“It’s OK.” I sniffed. “Everything about this is bad, so it doesn’t matter.”
“Maybe it won’t be that bad.” Sebastian perched on the edge of the couch and touched my shoulder. “Sometimes guys are ready for these big things in life and they don’t even realize it.”
“Maybe, but Miles Haas isn’t one of those guys. He flat out told me he never wanted a family. That kids wreck everything fun in life. That he’d never be able to love someone completely and forever.” Miserable, I dropped my face into my hands.
“But he doesn’t know you’re pregnant with his child,” Sebastian said. “That makes a big difference. And I saw the way he looked at you that day at your parents’ house. I think he might surprise you.”
I shook my head. “I doubt it. But I have to tell him, anyway. And then he’ll tell me I ruined his life, and I’ll feel horrible.”
“He would never say that to you,” Skylar said firmly. “Never.”
“How do you feel, Natalie?” Sebastian asked quietly. “You’re talking a lot about his feelings, but what are yours?”
“I don’t know how I feel. It’s just such a shock.” I put my hand over my belly and tried to explain all the tears. “I’m sad, mostly. I’m sad because I’ve always wanted kids but this isn’t how it was supposed to happen. By accident, with someone who won’t want it. And it’s going to hurt when he says that to me.”
“Because you want to keep it?” Skylar asked.
Because I love him. “I don’t know yet.”
“Hey.” Jillian knocked on the screen door and then opened it. “I heard your message. You OK?”
One look at my oldest sister and I burst into fresh tears, getting up from the couch to weep into a third pair of arms for the day, a fourth if you count the poor nurse at my OB’s office.
But I couldn’t help it. Everything about this situation was miserable. If I ended the pregnancy, I’d feel terrible and possibly regret it every day for the rest of my life. That kind of decision was irreversible and terrifying. If I continued the pregnancy and gave it up for adoption, I’d be judged by everyone in town as I waddled around, pregnant and single, Dan would despise me, and I’d always wonder if I’d made the right decision. If I kept the baby, my life as I knew it was over. I’d be a single mother, and that child would be my days and nights for the next eighteen years—probably more. Would I be able to support us? Would I ever meet someone willing to marry me and complete a family? What kind of role, if any, would Miles want in the child’s life? What kind of father was he capable of being?
Maybe they can watch cartoons together. Ride bikes. Build sand castles. Because that’s about all Miles Haas is qualified to do as a parent beyond donate the sperm.
It was an angry thought, but it made me sad too—the image of Miles playing with our child. Because he’d probably never do it. Even if I had the baby, I didn’t see him moving up here to take an active role in a baby’s life. More likely he’d fly in from San Francisco or New York or Amsterdam or wherever he was living and awkwardly pet the baby once or twice a year, and then he’d fly out again, and go back to his free, fun, sexy life.
And it would hurt. God, it would hurt.
I once fell off a roof, losing my footing on some slippery shingles and bouncing off a prickly shrub before hitting the ground hard. I broke my arm, cracked a few ribs, and had scratches from that fucking bush all over my body. It was growing needles, I swear to God. I was drunk at the time, of course, and didn’t feel too much when I landed, but the next day—the next month—I was in a lot of fucking pain.
That was nothing compared to what I felt after leaving Natalie. Nothing.
I would jump off a thousand roofs, bounce naked off a thousand prickly bushes, break every bone in my body willingly, if I thought it would ease the pain of pushing her away.
I couldn’t write. I didn’t feel like eating. I had trouble sleeping.
Sleeping! How can you fuck that up?
But every time I got in bed or lay on the couch, I thought of her. Didn’t matter if my eyes were open or closed—I saw her in front of me. Didn’t matter if I was alone or in a crowd—I could smell her. Didn’t matter what I ate or drank—nothing came close to the sweet taste of her, and nothing could erase it from my memory.
I spent long hours holed up in my apartment, watching cartoons or porn, not wearing pants, eating cereal with a plastic spoon and drinking beer, trying to convince myself that this was the good life. I jerked off to her constantly, but since I’d had the real thing, even that wasn’t as satisfying as it used to be. It made me even madder at myself that I’d fucked things up, although I still did it—the self-service equivalent of an angry hand job.
I called my friends to go out, but the ones with girlfriends seemed content to spend their nights in, and the ones without just wanted to troll for an easy fuck.