He was at a proverbial crossroads right now, but there seemed to be no resolute answer; no one right way. But that was always life, wasn’t it? Real life had no black-or-white answers, there was no truly good or truly bad.
The main issue here, though, wasn’t that there wasn’t a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer, it was that both answers would absolutely destroy someone’s life.
He took a long drag on his cigarette. He supposed he could choose neither, but then that would open up a whole new can of worms. He slowly let out the smoke into the chilly winter night’s air.
He placed a hand on his stomach, feeling bad for smoking, but still knowing he hadn’t even made the decision to keep it, yet.
He was pregnant, but not with his wife, Susan's child, but rather, with his best friend, Thomas’ after a one-night drunken fling.
He’d immediately told Susan what had happened after he’d woken up the next day, and she hadn’t been mad and hadn’t brought it up since, but he could tell she was still distraught about it. They had talked about opening their relationship but had never made an official decision on that front. He wondered if that was off the table since his mistake. There was no way he would bring it up to her again so soon after the incident, but he was still curious.
“John?”
John jumped at the voice of Thomas sounding right behind him.
“Fuck, dude, you scared the shit out of me.” John laughed, his hand over his heart.
“Sorry. I was wondering if you were okay. I’ve been watching you out the window since you went outside and that’s your third cigarette. This is really eating you up inside, isn’t it?”
John sighed wearily. “Yeah… If I abort it, I’ll never meet the little stinker, and neither will you, plus, Susan will be even more torn up than she already is. Not to mention that the baby will never get a chance at life, which is a travesty, but if it makes Susan more comfortable…
“But, if I give birth, she’ll either have to live with the fact that I cheated on her growing up in her home, or you’ll have to be a single parent- and- I know you’ve said a thousand times you don’t mind taking care of it, but I grew up in a single-parent household and it’s so rough on the parent, I wouldn’t wish that on you, and I wouldn’t want my child growing up only knowing me as ‘Uncle John’ instead of ‘daddy.’
“But there is also the possibility that the baby or I die in childbirth, which would be a whole other can of worms that I don’t want to get into at this moment- I just-” a sob caught John off guard, only now did he realize he was crying.
“John…” Thomas took a deep breath. “Susan called me earlier. She wanted to know if I wanted to join you guys in a thrupple polycule. I told her I’d think about it because it took me by surprise, but I think that, yes, I do want to be a part of this relationship. Will you have me, John?”
John looked, astounded, into Thomas’s gray eyes, fat tears still falling out of his own beautiful blue eyes, before he nodded.
“Perfect. Now, put that cigarette out and come back inside, you’re not even wearing a coat.”
John nodded and outed his cigarette on the snow gathering on the banister- when had it started snowing?- before following Thomas back inside his flat.
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