A New Leaf

"Goodmorning beautiful." I woke up in Tyler's arms as I opened my eyes.

"Hey." I smiled, allowing my eyes to close again, as Tyler moved my hair away from my face.

"Sleep well?" He asked.

"Best sleep I've had in years." I laughed.

"Whys that?" He questioned.

I guess Tyler didn't really know about my past of sleeping around. He didn't know that since the awful day in which my fiancé caught me cheating, I hadn't gone one night without a terrible nightmare of that morning. I really didn't feel like telling him all this, but I feel like he'd get it out of me eventually.

"Bad hookups and bad breakups. They give me nightmares I guess. But it's not important really." I half smiled at Tyler, who had readjusted himself up on his elbow to look at me.

"Oh try me. I've had my fair share of bad breakups and bad hookups." He said, grimacing.

"Oh like what?" I challenged him.

Maybe his own dismay would make me feel a bit better about what I had gotten myself into in my life. Surely a hockey player had some great stories to tell. Although the thought of Tyler sleeping around made me cringe, I was no better and had to accept him for that.

"Okay so one time there was this girl. I was at a bar back home after my team won a game, and we all decided to go out drinking." He began, "and I met this girl."

I laughed at the fact that this was probably how so many of the stories started out with for the guys whom of which I had slept with. Some may have even been Tyler's teammates even, that thought made me disgusted of myself. Tyler continued with his story.

"She was hot, and nobody thought I could take her home, but I did. Anyways we had an amazing night." He smiled at the memory, "And then in the morning she left just like any other girl, except her boyfriend or whatever was waiting for her outside my door." Tyler began to laugh.

Well, didn't this sound familiar. I recognized exactly where this was going, and who this was about. The mystery man who I had slept with all those years ago had been Tyler. Tyler had been the one that I ruined my relationship with Jonathan for. I couldn't live with the guilt of that. Something in the deepest pit of me still loved Jonathan, and here I am, the cheating whore going back for more.

"So basically he found out that she slept with me and he called of their wedding." Tyler smiled. "Your turn."

I suddenly felt extremely uncomfortable to be laying here next to Tyler. How could someone I loved not even a few minutes ago go from someone that I resented completely. It wasn't his fault for sleeping with me, but at the same time, had he not picked me up at that bar, I'd probably still be with Jonathan. We'd probably have a family out in Saskatchewan or something, and I'd be settled down and a housewife. I swallowed the huge lump in my throat and began to get out of Tyler's bed, and put my clothes on.

"I'm sorry Tyler." I began to cry. He just looked confused, and I couldn't blame him.

"Mila, what's wrong?" He said, getting out of bed, trying to stop me from leaving.

"Look Tyler, I- I can't do this. That was me." I said, my makeup from the previous night running down my face as I got the last of my clothes on and pushed past his bare chest and right out the door.

I left the poor guy dumbfounded. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't be with him, even if Jonathan and I could never be together again. It made me feel wrong, it made me feel disgusting. After getting to the parking lot, I realized that I didn't have my car, and once I stopped sobbing I ended up calling Erin to pick me up, leaving out all details of why she needed to come get me. She showed up in no more than 5 minutes. As soon as her car pulled in I went running and quickly hopped in the passengers seat.

"Wild night with Tyler?" Erin joked, as she began to drive out. That's when the tears came back. I was breathing quickly and freaking out thinking of what I had just done.

"Remember Jonathan?" I asked through the tears.

"Yeah what about him?" She asked, trying to figure out how the tears could be relating to him.

"Okay so the reason why we broke up was because I cheated on him with some guy I met at a bar." I said quickly.

"Andddd..." Erin still didn't see the connection.

"That guy was Tyler. And I slept with him again. I'm disgusting. I'm a two-timing slut." I said burying my face in my hands, and clenching my teeth, attempting to stop crying.

I couldnt talk to Tyler ever again. I would feel horrible; I knew that dating would just get me burned in the end. From now on I'm calling off guys for good. This is it. I'm done. And it's never even their fault it's the stupidity of me.

I began to panic even more when I remembered last night when Tyler asked me to be his girlfriend. He didn't deserve a wreck like me. Maybe me leaving was for his own good. Id probably fuck up and cheat or do something stupid with him. I ruin everything good anyways.

