Mom handed me a hot tea and put a hand to my forehead. “No fever. Maybe just a stomach bug.” She sat on the bed next to me.
I held the mug in my hands and stared bleary-eyed into the amber liquid.
I felt hollow. I was hollow.
I’d faced Nick completely defenseless. The anger that had shielded me all this time had disintegrated without me noticing, and then when I’d needed it, I’d had nothing to protect me.
They were married now. She was pregnant. They’d gotten their little happily-ever-after.
If I’d had the baby, where would I have been in all this? The single mother to a newborn? Like Mom? A child Nick hadn’t cared one ounce about and was probably relieved that I’d lost?
The fallout from our divorce still wasn’t over. It had just evolved. It wasn’t even about Nick anymore. Now it was a cautionary tale for the relationship I was in, because what had I learned? What was different this time around? I was head-over-heels in love—again. I was living in a house that wasn’t mine and could be taken from me—again. I was vulnerable and exposed and blindly trusting someone.
And I was pregnant. Again.
I hadn’t known it until that moment in the elevator. I’d felt that tiny wave of nausea, and it was like a lightbulb went on and my brain and body realized it at the same exact time. And it happened while face-to-face with
Nick and Kelly and the reminder of how it turned out whenever I thought I was safe with someone. I was staring at exactly what happens when I give all of myself with complete abandon, while simultaneously realizing that I’d just fucking done it again.
I’d learned nothing from Nick. Not a thing.
Jacob and I were so new. Of course he loved me now. But what about when I wasn’t fun? When I was sick, or moody, or the sex tapered off, or if I lost the baby because maybe I couldn’t carry one to term in the first place. Would he want me if I couldn’t give him kids?
The tears came.
We’d been careless. Not every time, but enough. It had taken so long to get pregnant with Nick I didn’t think it would happen this easily. It was like my poor, abandoned eggs realized this was their last chance and they stormed the gates.
I put the mug on the nightstand and pulled my legs up and tucked my face into my knees.
Mom put a hand on my shoulder. “What’s wrong, mija?”
I breathed into the fleece of my pajamas. It smelled like Jacob’s lavender laundry beads and the orange-scented lotion I’d put on my legs after the bath Mom made me take when I came home. I knew I’d never be able to smell either ever again without it summoning this moment.
Mom started to rub my back and it made me cry harder.
“I’m pregnant, Mamá.” The words eked out of me. It was the first time I’d spoken them into the universe since the time it happened with Nick. Only this time I wasn’t excited. I was terrified.
“Are you sure?” she whispered.
I nodded into my knees. “I took two tests when I got home. I’m sure.” “How many weeks?” she asked.
I raised my head, wiping at my cheeks. “Your pregnancy starts on the first day of your last period. So five, probably.”
“He doesn’t want it?”
I shook my head. “He doesn’t even know yet.”
“You didn’t use protection? Two doctors, you don’t know how babies are made?”
I laughed dryly and put my forehead into my hand.
She let out a long breath and we sat quietly for a moment. Then she peered over at me. “He’s a good man.”
My chin started to quiver.
“He’d make a good papá,” she said. “A good husband. And I don’t say that about very many men, mija.”
“I’m not marrying him.”
She looked at me perplexed. “Why not? You might be having his baby.” She gestured to my belly. “You don’t want to be a family?”
Of course I wanted to be a family. But when did that actually work out? It had never worked out for me—not in the family I grew up in or the one I thought I was making for myself when I married Nick. Why would this time be different?
Only it was different. It was worse.
Loving Jacob felt like falling up. Like there was nothing to stop me so I’d just keep going forever. And if I hadn’t seen Nick and Kelly last night, maybe I would have. I would have just continued in this fugue state I was in, blissfully ignorant—because Jacob had made me forget what he was. But now I remembered.
Jacob was a man.
And men do what men do.
I suddenly viewed my sweet, docile boyfriend like a wild animal raised in captivity. Tame and domesticated—but might still bite one day, just because the instinct was bred into his genes.
There wasn’t enough rage in the universe to get me through it if Jacob hurt me. It would kill me. I would never come back from it.
“I’m never getting married again.” I sniffed. “I’m not doing any of it. I don’t even know if I should stay with him.”
