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She walked up to me until she was so close I was forced to back away. She kept walking, and I kept backing away, until I was practically falling into the arms of the security guard waiting outside Priscilla’s door to escort me out of reception.
Outside in the chill of the clouded-over day, I felt an odd combination of feelings rising up. Maybe it was the hormones making me crazy, but I felt so many things at once I felt like I was going to explode from it all. I felt lonely, scared, disappointed, excited... it was too much. There was a pounding in my head and my stomach that felt like a chant – that spurred me on to do something I didn’t think I would do.
I burst into Sylvester’s office, uninvited, as I had taken to doing. Except this day I burst out into tears, and the words that burst out of me were: “Priscilla Lamb knows I’m onto her. And I’m pregnant, Sylvester. I’m pregnant with your child.”
Sylvester
The words no uncommitted man of any age wants to hear: “I’m pregnant with your child.”
The scary thing was... I didn’t really mind.
Luna was staring at me. Some kind of shock had halted the flow of her tears. She managed to force out a sentence after a few moments. “Why are you – why are you smiling, Sylvester?”
I shrugged. Was I? Was I smiling? “I don’t know.” I grinned. Oh yeah, I was smiling. “Well, what did you want me to do? Cry?”
She seemed close to being lost for words. “I mean, I don’t know... smiling just seems like the worst reaction, somehow.”
I didn’t really understand her reaction tomyreaction at all. I tried to explain why I was fine with the news – which was difficult when I didn’t know why she thought I shouldn’t be. “So you’re pregnant with my kid. I take it you’re telling me because you want to keep it. Then, why the hell not? Your good genes will balance out my awful Brock ones, probably. The kid’ll be a gifted musician. What’s your problem, then?”
This seemed to only shock Luna further. “Sylvester!”
“What?” I really didn’t get what was happening here.
She threw up her arms and started pacing, occasionally glancing over at me then looking pointedly away. “How can you – how can you treat this so lightheartedly? I don’t even know what we’re doing, I don’t even know if we’re in a relationship, or if you love me, or what... and you’re absolutely fine with the fact that I’m carrying your future son or daughter inside my body? Right now?”
I held up my hands. “Alright, alright, no need to make it sound like a David Cronenberg film. I understand that you seem to be having some conflicted feelings about the knowledge of your pregnancy, yourself.”
She waved a threatening finger at me. “Don’t go all therapist on me, Sylvester...”
I tried a charming grin. “I’m happy to discuss your feelings, if you want. But so far you seem to be furious that I dare smile. You’d have been less bothered if I’d... abandoned you forever, or cast you into the fires of Mount Doom or something, wouldn’t you?”
Luna’s face registered a little flicker – either at my Tolkien joke, or at the knowledge that she was, maybe, projecting her feelings just a little onto me. Then she settled back into that grim intensity. “What exactly are you thinking that’s making you... smile? I don’t get it.”
I laughed in incredulity. “I don’t know. It’s nice, isn’t it, babies being born? Babies are cute, they’re fun... and I care a lot about you, I love you, Luna, so it’s just nice to know that the world is gonna have another one of you, I guess. Does it really need to be that complicated?”
Luna had gone even paler than I’d thought was possible for her, which was very pale indeed. “Did you just say you loved me?”
I folded my arms in challenge. “Yeah. Yeah, I did! Are you gonna have some objection to the concept of ‘love’, now, as well as the act of ‘smiling’?”
She shook her head, growing a little quieter. “No. No! It’s not that. It’s just that you throw this all about so easily. If it’s that easy to accept that I’m pregnant, tell me that you love me so casually, was it that easy to cast me off? And will you do it again without a second thought?”
I watched as she looked down at her feet. I couldn’t believe after everything she still thought that I somehow had thought so little of her that leaving her hadn’t been the most painful thing I’d ever have to do. Was her self-worth that low? Or her estimation of me?
“Luna. Please. It’s easy to love you because it comes so naturally to me. It always has. It was hard, harder than I could ever have imagined, forcibly parting from you all those years ago. That was hard because it was unnatural. Because I didn’t want it.”
She glanced up, trying to discern what I meant. “You want... me? You want... the baby?”
“Like, I think there needs to be a bit more of a discussion about what ‘wanting the baby’ actually entails, because it’s quite a bit more complex than that. But, abstractly, yes. I want you. I want the baby. God, Luna, how could you even think I wouldn’t?”
“Because you never say. You’re so easygoing about everything. It’s natural to you, but nothing comes that naturally to me. I feel like I’m wrestling with my feelingsall the time, whether it’s good or bad. I’ve second-guessed everything I’ve ever done.”
“Maybe I never say. But you never ask, either. It takes two to tango, Luna.”
She looked absolutely frazzled. “I need to go and think. And have a lie down, probably.”
I didn’t want her to leave. But she really did look like she needed a rest. I was jittery, too. The news was bouncing around my brain like a hyperactive puppy, and I couldn’t seem to settle on exactly how I felt about the whole thing, except:wow!
I held up my hand as she turned around to leave. There was something else Luna had said before blurting out about the pregnancy. “Luna. Before you go. Priscilla knows that you’re onto her? What does that mean? Has she threatened you?”
