"I wasn't snooping around. I went up there to get the fucking game you couldn't stop talking about and saw the book and thought it was another weird one like the Zombie Apocalypse one she read yesterday. It didn't occur to me that it was a diary and not a paperback novel."

"Well I know you well enough to tell you to calm down and try not to make rash decisions that you'll regret later because we all know you Keith. When you're angry, you don't give a shit about any other important thing."

I didn't say anything else to him and he just sat there with me, and when I was ready to leave, he drove back to his house while I went the opposite direction. And while I sat down opposite Maya and waited for her to give me one good reason why she did what she did, I just thought what a shame. I guess nobody is perfect. Even Maya, the Maya that can do no wrong, the Maya that I placed on a fucking high pedestal can do crazy things that can hurt other people. That feeling of betrayal and pain in my chest just got heavier.

"I didn't want you to hate me." she said while looking down at her hands that were probably fisted in her laps. I was taken aback by her response and I felt my forehead furrow in the confusion I felt. "Hate you for what?"

"I thought you'd blame me for it. I thought you'd tell me that I'm supposed to know how to protect myself against the consequences of unprotected sex, that you'd ask me why you'd want to have a baby with me."

"I knew that a pregnancy could possibly arise the very first time had sex, the other times I also knew. Why else would I have had unprotected sex with you knowing full well that you weren't protected if I didn't have any hope of starting a family with you?I all but said the L-word Maya. I thought action speaks louder than words. Where else did I go wrong or what could I have possibly done or said to make you think I'd hate you for getting pregnant?"

I watched her place her hands on the table and link and unlink her fingers throughout the timeI spoke. She looked so vulnerable at that moment and deep down, all I wanted to do was take her in my arms and dispel her fears but I knew that if I did that, we wouldn't go anywhere with our conversation. We needed to get to the bottom of the issue because what she did was a serious breach of trust.

"At first, because of how mean you were to me, I knew you didn't like me. But then you became so nice it was unbelievable. Like one moment you were being an assistant and the next you were being so...nice. After battling with insecurities all my life, I actually started thinking you liked me for me, that you did want me for me. And I really liked that because it made me happy. You made me feel desirable, likeable, beautiful and I really liked it. It gave me confidence, and I was able to stand the fact that your mum really hated me. I thought that so long as you liked me, I couldn't find it in me to give two shits about what she thought about me." She stopped to take a deep breath and swallow before continuing. "But the week you were sick, she rejected the scrap book and asked why I had the effrontery to get her something so cheap and I told her my mind. That day in the hospital, after her numerous attempts to make me feel like shit, I sucked it up and asked her why she hated me so much and she said I was a slut like my mum who trapped my father with pregnancy knowing fully well that he was engaged to someone else, that the only difference was that while my mum was beautiful, I was just a fat ugly skank and then said that if I wanted to know more that I should ask my dad." She paused to take a deep breath before she continued.

"Last two weeks during the dinner, when you stepped out to take that call, because I have known you long enough to know that you usually step away from people when you want to make a long call so as to not inconvenience anyone, I used that opportunity to ask your mum and my dad what the deal between them really was, why she hated me so much even though I wasn't the one that did something wrong to her. It turned out to be one big revenge plan of hers to get her hands on my dad's company and then ruin my life for being the lovechild that took him away from her, so I started doubting your actions. I began wondering if you really cared. I started thinking that maybe it's all an act, that maybe you were part of it all and it's all a game to you guys and I really am nothing more than a means to an end. But I was so scared of facing the truth. I was scared of asking you if its true and I wanted things to remain the way it was between us for a longer period of time. I was scared of finding out that maybe you didn't care about me at all. That's why I didn't ask you anything about it. Then I found out I was pregnant the day I was sick and everything just escalated. I...I'm sorry. I wasn't going to do it. I even hate myself for considering it in the first place and I can't find it in me to forgive myself right now but I want you to know that I wasn't going to do it.It was just a thought that I had when everything was choking me up."

I listened to everything she said without interrupting her. I asked the universe why everything just seemed to happen when I wasn't around. First when I was sick, then when I had to take that call. I found out that someone was stealing from the company and it had been the most tasking thing I had ever done since I was put in charge. Trying to figure who it was had taken so much of my time back then and I couldn't really focus on the things around me. When I saw the doctor when Maya was sick, she had told me that all her test results weren't out yet but the obvious one was the gastroenteritis which they were already treating her for.If I had known that she'd wake up when I went to get something to eat, I would have just remained there. And now, this.

I always knew mother didn't like her, that to her, everything was just for the business. But I didn't know she was that open about it. I didn't even know it ran this deep, I just thought that it was just her being her usual unfriendly self.

"So the fact that I left Vegas not up to an hour after I got there because I was called and told you were sick didn't tell you anything about how genuine my feelings were?" I asked and when she didn't say anything I just sighed and ran my fingers through my hair.

"You know what I think? Everything boils down to your low self-esteem issues."

She opened her mouth to say something but I cut her off. "Let me finish Maya. Your self-esteem is the lowest I've seen in my entire life. Back then I'd tell you to roll over and lick my shoes and you'd do it because you wanted me to like you. I'd make a ridiculous request just to know if you'd say no but you won't. It's always yes because you want acceptance. Now, it is affecting our relationship negatively. I genuinely show you how much I care about you and you suddenly start suspecting me of being the bad guy because my mother is a bitch to you and you expect everyone to be the same and no one to actually like you. You should know me by now, so you know I don't pretend. Why the fuck will I pretend for almost 10 months just to laugh in your face? I'll compliment you and you'll see it as an insult and you'd still not say anything to me about it. You lack self confidence. You go as far as thinking of killing your own child just so I won't hate you, so I'll keep treating you nicely. You seriously need help. I thought you got better at some point butI don't know what happened or what led to this, but I foyou just ruined everything between us with this stunt you just pulled. There is no trust in this relationship. I don't trust that you won't do something more extreme than this and you don't trust me."

"I do trust you." she whispered but I shook my head sadly.

"If you trusted me, you would have talked to me first instead of jumping to conclusions. A relationship is nothing without trust, and the sad thing about ours is that it is a marriage that started off on the wrong foot. So from tomorrow, you are going for counseling, and then after that, when I'm sure you're better than this, I will file for divorce."

I felt my heart almost stopped beating in my chest when I heard his words.

"Wh..wh.. What?" I stammered as I processed his words. I couldn't believe my ears neither could I believe the turn of events.

He sighed and ran his right hand down his face before answering my question. "We're getting a divorce when you're done with counseling."

"Keith... Come on. I know what I did was wrong but we can fix this. We can..."

He cut me off. "We can't. Maya there is no trust between us. Neither of us trusts one another because firstly you don't trust me and secondly I don't think I'll ever trust you again after today's event. Also I can't find it in me to forgive you for what you just did."

"What of the company? The contract? You want to loose everything because of this?" I asked and he shrugged. I almost laughed at how different we both were. When my dad said I should file for divorce, even though I had been hurting, I had vehemently refused because I didn't want to be the reason for loosing the business that had been passed down to him. But Keith did not care if his mother lost everything because of the decisions he made when he was hurting.

I didn't say a word after that and when he stood up and left the kitchen I was still too frozen to even say one more word. Being the kind of person I am, I zombied around the kitchen, putting everything back to where they belonged and washing the pots. I ate bread that tasted like carton in my mouth because I couldn't starve myself because of my baby. I already did wrong by him and didn't want to do more, and the least I could do for him was eat.

It was when I slipped into my cold bed alone that the gravity of the turn of events hit me and that was when the dam broke free.