I Heard Her Cry
“It broke.”
Sweaty silence wrapped them like a stained comforter.
“What?”
“Oh shit. Shit shit shit.” He whispered it, as if the moment could not survive any louder sounds. And if the moment shattered, he would too; all the veins would turn brittle, all the skin to ice, everything falling away in shards. “Shit. Shit.”
She was already putting her clothes back on, awkward motions of legs through panties. “Okay, just calm down.”
He sat back on the bed, knees bent, ass on his heels, covering himself loosely with the sheet. He stared at her, willing the muscles in his face to relax, to fall back into an expression that did not feel like horror, that would not tell her that he was afraid. Relax around the eyes. Draw in the mouth. Release the tension in the jaw and slow the blood engorging the jugular.
“Sweetie, seriously, calm down. This will be okay.” With her ring finger, she hooked a curl back behind her ear, drawing back the curtain to reveal a smile. Maybe it was only a hint of a smile; maybe he’d need a protractor to see if actually curved upward at the ends. Whatever it was, it was certainly more reassuring than the face he could still feel himself making. She handed him his t-shirt and boxers from the small pile on the floor before retrieving her jeans.
Either her hand trembled or his eye quavered.
“But… but, what do we –”
“We don’t panic. We don’t do anything yet. I’m going to go to the doctor and find out our options. Chances are, we won’t have to do anything.” She stood in front of him now, fully clothed, dragging her backpack up to her shoulder. “I know it flies in the face of everything you learned in twelve years of Catholic school, but not everyone who as unprotected sex immediately gets pregnant.”
“Really?” He felt a smirk creep up on him without notice.
“Really, smartass.” She looked at her watch and did math in her head. Her eyes rolled to the ceiling and her mouth moved as if she were saying silent prayers. “I think the health center is still open. You’re going to stay here and not freak out on me, okay?”
He looked at her, at her eyes, at her mouth. At her hands. He pulled his shirt over his head and looked at her again, at her hair still mussed from being in bed, at the faded tank top and frayed jeans, at the curves and angles of her body as she stood in the doorway now, one thumb hooked through a belt loop. She could be hitchhiking in 1968, that backpack full of Burroughs and weed instead of a statistics textbook and photo paper, heading to wherever something was happening. She always looked so much freer than he felt.
“Hey.”
His shoulders slumped even though he fought it.
“Hey, listen to me.” She walked back across the room and took his face in her hands and kissed him full on the mouth, warmth tinged with urgency. “I love you. And we’re going to be okay, no matter what.”
He kissed the inside of her wrist while she still held his face and then watched her close the door behind her.
What were the chances? Honestly, he had no idea. What would he do? What would she do? What would that conversation even sound like? He couldn’t imagine it; it was like debating what color God’s eyes were.
He’d get a job, right after graduation in May. It was March now, so it wouldn’t happen until December. Seven months of saving up should be enough, right? Maybe if they lived with their parents?
Oh my God. Their parents. They would kill them. His mother’s face: a mask of sorrow and shame. His father’s: rage and disappointment. Her father’s: murder. Oh God. This was not going to be okay.
How was she so calm? She couldn’t actually be that calm. She does that for him; she doesn’t show her concern because she knows he can’t hide his. Is this a healthy relationship?
This is the healthiest relationship he’s ever been a part of. He could spend the rest of his life with this girl. With this woman. The rest of his life? He didn’t have the beginning of an idea of a concept of what that meant.
They’d get married. They’d talked about getting married, at three in the morning, lying in bed in his dorm room, when thoughts like that seemed safe and far off enough, real and not too real. She wanted to wear a yellow dress.
It would be a daughter. He didn’t know how he knew that. He closed his eyes for a second, maybe less, and in a flash he saw her. He saw them teaching her to read, teaching her to ride a bike. Frightening and beautiful, like a thunderstorm on the beach.
He laid down and tried not to breathe.
He stood up and tried not to cry.
He walked outside and tried not to run.
Sitting on the couch in Jeremy’s room, smoking his fifth cigarette of the hour, flipping through channels without looking at the television, he thought he heard a baby cry. Jeremy, stretched out on his futon, paint-stained cutoffs exposing his winter-white calves, did not react.
“Sooo… We gonna actually watch anything?”
He flicked his ash in an empty
“Um, dude?”
After dropping the butt into the can, he picked up his Zippo and flicked the top open and closed. Open and closed. Open and closed.
A bottle cap hit his forehead.
“Asshole!”
“C’mon, dude,” Jeremy responded, readying another projectile. “A) that didn’t hurt, like at all. B) what the fuck is wrong with you? Are you, like, coked up or something?” Jeremy’s fingers snapped, but the second bottle cap missed wide right.
“What? No, I’m not coked… what? Since when do any of us do coke? Since when do any of us say ‘coked up?’” He pulled another cigarette halfway out of the pack, but slid it back in and put the pack in his pocket.
“Hey, I dunno man. I’m just sayin’, if you were, I wouldn’t judge you for it. To each his own, right?”
He flung the remote at Jeremy, hitting him with a flat smack on the chest. “Right. But I’m not, and never have been. So don’t go telling people that I was acting ‘coked up,’ alright?”
“Would I do something like that?”
“Yes, you would, and people would believe you, and I don’t need that shit. I have enough to deal with.” He cracked his knuckles and pulled out his cigarettes again, only to shove them back into his pocket and breath deeply through his nose.
