Her All Along

by Cara Dee

  I’d been right about it fitting snugly onto the small counter between the stove and the freezer.

  Pipsqueak was buzzing with excitement and had talked my ear off while we were out for dinner, and I’d learned there were two ways—two good ways, pardon me—to temper chocolate. For the record, I still wasn’t sure I understood the process of tempering chocolate, but nonetheless. Pipsqueak preferred the machine, although she did sometimes want to do it by hand, and now she was thrilled that she could afford a marble worktop. She’d shown me on my laptop, because evidently, I just had to see it, and it was roughly the size of my stove. In other words, she planned on putting it there when she experimented. And then she could stow it away behind the door when she was done.

  I did my best to nod along and ask the right questions.

  “Would you mind if I hijacked one of your drawers for some tools?” she asked. “I noticed you have some empty ones.”

  “You can do whatever you want. As long as you don’t move the coffeemaker, the kitchen’s yours.” I handed her the cord to the machine. “Wanna do the honors?”

  She grinned and wasted no time in plugging it in. “You’re gonna get so sick of me being here all the time.”

  I sincerely doubted that.

  “I think I’ll survive,” I chuckled. “You’ll have to excuse me now, though. I’m dead on my feet and just want to fall asleep to the evening news.”

  She snickered. “Dad does that.”

  I winced.

  Being compared to someone who was almost sixty…

  “Thanks, Pipsqueak. You always know what to say.” I patted her on the head as I passed her on my way to the living room.

  “Why are you limping, Mr. B?”

  “Because it’s fun.” Or because I’d worked out with Darius last night, and the fucker had put me through the wringer. To be fair, he wasn’t feeling too hot today either. “Remember, guys, what we cover today will be on the test,” I said, getting back on track. “This exercise is just to help you memorize things.”

  Despite walking around like a senior citizen, I was in a good mood, and my two senior classes were currently on the path toward high grades in geography.

  “You know the rules.” I tossed and caught the tennis ball that kept my hands occupied. Being energetic was foreign to me. “We’ll start off easy. When was the last census in the US?”

  Most hands went into the air.

  “Mr. Nolan,” I said and threw him the ball.

  “2010,” Gage replied. “Um, TJ, when’s the next census?” And so the ball continued to TJ.

  “2020.” TJ clearly hadn’t prepared his own questions, so he snatched one of the twenty I’d listed on the whiteboard. “Keira, why hasn’t gerrymandering become illegal?”

  “Some gerrymandering is,” I interrupted. “Not that our politicians haven’t figured out ways to get around it.”

  I gestured for Keira to proceed with her answer, and then I grabbed a marker to draw a line through the question TJ had used.

  “In short,” she said, “because when a party has the majority, it’s never in their interest to ban it.” She paused. “Niesha, who was Elbridge Gerry?” She tossed the ball across the classroom, and Niesha caught it.

  “He was the vice president who came up with the practice,” Niesha said.

  I leaned back to half sit on the edge of my desk and butted in. “Can you tell me a bit more about him?” I asked.

  She nodded. “He was a Democratic-Republican, he signed the Declaration of Independence, and, uh, he was very old when he became VP?”

  I chuckled. “Good.”

  She smiled with relief and passed on the ball, and a question, to Joshua.

  I rubbed the sore part along the backside of my leg as I listened to the questions and answers, and I interjected whenever I wanted someone to elaborate. And for some reason, it never stopped being funny to the students when someone dropped the ball.

  As we neared the end of today’s class, I took over and steered the questions toward the topics that would be covered heavily on the test. I wanted their focus to be on the drawing of the maps that made up our voting districts and why the practice of cracking was a direct threat against democracy.

  “Good job today, everyone,” I said once the tennis ball was back in my hands. “Before the test next week, I want you to write five hundred words on how politicians can apply racial gerrymandering and get away with it.”

  I soaked up their groans of complaint and smirked to myself as I rounded the desk to collect my things.

  For the first time in ages, it felt nice that the day was over, but it wasn’t something I’d been eyeing the clock for.

  Noticing that Keira was lingering while the others were in a rush to leave, I gave her my attention.

  “What can I do for you, Ms. Sloane?”

