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“Oh, L’il. How awful. You can’t let him force you out of class. Plenty of women have affairs with their professors. It’s never a good idea. But sometimes the best thing to do is to pretend it didn’t happen,” I add in a rush, thinking briefly about Capote and how we’re both behaving as if we never kissed.
“It’s more than that, Carrie,” she says ominously.
“Of course it is. I mean, I’m sure you thought you were in love with him. But really, L’il, he’s not worth it. He’s just some weird loser guy who happened to win a book award,” I ramble on. “And six months from now when you’ve published more poems in The New Yorker and won awards yourself, you won’t even remember him.”
“Unfortunately, I will.”
“Why?” I ask dumbly.
“I got pregnant,” she says.
That shuts me up.
“Are you there?” she asks.
“With Viktor?” My voice trembles.
“Who else?” she hisses.
“Oh, L’il.” I crumple in sympathy. “I’m sorry. So, so sorry.”
“I got rid of it,” she says harshly.
“Oh.” I hesitate. “Maybe it’s for the better.”
“I’ll never know, will I?”
“These things happen,” I say, trying to soothe her.
“He made me get rid of it.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, feeling her agony.
“He didn’t even ask if I wanted it. There was no discussion. He just assumed. He assumed—” She breaks off, unable to continue.
“L’il,” I whisper.
“I know what you’re thinking. I’m only nineteen. I shouldn’t have a child. And I probably would have . . . taken care of it. But I didn’t have a choice.”
“He forced you to have an abortion?”
“Pretty much. He made the appointment at the clinic. He took me there. Paid for it. And then he sat in the waiting room while I had it done.”
“Oh my God, L’il. Why didn’t you run out of there?”
“I didn’t have the guts. I knew it was the right thing to do, but—”
“Did it hurt?” I ask.
“No,” she says simply. “That was the weirdest thing. It didn’t hurt and afterward, I felt fine. Like I was back to my old self. I was relieved. But then I started thinking. And I realized how terrible it was. Not the abortion necessarily, but the way he’d behaved. Like it was a foregone conclusion. I realized he couldn’t have loved me at all. How can a man love you if he won’t even consider having a baby with you?”
“I don’t know, L’il—”
“It’s black-and-white, Carrie,” she says, her voice rising. “You cannot even pretend anymore. And even if I could, we’d always have this thing between us. Knowing that I was pregnant with his child and he didn’t want it.”
I shudder. “But maybe after a while . . . you could come back?” I ask carefully.
“Oh, Carrie.” She sighs. “Don’t you get it? I’m never coming back. I don’t even want to know people like Viktor Greene. I wish I’d never come to New York in the first place.” And with a painful cry, she hangs up.
