God, he looks so good.
My throat is uncooperative as I force it to produce one word. “Weird.”
He shrugs. “Not that weird, I guess. Since the last time I saw you, I apparently got you pregnant.”
My chest squeezes so hard, I’m pretty sure it’s doing its own form of self-contained defibrillation.
“Harrison—”
“I have two questions, Rock.”
I nod and swallow hard, wanting so badly to turn around and run out of the room but forcing myself to stay put. He’s gone to a very obvious effort to get in touch with me, and I’m not entirely sure, but I think it’s probably considered rude to walk out of a meeting with the father of your child when he apparently paid a million dollars to get you there. “Go ahead.”
“Were you ever planning to tell me?”
“I…” I shrug, grabbing my stomach on reflex as the truth bubbles out of me. “I don’t know. I thought of trying to get in touch with you a million times, but…I just couldn’t find the words…or the courage to actually follow through…”
I don’t really know what else to say, but I do know what I did manage to say isn’t a lie. He was the first person I thought about when I saw the word pregnant staring back at me.
And ever since then, you’ve yet to go a full day without thinking of him…
He turns his gaze away and sucks his lips inside his mouth, and the distance I feel from the disengagement is powerful.
But I don’t know how to fix it. I feel helpless in my blundering. I mean, we’re not husband and wife or boyfriend and girlfriend. We’re a couple people who knew each other a lifetime and a half ago and had sex one night.
I don’t know the protocol.
He gathers himself impressively rapidly, though. When he turns back toward me, I’m surprised not to find more contention—more resentment—in the beautiful leafy-green color of his eyes.
“I…” I want to apologize, but I don’t have the slightest clue how. I swallow around a thick throat and try again, but what comes out doesn’t resemble remorse at all. Worse, it almost sounds accusatory. “What’s your other question?”
The corner of his eye crinkles with the shift in his face. Still, it doesn’t seem like he’s taken any offense to my poor delivery. Instead, he rocks my world.
“Are you okay?”
“Am I…” Unexpected emotion pierces me right in the chest and holds. I try to ignore it, but I can hear the shake in my own voice as I repeat his question back. “Am I okay?”
Unlike me, he seems to know exactly how to handle longtime acquaintance/one-time lover/future parents’ etiquette, because he doesn’t hesitate. His read on me is spot-on, and his answer is to offer comfort, closing the distance between us and pulling me confidently into his arms.
I go—it feels too good to fight. He’s the first person to ask me anything about myself since I found out about the baby. It seems a little crazy since I’m nearly five months along, but it’s true. When people ask me if I’m okay, it’s usually at the beginning of some sentence meant to accomplish another kind of directive.
Are you okay…to hurry it up so we don’t miss this meeting?
Are you okay…to just sit back down and do what I said?
And there’s absolutely no time for an actual answer. It is rhetorical, always, punctuated and confirmed by the quickly following Thanks every time.
My brain feels like it spasms as the realization hits me. Jesus. Maybe no one has asked me anything about myself…ever.
I quickly shake away the surely preposterous thought, but the trace of it lingers. Have I really been living by someone else’s direction for that long?
It’s only when he starts to pull back, the heady scent of his body wash fading away inch by inch, that I realize how foolishly I squandered the moments in his arms thinking about anything other than the feel of genuine affection from another human being. He’s warm and solid, and I haven’t hugged someone else like this since the night we made the baby.
He steps away, and a cool rush of uncertainty pebbles the skin of my arms. I run my hands up and down them quickly to ward off the chill.
Never mind that it hardly ever dips below seventy degrees in Southern California or the fact that I’ve felt like I’m living on the surface of the sun since I got pregnant—obviously, my blood has thinned from excessive vomiting or something.
We’re both quiet as we try to figure out where to go from here. There are a million and one things to talk about, but not even one of them feels like it’ll be easy.
“When did you find out?” he finally asks, delving headfirst into everything I’m trying to avoid, and I wince.
“About three weeks after we slept together.” I shrug helplessly. “I’m never late…and then, I was.”