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Every time I think about my last conversation with Matteo, I break down crying. It’s undeniable that I’m now an unwed mother, forever entwined with one of the most dangerous men in the city. There’s nothing sexy about it, nothing that makes it feel dark and romantic. It’s just sad, and I’m embarrassed to death by it.
I’ve spent the last week and a half trying to figure out where to begin with this pregnancy. I got far enough to schedule a doctor’s appointment. I guess that felt good. But there’s still so much that I need to know, tons that I need to learn before this baby is here. I wasn’t really exposed to kids much growing up, especially not babies. Taking care of my own is going to be such a learning curve.
The worst part is going to be telling my mother. I’m still not sure when I’m going to do it, because she’ll fully expect an explanation that I won’t be able to give her. My mother is very traditional, raised strict catholic and very, very rigid about her beliefs. She tries as hard as she can not to impose her religion on her adult children, but this is a lot bigger than saying grace at the dinner table in a restaurant.
I’m not sure what’s worse – telling her the absolute truth, or telling her that it’s someone I don’t know. She would be equally crushed by both stories. On one hand, she’s lost herlittle baby girlto the cold, hard world of promiscuity. On the other, I’ve been engaging with terrible, dangerous people on a very regular basis and decided to let one of them knock me up.
It’s not like I can’t have difficult conversations with my family, and I know that once the elephant in the room is addressed, she’ll be an excellent grandmother.
But I’m still so angry at Matteo for rejecting me.
I have no right to be, at least not when I consider that he doesn’t know about the baby. He might have reacted differently if we had the chance to talk about it, but would that make a difference to me? Do I want to be that woman who only has a partner just because they have a kid together? If he doesn’t want me now, I doubt he’ll be very enthusiastic about being with me when he realizes that I’m pregnant.
Even saying the word makes my stomach turn a little. It’s not that I don’t want kids, and it’s especially not that I dislike them, but I never expected this to be how it happened.
There’s no point dwelling on it.
It is what it is.
I’ve been trying my best to slip back into my former mindset of being happy and single. It worked a hell of a lot better when I wasn’t pregnant, I’ll be honest. At least then, I could kick back with a glass of wine and melt away dreamily into the universe of whatever TV show I was watching.
Having to be sober for every one of the thoughts that comes into my head sucks.
I try to take a nap, but my mind is racing so much that I give up after an hour. I don’t even feel rested from lying down, just unproductive and lazy. I’m so exhausted from work today that I was hoping to get takeout and go to bed early, but it looks like I’m being forced to mentally punish myself again.
Again and again. Night after night.
After turning on the TV, I tune out to the sound of the city life bustling noisily outside of my apartment. I can hear my neighbor and her boyfriend having their weekly fight about his “work wife”, which is always followed by either sex or a broken dish. It’s a fifty-fifty chance, and sometimes I place bets with myself to see which it’ll be.
I’m thinking this time it’ll be sex.
Good for them. I sure hope they don’t end up like me.
In the next apartment over, I can hear my neighbor blending a smoothie, or maybe a margarita. It’s been so long since I had a fresh smoothie. I drank them all the time at Matteo’s mansion while I sunbathed. It was always a little too hot out, but I was still deeply at peace in those moments.
Goddamn it. Everything makes me think of him.
I’m startled back into reality by my phone buzzing.
It’s Matteo’s number.
Just as I had blamed myself for his arrest, I’m now psychotically paranoid that I’ve somehow conjured him out of nowhere. How do all these coincidences keep happening?
I hesitate to open his message. Obviously he’s out of jail, god knows for how long. Is he just texting me to berate me again? I’ve had enough of his cold indifference to me. It would have been one thing if he rejected me in a warmer, more empathetic way, but I don’t know what I was expecting. Thinking that a man with a personality like his would ever be empathetic is a pipe dream.
It takes me a few minutes to work up the courage, mostly because I want to have the right comeback if he does say something cruel. I’m not the meanest person I know, but I know more than enough about him to attack his character.
“Hey, I just got out of jail, but I don’t know if I’ll be out for long. I wanted to see you one last time before they lock me up.”
Of course.
This whole arrangement feels so trashy. No matter how much money he has, reaching out for an inevitable booty call before he goesbackto jail is lowlife behavior. I’m embarrassed that he’s even asking me.
But inside me, something jumps at the chance to see him.
Is it the pregnancy hormones, forcing me to be attracted to the man who impregnated me? Is that how that works?
Either way, I choose to suppress it.