Jeremy channel surfed at a much more reasonable pace, viewing a few seconds of each station before unceremoniously executing it in favor of the next: modern man’s closest approximation of Henry VIII. “I wish there was a Taco Bell closer to here,” he said under his breath. “Wait a minute, exactly what do you have to deal with? Or is this another ‘feel sorry for me’ day?”
Late afternoon sunlight sliced across the room as the planet rotated another fraction of a degree, turning the white painted walls red and orange, illuminating the dust motes, and obliterating the image on the television. He was in the midst of lighting a cigarette before he realized that he had even gotten out the lighter; he paused when he did so, then continued smoking anyway.
He’d quit if she was. She’d have to quit; he could quit with her. That was something he could do. It was already two years and $1.50 per pack past where he said he’d quit. And it would mean a lot to her. And the drinking: he would definitely cut back on the drinking. He could be designated driver when they all went out.
When who all went out? He’d be at home, with a baby. This wouldn’t just be an addition to their lives, he reminded himself; this would be a redefinition of their lives. He followed the long shadows of the partially closed Venetian blinds as their tips touched upon photographs on the wall of drunken college freshmen.
“…and ta tell ya the truth, I’m kinda fucking sick of it. For real.” Jeremy clicked through several more stations. “Ooh, The Shawshank Redemption. Nice,” he whispered.
“Right, dude. I gotta go.” He scooped his keys off the coffee table and swung towards the door as if his body were at someone else’s command.
“Yeah, well, I’m just sayin’. For your own good, man.”
“Thanks, Jer,” he called from halfway down the stairs, waving even though he knew no one could see him. At the porch, he broke into a run again, across campus, back to his own room.
His lungs felt like they might not open again, but when they did, they did nothing but expel mucus. He stood in front of the door to his dorm, hacking up a pack-a-day into the cheap, stunted bushes, hands on his knees and face throwing off more heat than a radiator. When his breath came back, it came in gulps and wheezes, with unintelligible sounds mixed in: near words and nonwords and phonemes. He cursed himself for running like that, but a part of his brain reached down into his thighs and calves and lungs and came up with a handful of pain, and made the argument that the pain was good. At least right now, the pain was good. He pulled himself up the steps to his room with two hands on the railing, still sucking wind.
From his window, he could reach the fire escape, and from the fire escape, the roof. The sun was no longer visible, but the clouds were glowing, almost pulsing, in crimsons and oranges and purples, and no matter how many times he heard that it was all because of air pollution, he didn’t care. On the roof, knees held to his chest, he looked out and tried, for once, to simply clear his mind.
To stop any thoughts from springing up.
To make his mind a blank slate.
To relax.
Within forty-five seconds, he had a cigarette in his hand. Maybe quitting would require more effort than he had thought at first. Still, it could be done.
It could all be done. Other people had done it before; they must have. It wasn’t like they were in high school. And it wasn’t like they were idiots. And it wasn’t like they would be alone. All the parental anger would be temporary; he knew that.
The clouds started to cool into grays and deep indigos, and eighties rock already began filling the night air. He wondered if he could teach someone how to ride a bike. What was the first step? How does one break down “riding a bike” into smaller, more manageable components?
The truth of the matter was, he was most scared of the fact that he didn’t think he was scared enough. These little mushrooms of thoughts kept popping up in his head, like reading bedtime stories or working on science fair projects. The thoughts that he had to inject in response were of paying tuition and waking up at
When the last echoes of light had disappeared, he climbed back down the fire escape, through the window, and onto his bed. With an audible sigh, he stared up at the ceiling and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. The glow from the green LED on the microwave reached its way around the room, and he continued staring at the ceiling. Music came blaring from the room directly beneath him, and he continued staring at the ceiling. Do people really make their own bassinets anymore, or is that just on TV?
Later, in her car, on the side of the road, dark wrapped around them like a cloak, hiding. This was the only place this conversation could take place; the juxtaposition of Whitesnake and possible imminent childbirth was impossibly painful. He stared at the dashboard, dry and dusty vinyl. The entire car smelled of tobacco; he could probably get that out if he tried. He reached out to touch the windshield, to see if that spot was on the inside or outside, but pulled his hand back. He watched her, from his periphery. She looked to his profile, then at her lap, then at his profile, cycling.
“I’m going to be on the pill from now on. She said to take four of them right away and then see her again next week.” She held out her hand, luminescent in the glow of a distant street light. Four pale blue pills, evenly spaced, sat in her palm. “I didn’t want to do it until I talked to you. I don’t know where this falls on the whole pro-life scale.”
He looked to her face, but her face was directed at her palm.
“I didn’t want to do it alone.”
He held her hand in both of his. His mouth hung open, waiting for words that were still jumbled in his head.
“I thought I heard…” His eyes remained on their hands, even though he could feel hers on him, resting on the top of his head.
“You thought you heard what?” She gave his hands the suggestion of a squeeze with her free hand; any significant amount of pressure might have crushed them both.
His mouth opened again, but the words failed halfway up his throat. Reaching up, he pulled her head towards his, resting their foreheads against one another. He kissed her between the eyes with dry, cracked lips and withdrew. She swallowed the pills with a mouthful of diet Coke.
This thing sat between them, binding them to each other but keeping them from touching.
“If I had wanted to keep it, would you?”
He closed his eyes again for a second, maybe less. He sighed and stared at the dashboard.
Posted in Main Story : Other posts by Dan