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“I would never do that! I may have messed up plenty with us, Jonathan but I would never do that!” she practically screeches.
Shit! I said that out loud. I need to pull myself together.
“I am so confused, Em. Am I that bad at math?”
“No, you aren’t. Let me explain, can we sit?”
I don’t speak but I do sit my ass on the ground and she sits directly across from me. We’re sitting in the dark, in the middle of Mick’s front yard, but I can still see her face from the street lights. She’s scared to death and I give her the minute she needs to gather herself enough to tell her story. I think I need the minute just as much as she does if I am telling the truth.
And then she begins…
“The week before I met you I had found out that I was pregnant. I hadn’t even realized that I had missed a period yet but I had to go in for my drug test for the new job I was starting and when they called to say it was all good to go they congratulated me on my pregnancy. I was shocked. I couldn’t believe it was true so that night Cami and I went and bought two packages of pregnancy tests. There are two in each box and Jonathan, I took all four tests because I had worked too hard to get where I was and I only had one year of school left. Then I was going to get my masters,” she says as she hugs her knees to her chest.
“Jonathan, every one of those tests came back positive. I wanted to die. How could I have been so stupid? It wasn’t like I slept around, in fact, it was quite the opposite. I was so busy studying I didn’t really have time for guys but there was one guy that I did see from time to time. Harrison Flowers, you may have heard of him? He was a professional surfer and gone a lot. He would call when he was in town and we would hang out.”
“I get it. I don’t need details, Em. Keep going…” I say just in case she was going to go into any broken condom stories that I really don’t want to picture.
“Sorry, I just don’t want to leave anything out. I need it all out there. So, I found out on a Thursday and he called to hang out on Friday. When I met up with him I told him that I was five weeks pregnant and he said there was no way it was his because he had been on the road. It had only been two weeks since I had seen him last and about three weeks before that. Well, that’s five weeks.
He lost it on me, Jonathan. We were at a party but had gone to a room to talk and he started calling me a whore and a slut and said that I was probably screwing every guy on campus when I wasn’t with him, and there was no way it was his. Then he stormed out of the room and just left me there dazed and confused. I was so hurt and embarrassed. I was scared to death and I had no idea what I was going to do.
Cami and I left the party and I figured I would give him a day to cool off and try to talk to him again. I called and texted but he didn’t reply the next day. I knew he would be leaving again in a few days, and we knew they were always throwing parties when they were home, so we showed up without an invitation and you know what he did? He pretended he didn’t know me. Like I was some stranger. Even his friends, who knew we hung out, were confused and didn’t know why he was being such an idiot. But I knew why. It was okay to ruin my life but his was too important for an unplanned pregnancy or at least that’s how I looked at it then.”
“What an asshole,” is all I can get out at the moment. The thought that some dickhead could treat somebody like Emily like that infuriates me. It’s probably a good thing I didn’t know when we were in California because I may have paid him a little visit.
“That’s a nice way to describe him. He made it pretty clear that he didn’t want anything to do with me or Ireland. I tried again when she was born and he came to the hospital and saw her. But he wouldn’t hold her and said he didn’t want his name on the birth certificate.”
She releases her legs from her chest, crosses them in front of her again and makes sure my eyes are on hers.
“Jonathan, I swear to you I wasn’t sleeping around. There wasn’t anybody but Harrison. I knew he wasn’t the one and he was only around from time to time, so it was perfect for my busy schedule of school and work. I didn’t love him. Hell, I don’t even know if I liked him. I don’t know how it happened, we always used protection but it happened.
I met you exactly one week later. At that point, I didn’t know if I was going to keep the baby or not. I was so confused and scared and had so many decisions to make that I didn’t know which way was up. That’s why I told you I didn’t date or do relationships. Between Harrison and my dad, I hadn’t had the best of luck and really couldn’t take any more rejection. I was some chick you met on vacation, and you were going away for nine months. Well, you would have come home and I could have very well had a baby. That wasn’t fair to you, Jonathon. What was I supposed to say…I know we just met, and we’ve known each other a week, but want to be a dad to some other guy’s baby? I would say that would be a little more than you bargained for.”
“You should have given me that choice, Emily,” I say coldly.
“I didn’t know what choice I would have been giving you. Like I said, I didn’t know what I was going to do. If I did tell you, and then didn’t keep the baby, I would have felt like a slut for sleeping with you while pregnant with another man’s child. And if I did keep the baby, I didn’t want you to feel obligated because you had told me you loved me and I would have always wondered if you were only with me out of pity.”
“I was in love with you for Christ’s sake! I deserved to know!” I see her jump a bit and realize I just yelled that at her.
She whispers so low that I almost can’t hear her when she says, “I was so ashamed. I went from being the good girl who never slept around to being knocked up at twenty-one with no baby daddy to speak of. I didn’t want to see the look of disappointment or disgust on your face. Or to get rejected yet again.”
I don’t know what to say because I do understand where she’s coming from, but I still wish I had known. I just stay quiet.
“The thing is Jonathan, it’s because of you that I have her. If I hadn’t gotten to spend a week surrounded by love and joy—to see that good men did exist out there in the universe—I don’t know if I would have made the same decision. What I felt for you was so strong and that week with you made me feel whole. I was in such a dark place, and without even knowing it you pulled me out bit by bit. It started before I even saw you. It was your laugh. I heard you laugh and it shook me out of the haze I had been wallowing in. You woke me up, gave me hope and for a short time, love. You gave me strength and confidence. You will never know how that one week of my life changed me forever. I haven’t felt that sense of wholeness again. Not since I walked away from you that day. Don’t get me wrong. Ireland is amazing, and I could not love her more than I do or be more proud to be her mom, but the love I get from her is different than what you gave to me that week.
So, what I’ve wanted to say to you since December 1, 2010, is thank you. There wouldn’t be Ireland without you. I thanked you silently the day she was born and I held her in my arms for the first time. I’m so glad that I finally get to thank you again in person.”
I’ve been so entranced, hanging on her every word that I’m just now noticing that she has tears streaming down her face. I lean forward and wipe her tears away with my thumbs, give her a kiss on the forehead, stand up and wipe the grass from my shorts. My mind is going a million miles an hour right now, but what I keep coming back to is that she didn’t trust me enough or give me the option to stay or go. I can’t talk about this anymore. I need a chance to think.
“Emily, I really appreciate you telling me everything and I really am sorry you had to go through all of this on your own, but I just don’t know what to think. You were pregnant and didn’t tell me. I was making love to you every night and you didn’t tell me. I told you I loved you and you didn’t tell me. We sat and had coffee for two hours and ‘caught up’ and you didn’t mention the biggest thing in your life? This has been a lot of information and I really just can’t talk about it anymore. I need to get out of here and just think. I can’t fucking deal with this shit right now.”
I run my hands through my hair so hard I’m sure I just ripped a chunk out, but my mind is so fried it wouldn’t even register if I did. She’s standing now, still crying, and I just stare at her for a beat then turn and head for my truck.
6
Emily
I didn’t sleep at all last night. So many things were going through my head after talking with Jonathan. Should I have told him way back when? If I had told him would we even have happened? Would he still have wanted me to wait for him? Are those decisions I should have let him make? The hardest part…seeing his face when he thought for those few minutes that Ireland might be his. That is what is killing me. What’s worse is that he thought I had kept her from him. His visceral reaction to thinking he could have been a father has me wondering if he would have wanted that role, or if the thought was something he couldn’t even consider.