She pulled her face back. “What? What do you mean you’re not going to stay with him? Oye, estás siendo ridícula!”
“Mamá, just stop.”
“Pregnant, with a perfectly good man who loves you—do you think being a single parent is fun? You don’t remember how it was?”
“I can’t, Mamá.”
“Why?”
“Because it will hurt too much when he leaves!” I snapped. She went silent.
“I can’t do it again,” I said, my voice wavering. “I can’t. Especially now. You don’t think I want to? That I don’t wish the idea of being pregnant and shacked up with a man I’m in love with didn’t scare the absolute shit out of me? I don’t even know what to feel right now. I don’t. I don’t even know if there’s going to be a baby in a week. And if there is, I don’t know that I can give her the childhood I had. It’s better this way, so when he leaves, it doesn’t break her—” I cracked on the last word and I buried my face in my hands.
I felt like a short-circuiting toy. Sparks popping and wires frayed. I’d been fine. A fully functional, happy human being. And then all at once I wasn’t.
I just sat there and cried. My sobbing was so loud I was glad Benny had a life now and he wasn’t home to hear it.
A hand squeezed my shoulder, and after a few minutes, I started to settle down.
Mom handed me a wad of tissues. “I’m sorry,” she said, softer now. “I never knew it affected you like that. I always thought it was me and you, and we did okay.”
I took a few deep, steadying breaths. “We did. We did do okay. That’s the only way I know how to be okay. On my own. Where I don’t have to trust anyone to be there.”
Mom paused for a long beat. “Briana…I know your dad wasn’t a good man and Nick wasn’t a good man. And maybe I taught you that none of them are and that’s my fault. I just wanted you to protect yourself, not to be afraid of loving again. I did. I found Gil. I’m happy. It’s the greatest revenge to be happy. To have a good life. So have one. With him.”
I took a deep breath. Then another. I looked up at my mother with wet eyes. “I love the quiet gentle life of that quiet gentle man,” I said. “I want to be brave enough to love him with my eyes closed. I just don’t think I can.”
I wished I could. Or I wished I loved him less. Because then the stakes wouldn’t be so high. There wouldn’t be as far to fall if he let me down— when he let me down. And I was already so far gone.
Jacob had managed to slip me into his life, so gently, so seamlessly, that I didn’t even realize how much of myself I’d already surrendered until I stood in his house this morning, suddenly fully awake.
When I was looking around his living room, it was like I’d blacked out three months ago and woke up pregnant and a common-law wife to a man I’d just met. That was the reality of this. I’d just met him. We hadn’t even
gone through a full season yet together, and I was living with him and expecting his damn baby.
If I didn’t know Nick after twelve years, how could I possibly know Jacob after just a few months? And no matter how well you know someone, or for how long, you can never be in their head. You can never know what they’re really thinking. Even if it feels perfect, even if they feel perfect— perfect isn’t actually perfect.
There’s always the chance of rejection.
My heart wanted to believe that maybe Jacob was different. Maybe we were soul mates, and that’s why it had all happened so fast and so easily. But my brain screamed that I was just stupid—making impulsive, irresponsible decisions with a stranger. And it was one thing to do this when only my heart was on the line. But it was something else to do this to a child.
I had no doubt Jacob would be a wonderful daddy. He’d always want our baby. But he probably wouldn’t always want me. And I didn’t want my kid to have to see me crumble into a million pieces when that time came. Watch us separate one day, him packing his bags and moving out the way I’d watched my daddy do once.
I had to make choices now to protect her later.
I blinked into the room, staring through tears at the dark spots on the walls where posters used to be.
I couldn’t explain the intense, panicked flight response I was feeling. The need to run. Push him away before he hurt me, like all the other important men in my life had. Get myself to safety before it was too late, insulate myself before history repeated itself.
I put my face to my knees again.
I was desperate for him to tell me I hadn’t made a horrible mistake. I wanted Jacob to make me all the promises and tell me it was going to be okay, that I was safe and loved and he wanted this and he wanted me. I wanted him to tell me we were different, and I wished to God that I was the kind of undamaged person who could believe something like that.
But I wasn’t. And I probably never would be.