"Erin I'm an idiot. A big fucking idiot. Why did he have to be the one I was with when I killed things with Jonathan?" I said, resting my head against the cool glass of the car window.

"Mila, you're not an idiot. We all make mistakes and how would you know it was him? It's not like you slept with him purposely knowing that you'd cheated with him before." She said trying to comfort me.

"But I should have known. I knew he looked familiar and I should have fucking clued in." I said looking out the window at the sun rising, trying to stay calm and not absolutely hate Tyler, after all it was my fault.

"No. Don't get mad at yourself. You're better than that. Now you're gonna go home to bed and I'm gonna take care of you." How could you not love Erin.

I felt my phone buzz and looked at the lock screen to see a text from Tyler.

T: Is everything okay?

"Don't even reply. You need to just relax." Erin said, taking my phone and putting it in her own pocket.


When we arrived back at the dorm room, Erin quickly tucked me in bed, and began to make brownies, my favourite comfort food. I watched friends on TV and tried to imagine having a perfect, stress free life like them. Not some backwards fucked up one with a plot twist to ruin everything.

Erin brought over the brownies and I ate them, still sulking. Finally I'd met a half decent guy. Except he turned out to be just one of the assholes that picked girls up at bars. And I was one of the assholes that cheated on their fiances. And one of the assholes that went back for seconds. I spent the rest of the day in bed, with Erin trying to comfort me, until I finally went to sleep.

2 WEEKS LATER

I managed to go an entire two weeks ignoring every text, call, iMessage, Facetime, you name it from Tyler. I was going to cut him out. Just the thought of him made me think of how fucked up I had made everything. I went back to making school my number one priority and not letting anyone else get in the way. I was determined to graduate this year, and become a doctor. I didn't need a boyfriend. That wasn't going to help me with anything, and Tyler definitely was not going to help me.

Throughout the two weeks, the nightmares continued, and I woke up in the middle of the night screaming. Erin had basically become a mother, being able to professionally get me back to sleep after an episode. Despite this, my grades managed to stay high.

I woke up one Saturday morning nightmare free, however, and thought that maybe my life was finally getting back to where I wanted it to be. Just normal. But that's too good to be true.

"Hey, Mila, I'm just running to the drugstore for a second to pick up some lady things." Erin laughed. "Do you need anything?" This instantly triggered something.

"ERIN WHATS THE DATE." I sat up straight in bed.

"Easy there, zippy." She laughed. "It's the 29th why?"

"I'm late." I began.

"Late for what? It's Saturday we don't have class." She shook her head at me.

"No like I'm late. Like you know. I'm late." I hinted.

"Oh god." Erin said, finally cluing in and rushing to sit down beside me on my bed. "You don't think..." She didn't finish but we both knew what she was thinking.

"I don't know. Maybe I just missed it." I said, trying to sound hopeful.

"Well did you... Use protection?" She asked.

My face went red. I never thought of it. Neither of us thought of it. If that bastard got my pregnant.

"No." I said quickly, hanging my head in shame.

"Mila, it's okay. But we need to find out." Ering said, giving me a hug. I'll be back in ten.

Erin arrived, as promised, ten minutes later with a bag full of whatever she bought from the drugstore. She began pulling out pregnancy tests from the bag, and all of what was going on became a reality. I prayed to whoever was listening that I had miscounted my days or something.

"Are you ready?" Erin asked. Obviously not, but I agreed, nodding my head and entering the bathroom.

Six positive tests later, and I was a blanket cocoon mess in my bed. My sheets were stained with tears and my face was stained pink from the nonstop sobbing. Erin was laying beside me, rubbing my back trying to calm me down.

"Mila. It's going to be okay. You're a strong woman. You can do it. If anyone can get through this, it's you." She comforted.

"You're right." I said, sitting up and hugging her. My tears soaked the shoulder of her shirt, and she squeezed me tight.

"But you're going to have to talk to him." Erin said, being the voice of reason. She was right. He had a right to know, if the tests were true, this was obviously his kid too.

I lifted my phone from the bedside table and scrolled to Tyler's contact, who was first on the list due to the amount of messages he'd sent me over the past two weeks.

M: We need to talk.
Almost immediately Tyler replied.
T: Sure! When and where?
M: In like an hour. Your house

I clicked my phone to lock it and tossed it on my bed, as I began to get ready for one of the most difficult conversations in my life to date.

Notes