Unplanned Parenthood
Jordyn paced the bedroom floor like a fiend. She knew Mega was going to be pissed about the baby, but she didn’t know what else to do. Taking her back to the daycare was out of the question because she was afraid of going to jail. And she had no idea where to find Mila, so that was the first thing checked off her list of options.
The only thing she could do was wait for Mega.
“Jordyn?” He called out to her as soon as he entered the house. “Yo? You in here?”
“I’m upstairs,” she answered nervously. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” she whispered to herself.
The closer he got to the bedroom, the harder her heart pounded in her chest. She almost wanted to hide her crime until she figured out a way to make it right, but it was too late. Mega was already making his way into the bedroom.
“Hey.” He stopped dead in his tracks, wondering whose baby was sitting on his bed.
“Surprise?” Jordyn questioned her own introduction. “How was your trip?”
“Jordyn?” he asked as he inched deeper into the room. “Is that…Is that Mila’s baby?”
No words had to fall from her lips for him to know the answer to his question. The look on her face told him everything he needed to know.
“Are you serious right now? Why, Jordyn? Why? Where’s Mila!?”
“I don’t know.” Jordyn’s voice was light and full of fear. “It wasn’t supposed to go down like this at all.”
“What wasn’t supposed to go down like this!? What are you talking about?”
“My plan.” She lowered her head, feeling ashamed.
“What are we supposed to do with this baby, Jordyn?”
Mega sat at the edge of the bed with his head in his hands, afraid to look at the precious baby girl his new girlfriend had cradled in her arms.
“I don’t know, Mega. I wasn’t planning for Mila to just up and disappear!”
“Well, what exactly were you planning? You did some shit like this before?”
“No! What the hell?” She paced the room as she rocked the baby to soothe her crying. “I was only trying to help and now look! I guess I’m a mom now? I don’t know what to do, Mega.”
Mila wasn’t supposed to leave without her baby. She was supposed to come to Jordyn, squash their beef, take her baby and get out of dodge. Or whatever the fuck she did when she wasn’t setting up her ex-boyfriend’s murder. But Jordyn’s plan had backfired, and she was stuck with a baby she had no knowledge about.
She thought about dropping the baby off at her grandmother’s house, but something had her clutching the little girl like she was her own.
“This is kidnapping. You know that, right?” Mega asked. “How the hell did you even find this baby? And why would you think it was a good idea to bring her here? Come on, Jordyn!”
“I’m sorry!” She panicked, still rocking the baby in her arms. “And stop yelling. You’re making her cry more... Oh my God, what am I supposed to do?”
Mega raised his eyebrows and shrugged nonchalantly before replying, “You tell me. This was your plan.”
It was her plan. One she thought would make life a little easier for him. But all it did was create more chaos and friction.
“Mega,” she whined, stepping in front of him with the baby.
He didn’t have the words. He only shook his head, closed his eyes, and fell back onto the bed.
“Say something,” Jordyn said. “Regardless of anything, there’s a possibility that this baby is yours, so you would have had to see her one way or the other.”
“Yeah, but on MY terms.” Mega got up and paced the room. “You didn’t even give me the option ofwantingto see this baby!”
Jordyn didn’t understand why he was so upset. She knew to some extent, but he acted like it was a baby he took care of and then found out she wasn’t his in the end. Aside from being caught off guard, Jordyn thought he would have been happy to find out if she was his or not.
“This is crazy.” He laughed and lit up a blunt on the other side of his oversized bedroom. “I cannot believe this shit.”
“Well, are you gonna help me figure this out?” Jordyn asked.
“Help you figure it out? Now you wanna ask me what to do? I don’t know, Jordyn. I don’t know what to do right now. I just settled shit with the Columbians and now I gotta figure out what to do with a baby you kidnapped?”
“What if she’s yours? Then what?”
“Exactly! Then what!?” Mega snapped. “This is exactly why this little plan of yours should’ve never happened.”
Feeling defeated, Jordyn rolled her eyes and went back to the bed to tend to the baby. After staring at the tiny face in front of her for what felt like minutes, she told herself she would figure it out with or without Mega’s help. Even though she had no idea where to start.
Mega was in a state of terror. He silently hoped and prayed the baby wasn’t his. Not because he didn’t want kids, but because that wasn’t how he imagined himself finding out he was a father. Especially to a child he created with a woman who wanted him dead.
“Do you think she’s mine?” he asked, finally breaking their silence.
“If you looked at her, you might be able to tell me.” Jordyn replied.
She believed the baby was his. Only because she was head over heels in love already, and that would’ve been the only reason, other than being a cute baby, that loving her would’ve come so easily.
“Come look at her.” She smiled and cooed with the baby. “She’s the cutest thing ever. And she does look like you. For real.”
Exhaling his smoke, Mega pondered on the kid being his. If she was, it meant he had to think of an alternative to killing Mila.
To him, that was asking for a lot, because Mila smiled in his face every day and never once mentioned she had a child. And she tried to set him up to be killed. That was the ultimate violation, and she had to be dealt with. But how?
“Long time no-speak.”
When Jordyn heard Mega speak to someone who wasn’t in the room, her instincts took her ears straight to his conversation.
“Hey, Mega.” A woman’s voice boomed through the speakerphone. “This is Brenda, Mila’s... You know who I am. Have you seen her? She was supposed to stop by a few days ago, before she went to work, but I haven’t been able to get in contact with her.”
