“We’ve been together for a long time, right? Years, I mean, like five years.” She’s talking really quickly and her chest rises and falls, like this conversation is difficult for her to bring up.
I suck in a deep breath to keep myself in check. She’s not the only one who finds this conversation difficult. We’ve had it before—the “where is this going” conversation—and it never ends well. We were dating a year when we moved in together, and she—and just about everyone else—assumed I would propose within a few months. I went ring shopping once, but I left when the guy behind the counter made a comment about the permanency of marriage. It didn’t sit right, so I left, and I never considered trying it again. After we’d been together for three years, my mom suggested that we should get married so we can have kids. Then last year, both our families started in on the whole “you’re not getting any younger” crap. Maybe I should have known years ago that she wasn’t it for me. Maybe I should have let her go before I fell in love with someone else.
“And we’ve been living together a long time and, well, this is going somewhere. I know it is. It hasn’t yet, but we’ve been together too long for it not to, right?” I open my mouth to respond to her frenzied pleas, but she keeps going. With every word, her mood darkens. “Anyway, remember how I’ve been feeling kind of sick lately?”
I nod my head and proceed with caution. The last two times we had a conversation about our relationship, she approached it very differently. It was direct and without all this lead-up. If I remember correctly, we were sitting here, watching TV, and when a commercial came on, she straight-up told me she favors white gold jewelry over yellow for when I buy her ring. I only remember the details because she had me repeat them back to her.
“Say something,” she pleads.
“Okay, yeah. We’ve been together a long time.”
“How bad would it be for us to get married and have kids? I mean, really? How bad would that be?”
That would be a fucking disaster.
The kind of disaster that makes me want to throw up.
“You don’t want to marry me,” I say and laugh nervously. “You really don’t.”
She doesn’t. She can’t. I don’t want to marry her. She can’t want to marry me.
“Yes, I absolutely do,” she mumbles. “There’s nothing that wouldn’t make me want to marry you.”
“Yes, there is,” I say and take a deep breath. Shit. Shit. Shit. I hope Mom still makes waffles on the weekends, because if this goes as badly as I think it’s going to, I’ll be back in my old room for the better part of the next year and Lydia will be alone. I shouldn’t let it be my problem. I’d already stayed in this relationship longer than I wanted to when I met Mel. I just didn’t know if I could abandon Lydia the way everybody else has in her life.
“I kissed Mel.”
I let the truth of my actions hang between us and wait for her to react. It takes a minute for recognition to cross her face. Her mouth turns down, and her eyes fall. She places her hands over her face and sniffles. I reach out to comfort her but stop. She doesn’t want me touching her, I don’t think. I just told her I kissed someone else.
“We, um, can get through this,” she says and raises her head, essentially shrugging off my indiscretion. “This is bound to happen after such a long time. It’s fine. It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine, actually,” I say very slowly. “I kissed another woman. I . . . liked . . . it.”
“She’s pretty. Of course you liked it,” she deadpans like it’s nothing. Shit. Now I want to break up with her right now regardless of the consequences. I’m her boyfriend, not her therapist and I have to start fucking acting like it.
“What the hell is wrong with you? Shit. That’s not what I wanted to say.” I cover my hand with my mouth to avoid any more slipups. “Look, Lyd. I don’t know what’s going on here, but I need you to be honest with me. I’m being honest with you. I have feelings for another woman, and I don’t want to be an asshole about it.”
“I think I’m pregnant,” she blurts out and then gasps, her eyes wide. She doesn’t take her eyes off mine, but I wish she would. Holy shit do I wish she would. I can’t very well fucking panic with her watching me this closely.
“Okay,” she says, drawing the word out. “This isn’t ideal. I know. But, um, I have all the signs. And if I am pregnant, then this little crush you have on Mel is nothing. Not compared to a baby, a family, right?”
I nod.
“I mean, we’ve been together for five years, so it’s not like we don’t know each other.”
Nod.
“We know each other as well as two people can . . .”
Nod.
“And you’d be such a good dad.”
Nod.
“We would have such cute babies.”
Nod.