Spiral

Ivan Jackson was Monich University's most popular guy. The life of every party. The heartthrob of almost every woman in campus. Scratch that, he was wanted by women across all ages. The power he had over girls had gotten into his head and he was considered a player but still, girls fought for him. He had a well-built body that the girls drooled over. His hazel eyes could make anyone get lost in them. He had neatly combed black hair that partly covered his handsome face.

Ivan lay facing the ceiling in his room, a thousand unpleasant things running through his mind. He could hear his parents Raquel and Noah talking about him in hushed tones in the living room.

He sighed in frustration as he ran his hands over his hair and clicked his tongue.

'Shit! Kevin was right,' he reasoned as he regretted why he didn't take his friend's word seriously and had gotten himself involved with Vera Morgan. She was beautiful with blue green eyes and curves in all the right places. They had only gotten involved once and the next thing she knew was that Vera was pregnant.

Flashback

Ivan had met Vera during one of his basketball games. She was on the front row and had her eyes fixed on him. Yes, he had noticed that anytime he looked in her direction. Whenever their eyes met, she smiled warmly and he retaliated.

"A new one tonight?" Kevin, Ivan's friend with a lightly slimmer body with blond hair, had asked him after the game and Ivan didn't bother to feign ignorance at Kevin's statement. Kevin definitely must have known he was kind of destructed.

"I have a bad feeling about her," Kevin answered in a serious tone as he looked at Ivan in hostility, an act that made Ivan break into a soft chuckle and he gasped down the contents in his water bottle.

"I know," Ivan said knowingly. "When will you won't stop with those tags?"

"What tags?" Kevin had asked in shock and Ivan wiped out the sweat trickling down his face using the back of his hands and said, "blue for those you accept and red for those you do not. It's all cool except you always have the colour red for virtually everyone,"

Kevin looked at him and inhaled deeply then said, "most often I'm always right and you always believe me except when it comes to girls,"

"Don't worry, I will be careful," Ivan had answered with a smirk before walking majestically towards Vera who seemed to have been waiting for him.

It was just a one-night thing and Ivan could swear on his life that he had been as careful as he could have possibly been. He hadn't seen Vera after that but she had one day turned up at his doorstep with news that had changed Ivan's world upside down.

" Ivan! There is someone here to see you," Raquel, Ivan's mom, called him from his room. As Ivan half walked half ran down the stairs, he knew it wasn't Kevin but not even in his wildest imaginations did he think it was Vera.

He found her seated on the chair opposite Raquel's, scrolling through her phone and giggling softly. Raquel threw daggers at her and shook her head in disapproval and Ivan knew the next thing would be a talk about how he needed to be careful about the girls he hung out with.

He wished his mom would give up on her talks because she had done it for as long as he could remember yet he hadn't changed even one bit.

"Hello honey," Vera said warmly as she stood up to hug Ivan. She had a tank top on and a short skirt that exposed more than it hid.

"Why are you here?" Ivan asked in a harsh tone as he moved towards one of the windows to check if anyone else was waiting outside. None of his many girls had ever set foot in his house and he didn't understand the audacity Vera had.

Convinced that no one was with Vera, Ivan moved so close to her and within earshot said, "it was just a one-time thing and that doesn't give you the right to come over here,"

"Sshh," Vera said, a pleased look on her face and a sly smile on her lips. "That's not the way to talk to me when I have such good news for you," she added, looking at Raquel, whose interest had been intrigued.

Her heart was pumping fast and the scene before her felt all too familiar. The excitement she had and the anxiety Noah had at the abrupt request for a meetup.

"I'm pregnant," Vera said happily as she jumped up and down with joy. Her eyes flashed wide and bright and she had a broad grin.

Colour drained from Raquel's face and her eyes almost popped out of their sockets. She opened her mouth to talk but her brain couldn't even form a word so she sighed heavily and looked at her son in defeat.

'It can't be,' she thought and wanted to say so but no word came from her mouth.

Ivan looked on in silence, as if he hadn't heard anything and the joy on Vera's face disappeared as soon as it had appeared. In its place was confusion.

"Will…you not say anything? I'm pregnant with your child Ivan. I just got tested and immediately rushed to share with you the news," Vera explained in a low voice as she took a step back and removed a wrapped test kit from her purse.

Until that point, Raquel had been too shocked to move but the mere thought that there was a possibility that Vera was carrying her grandchild gave her some unexplained strength.

She didn't know Vera well but she knew her enough to dislike her so she hurriedly stood up and rushed towards the two to see for herself the results on the test kit.

The emotions on Ivan's face ranged from confusion to anger to fear and hatred. He tightly folded his fists, he had a pinched face and his mouth was twisted in a sneer. His eyes were wide and he was trembling slightly.

"This …might be a false alarm," Raquel said dismissively.

"Are you even listening to yourself?" Vera had said angrily, more to Raquel than to Ivan who hadn't uttered a single word.

"Even if you're really pregnant, the child can't be mine. We were together for only one night and we used protection," Ivan managed to say after clearing his voice.

"If the test kit is faulty, what makes you think the preventive measure we took is 100% effective?" Vera posed and for the first time, Ivan and Raquel shared looks of confusion and fear.