Mega was shocked to hear from Brenda. The last time they spoke to each other, they were arguing about Mila, and there she was, calling like nothing had ever happened.
“Nah, I haven’t.” He sat back on his sofa. “I haven’t seen her since the other night. Ask her boyfriend.”
There was an awkward silence between them. Almost like Brenda had something else she wanted to say but was afraid to spill the beans.
“If I hear from her, I’ll make her give you a call.” Mega spoke up first, ready to end the awkwardness of their phone call.
Just before he pressed the end button, Brenda opened her mouth to get her frustrations off her chest. She was worried about her grandchild because it wasn’t like Mila to just go MIA, and she was the only other person who knew the true story about Mila’s baby.
“Hey, Mega,” she sighed, unsure how to start. “I don’t know if Mila ever got around to telling you, but she had a baby. Mecca… MJ is her nickname.” Brenda smiled, thinking about her only grandchild. “She looks just like you. That’s why we call her MJ.”
Jordyn stared at Mega with her hand covering her mouth. Her heart broke imagining how he must have felt at that moment. Finding out he had a daughter because his new girlfriend kidnapped her had to be something you only saw on TV.
“How old is she?” he asked, almost in a whisper.
“One.”
Things started to make sense to him. Mila was still living up north when Mega found out she was seeing Polo. After that, they stopped communicating for a while, so he had no idea she was pregnant all that time. Even if he had, he would’ve thought it was by someone else.
“I just wanna make sure my daughter and grandchild are ok,” Brenda said. “I’m worried about them.”
“I have the baby,” Mega replied, not even thinking about his response.
“Huh?” Brenda shot up in her chair. “You have MJ? How?”
Explaining to her how he came across the baby was something he didn’t know how to do. Not only that, he feared that if he did, Brenda would send the cops looking for Jordyn, and even though he was mad at her for pulling the stunt she pulled, he wanted to protect her.
“I’ll have to come see you and we can talk about it.” He spoke as he fought back tears. “You still in the same place?”
“Yeah.” She frowned, wondering what the hell was going on. “You on your way now?”
“Yeah. I’ll be there.”
After hanging up the call, Mega sat in silence for a moment, fighting the reality that fought back to sink in.
He had a daughter with his enemy. And as much as he hated to admit it, the child leveled the playing field for them. Mila would have been an easy kill had he not found out about MJ. But after Brenda had confirmed his worst fear, Mila suddenly had the upper hand.
“You ok?”
Jordyn tried her best to be there for him in a way that wouldn’t make him more upset, but he wasn’t having it. His anger was apparent, and he was very vocal about it.
“Mega, please,” she whined as she bounced MJ on her lap for him to see. “Look how cute she is. And she does look just like you.”
“Yeah,” he sighed, keeping his back turned to the both of them as he prepared to walk out. “I’ll be back. I gotta go figure this shit out.”
Before he left the room, Jordyn laid MJ down on the bed and made her way over to him. She wanted to touch him. To feel that he still felt the same about her, even though he was mad at her.
“I’m sorry.” She pouted, grabbing his hand. “I really didn’t think this all the way through. But I’m glad I did it. I mean, at least we found out who she belongs to. That counts for something. Right?”
She was right. It did count. Mega may not have liked how the information came about, but he was glad to know that he had a child.
“You right.” He kissed her forehead. “It counts. I’ll see you later.”
He still hadn’t laid eyes on MJ, and Jordyn felt a way about that. She knew he was upset, but damn! It wasn’t the baby’s fault that her parents’ relationship was so dysfunctional her mother didn’t know who her father was. And Jordyn felt like Mega was just as much to blame.
“Daddy’s being mean.” She lifted MJ up to her chest and patted her back. “It’s not your fault. Look at you! You’re so cute! He won’t be mad about you forever.”
Baby MJ seemed to like Jordyn too. She smiled and giggled every time Jordyn said something to her. She even let her change her diaper without too much fuss.
Throughout the day, Jordyn thought about Mega and how he must have been feeling. She wanted to call him a few times but decided against it. She figured he needed space to get his head on straight, so she spent her time playing with MJ. Rewashing baby clothes. Changing diapers and making lunch.
She had no idea what to feed a one year old, but after hopping on a few Google threads and single mom Facebook groups, Jordyn became a baby chef guru.
It helped that Mega ate so much junk food too. He had everything she needed to prepare a simple meal for a baby just starting out on solid food. He also had a pack of baby bottles on hand. And Jordyn could only imagine what those were used for.
“You had a good lunch? Are you ready for a nap?” she asked as if MJ could answer. “I gotta get you on video,” she laughed and grabbed her phone from the back pocket of her jeans. “You look just like your daddy.”
MJ did look just like Mega. She had the same head full of curls, little short, stubby legs and arms. Chubby feet and small hands. She even smiled like him too. So the minute Jordyn laid eyes on her, she already knew who her daddy was.
“I’m gonna have to go get you more diapers,” she said, making a mental note for herself. “Maybe I’ll go after your nap. Or have Mom grab some on her way from bingo.”
As she climbed the stairs to put MJ down for a nap, she thought about what else she might need for a baby. She also thought about what would happen if Mila never came back. She hoped Mega wouldn’t give the baby back to the grandmother. Because even though Brenda had more of a connection with MJ, Jordyn felt like if her mother didn’t have her, then her father should.
