I wake up in something of a daze and throw my two pillows to the other side of the bed. I sit up a little, resting myself

I pull out my phone and check the news sites as I always do before even getting out of bed. I have a number of alerts set to myself and my company. It’s one of the ways I stay on top of the competition.

The annoying thing is that occasionally the news alerts bring up some gossip stories about me and Sarah. There’s nothing that I haven’t seen before, though.

Nothing I haven’t seen before, that is, until today.

The headline catches my eye and I can’t get it out of my head.

“Billionaire’s Girlfriend Pregnant. Who’s the father?” reads the headline.

My head starts spinning. This isn’t going to make the morning any easier. I haven’t even had my coffee yet. I take a deep breath and clap my hands, turning the lights in the bedroom on.

I hold the phone closer to my face and keep reading. The brightness of the phone is somewhat jarring this early in the morning, so I turn it down on one of the settings.

“Cleaner girlfriend of billionaire spotted coming from prenatal visit. You’ll note from the pictures that she’s been wearing less and less revealing clothing over the last few weeks. Sources confirm that her baby bump is developing nicely. The doctor in question has refused to comment at this time…”

I’m just scanning the article.

My heart feels like it’s hit the floor.

I’m good at interpreting news. You have to be in my line of work. And while this article comes from one of the least reputable online sites, it still has the ring of truth to it. Or, in this case, the stink of truth.

Following the article are a series of pictures that show zoomed in shots of Sarah’s belly. There’s an unmistakable bulge, like the one I noticed yesterday. This isn’t indigestion, that’s for sure.

I’m not 100% certain Sarah’s pregnant, but right now I’d wager that there’s a 90% chance that she’s pregnant.

I take a series of deep breaths before calling Sarah.

“Hello?” says Sarah.

“Did you see the article?” I say, somehow unable to make my tone sound friendly and caring.

After all, how could she be hiding this from me? Is she seeing someone else on the side? Was she seeing someone right before me, and got pregnant with his kid? What the hell is going on?”

“What article?” says Sarah.

“There’s a new article about you,” I say.

“You told me it’s probably better not to read what the tabloids have to say about me.”

“Did you get a paparazzi attack yesterday?” I say.

Sarah pauses for a moment. “Yeah,” she says. “I was with Janet and I had to stop her from killing them all with her pocket book.”

Sarah laughs but I don’t.

“Where were you coming from?”

“Oh,” says Sarah. “A doctor’s appointment.”

“Are you pregnant?” I say.

I finally just say it. I don’t know how to skirt around the possible truth any longer.

There’s an incredibly long pause on the other side of the line.

“Yes,” comes Sarah’s answer, incredibly faint. Her voice sounds like it’s fallen off a cliff. It barely reaches me.

“I don’t know what to say,” I say.

“It’s not what you think!” says Sarah, her voice becoming livelier again, but sounding frantic.

“I don’t know what to say,” I say again, before hanging up the phone.

I’ve never hung up on Sarah before and she’s never hung up on me.

I look around the room and it suddenly appears incredibly bleak, as if nothing has ever lived in this room, including me. I feel horrible dead inside. My world is crashing around me. There’s nothing… My thoughts are jumbled.

My eyes close and I fall into a world of anxiety. No amount of deep breathing will help me now. No amount of meditation will help me.

My eyes open and the room appears again, but it looks fuzzy this time.

The cell phone lies on the bed where I dropped it. Sarah’s name is on the “most recently called” list.

I want the lights out. They’re too bright, even though they’re soft. I don’t have the energy to clap my hands.

All my fears about dating woman are rushing through my anxious mind. With good reason, I’ve always been worried that they’re just after me for my money. Everyone knows the best way to get a billionaire’s money is either marry him…but, what’s actually the best way is to have his baby. Countless lawyers have counseled me on the possibility.

What am I suppose to think? Sarah doesn’t seem like that at all. But has she been playing me all along? She got pregnant by me. I remember we’ve never once used a condom. She always told me she was on the pill. And I trusted her.

But, maybe it’s not my baby. Maybe Sarah knew she wouldn’t get pregnant from me because she was already pregnant.

But isn’t that possibility much, much worse? Sarah pregnant with another man’s child.

I don’t know what to think.

I spend at least an hour lying in bed not knowing what to think or how to think it. The phone rings more than a few times and I don’t check it, but I know that it’s Sarah calling me, trying to explain things. But I don’t know what to say to her and I don’t want to listen to her explanations right now.

She’s pregnant and she didn’t tell me.

My head is getting a little clearer now. If she has my baby, that’d be great. If she’s going to have someone else’s baby, that’d be OK too, and I’d be willing to help Sarah raise the kid…just like it was my own.

The part I can’t get around is that Sarah lied to me. And lied to me about such a big thing. This isn’t a little lie. This isn’t her telling me that she had something else for lunch when she really had a box of doughnuts. Not that I would care about that either.

The phone rings and this time I pick it up.

“Hello?” I say, my voice sounding strangely weak.

“The stocks have tanked again,” says Jeff.

“What?” I say, unable to comprehend what he’s saying.

“It’s bad this time. I read the news. I know you’re going through a lot…”

“Going through a lot? Is that all you have to say to me. I don’t give a damn about the fucking stocks, you asshole.”

“I just thought we had to keep the business going…after all, people’s jobs depend on those stock prices… people have their entire retirements in those stocks…”

I hang up the phone, and it doesn’t ring again.

Jeff is right but I can’t deal with that stuff now. Stock prices are the last thing on my mind.

The phone rings again and I look at it, this time actually hoping that it’s Sarah so I can talk to her.

“Hello?” I say, my voice still faint.

“John, I want to explain everything,” she says, her voice sounding frantic. “I wanted to tell you. I really did. But everything was going so well. I didn’t want to ruin it.”

I let the phone drop to my side and Sarah’s voice continues talking. But I can’t make out what she’s saying because the volume isn’t loud enough to reach my ears.

I just stare at the phone, which is now on the floor, the battery case having fallen away. Sarah’s very faint voice continues to chatter away. I can just barely hear that’s there but I can’t even hear the tone of her voice. Eventually she stops talking and I see that the screen of the phone goes blank and black.

Somehow, I fall asleep. That happens to me sometimes with anxiety. The world goes dark despite the lights in the luxurious bedroom that now means absolutely nothing to me. I’d give all my worldly riches away and live in a cardboard shack if it meant Sarah and I could be happy together, but how can that be when she’s been deceiving me this entire time? Our whole relationship is built on a huge lie.

My dreams are terrifying I awake when it’s dark outside, shivering, in a cold sweat.