I woke up slowly as though I was wading through treacle. The last time I had felt so deeply asleep was the morning after Rafael and I had sex for the first time, but this felt different. For starters, my stomach was hurting and there was a beeping sound coming from beside me. It must be my alarm clock. I reached out to turn it off, but nothing happened, and I finally opened my eyes.

I took in the sterile looking white ceiling and walls, and the blue blanket that covered me to my chest where a white and blue spotted gown took over, and it dawned on me that I was in hospital. But why?

I tried to sit up and a sharp pain went through my stomach, and I flopped back down with a groan.

“Hey, don’t try to move yet,” Rafael said.

I felt relief flood me. He was here. Even after I had yelled at him, he had stayed. I felt tears fill my eyes.

“Are you in pain?” Rafael asked, his face lined with concern.

“No,” I said, my voice barely louder than a whisper. “Well, yes, but that’s not why I’m crying.”

“What is it?” he asked.

“You stayed,” I said. “I was a bitch to you, I completely over reacted, and you stayed.”

“Of course I stayed,” Rafael said with a soft laugh. “It’ll take a bit more than that to get rid of me.”

“Good to know,” I joked, and we both laughed but I instantly regretted it as my stomach tugged with pain. I winced. “What happened?”

“I’m not sure. The nurse said just to sit in here with you and the surgeon will be around soon,” he said.

“I had surgery?” I said.

“Oh. Yes. Sorry I thought you knew that. I don’t know why though,” Rafael said.

I pressed the bell for a nurse. I needed to know what the hell was going on with me. A nurse came along a few minutes later and she smiled down at me.

“Ah, you’re awake. Let me get Doctor Patterson to come in and speak to you,” she said.

She left before I could ask her any questions and I hoped this Doctor Patterson wasn’t going to pull the same stunt. I didn’t have to wait long to find out. Doctor Patterson came into the room a few minutes later. He was younger looking than I would have expected a surgeon to be. He had blonde floppy hair and blue eyes and a rather large nose.

“Hello Ms Rogers,” he said, smiling at me.

“Call me Lena,” I croaked. “How do you know my name anyway?”

“I told them,” Rafael said.

Oh of course. The anesthetic must have left me a bit dozy I thought to myself.

“How are you feeling?” Doctor Patterson asked.

I shrugged.

“I’ve been better but overall, not too bad,” I said.

“That’s good,” he said. “Considering it was pretty much touch and go back there. Your appendix had burst. Another two, three minutes and you would have gone into septic shock. We most likely would have lost you.”

I took a minute to take that in, but Doctor Patterson wasn’t finished dropping bombs on me just yet.

“Don’t worry. There’s no reason you won’t make a fast and full recovery, and the baby is fine,” he said.

“Umm baby?” I said.

“Ah. You didn’t know. I wasn’t sure you would with it being so early,” he said. “When you get out of here, make an appointment with your usual doctor and you can start thinking about choosing an OB-GYN if you don’t already have one.”

“Wait, I think you have me mixed up with someone else. I’m not pregnant,” I said. “I’m on birth control.”

“I can assure you that you very much are pregnant Ms … Lena. Birth control isn’t one hundred percent effective as I’m sure you know. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to be in surgery in half an hour,” Doctor Patterson said and then he too was gone leaving me with a ton of questions.

I took a deep breath and thought for a moment. Pregnant. I didn’t know how I felt about it. I put my hands on my stomach and I felt myself starting to smile. Ok, I knew how I felt about it. I was happy. Me. The woman who had never wanted children was happy to be expecting one. But I knew I couldn’t expect Rafael to sign up to this. We had been together less than a month after all. I turned my head towards him.

“You don’t have to be a part of this Rafael,” I said. “Honestly, I won’t hold it against you. I know we haven’t been together long and …”

He reached out and gently brushed his fingers on my lips in a shush gesture. I stopped talking and looked at him.

“Admittedly you tried a bit harder to get rid of me this time, but I’ve told you Lena, I’m not going anywhere. And please don’t think I am only staying with you because you’re pregnant. Don’t get me wrong I am excited at the thought of being a father, but I am staying because well … because I love you, Lena,” he said.

Tears filled me eyes and I blinked them away and swallowed hard past the lump that had suddenly formed in my throat.

“I love you too,” I whispered.

He leaned forward and kissed me on the lips and in that moment, despite the fact I was in hospital and had just had surgery, everything was right in the world.

Epilogue – Rafael

Ten Months Later

My grandmother looked up from the baby’s face and smiled at me and Lena.

“She is adorable,” she confirmed. “A real beauty. Are you sure about the name though?”

“I couldn’t think of anyone I would rather my daughter be named after,” Lena said. “And Evelyn is such a pretty name.”

My grandmother beamed at her and then looked back down at the baby.

“And to think, when I first met your mom, she and your dad were playing some silly game where they pretended to be dating even though they didn’t like each other. I suspect that might have been to make an old lady happy. And here we are. They finally saw it wasn’t an act after all and now the old lady is very happy indeed.”

“What?” I exclaimed. “You knew all along?”

“Of course I did Raf. I’m old not stupid. No one else picked up on it, but that’s because they don’t see what’s right in front of them,” she said.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” I asked.

“Because I could see that something was starting to form between you two and if I had told you the game was up, you would have had no reason to continue to spend time together. And this little poppet would never have been born,” my grandmother said.

I shook my head in wonder, although in hindsight, I should never have underestimated her like that. If anyone was going to know what was really going on in any given situation, it was her.

Lena and I had lunch with my grandmother while baby Evelyn slept, and afterwards, we took a stroll along the street in front of my grandmother’s house.

“You do remember our deal, don’t you?” I said. “If my grandmother suspects anything, the deal is off? So, I do believe you owe me a substantial amount of money.”

“Yeah, you’re too late buddy. See someone persuaded me to use it to buy my own day care centre,” Lena said, nudging me and smiling.

“That was good advice,” I said laughing. “But about your debt. If you can’t pay it in money, well there are other ways.”

I raised an eyebrow and Lena playfully slapped me on the arm. We laughed and I wrapped an arm around her, and she snuggled against me and it was the three of us against the world, and in that moment, my whole world was absolutely perfect.