  She hesitated, clutching her books to her chest, and flicked a glance at the door. “Um. Has Taylor talked to you yet?”

  “About what?”

  I already knew she’d told Keira about us, and frankly, I didn’t care.

  She released a frustrated breath. “She promised me.”

  I furrowed my brow. “Is something wrong?”

  “Yeah, you could say that.” Heat colored her cheeks, and I’d never seen her look so uncomfortable. “This is none of my business, but since I’m afraid she’s not going to tell you at all… Taylor’s pregnant.”

  It was a cold shower and a kick in the gut at once. I coughed as a bout of nausea crawled up my throat, and then I was shaking my head. No. It couldn’t be. No, no, no, no. I was religious about protection.

  I clenched my jaw. “Are you sure?”

  Her brows lifted. “Two pregnancy tests and a doctor’s confirmation.”

  Fuck.

  “And don’t ask if it’s yours,” she stated. “It is.”

  I hadn’t gotten that far yet.

  I wore protection, I wore protection, I wore protection.

  I scrubbed roughly at my face and screwed my eyes shut. Pregnant. Oh fuck, I was going to be sick.

  I coughed again, and I swallowed my nausea. I had to see Taylor; that much was clear.

  “Is she at home?” I asked tightly, quickly gathering my things. And Keira nodded. “I’ll follow you there.”

  “Um, okay. I live two minutes away, so I don’t drive to school.”

  “Sorry.” I’d assumed. I knew she had a car. “Go with me, then.”

  Fucking hell, this wasn’t happening. As we made our way toward the Sloanes’ house, I broke out in a cold sweat, and I couldn’t stop gnashing my teeth. The whirlwind of emotions was worse. The nausea didn’t leave me, nor did the sheer disbelief. How the fuck? Why? I couldn’t get a grasp on anything.

  Kids didn’t exist in my life. Not under the age of seventeen, anyway. They had no business near me.

  They’d barely been on the radar when I’d been married.

  I cringed. Me? With a kid? How would I…? I mean. Shit. Shit.

  “It’s right here.”

  Right. House. Going to see Taylor. Who was pregnant.

  Fuck my life.

  I pulled into the driveway of an upscale residence that looked like it was growing straight out of the mountainside that made up the district of Ponderosa. The area was full of these estates. Box-shaped construction with rooftop pools, rooftop gardens, and rooftop patios. Very few had the space for even the smallest yard; it wasn’t why someone lived here. It was the million-dollar view of the entire town and the bay that brought rich folks to Ponderosa.

  I killed the engine and took a deep breath. Or I tried. It felt like someone had formed a fist around my lungs.

  Wait. Had Keira said she’d feared Taylor wasn’t going to tell me at all?

  Anger flared up, and I white-knuckled the wheel before I forced myself to let go and get out of the car.

  Keira stayed quiet until she’d unlocked the door and stepped inside her house. “Taylor?”

  “Upstairs!” Taylor calle
d.

  I rubbed a hand over my mouth and jaw, praying Keira had been wrong. I didn’t know how I’d react if Taylor actually had planned on keeping this from me.

  “Um, Mr. Beck—I mean, Avery is here,” Keira said uncertainly.

  We were met by silence.

  I eyed the photos on the wall. Pictures of happy times. Two sisters, two parents. Vacations to tropical paradises and ski trips to snowcapped mountains.

  A beat later, I spotted Taylor coming down the stairs.

  “I’ll give you some privacy.” Keira veered left to what I believed was the living room. The house was narrow but stretched along the mountainside quite a bit, and they had three floors to get lost in.

  I snapped my gaze back to Taylor, and the truth was written all over her face. She was actually pregnant. By the look of her, she wasn’t feeling all right about it. Or maybe it was pregnancy-related sickness too. Either way, the yoga pants and loose tee went well with her greenish pallor.

  “She wasn’t supposed to tell you,” she croaked.

  I cocked a brow. “You were, though.”

  “And I was going to,” she said in a rush. “Look—can we…?” She gestured in the opposite direction Keira had gone, and I nodded. Then I followed her into the kitchen. “Can I get you anything?”

  I shook my head. “Just answers.”

  “I was going to tell you,” she repeated and sat down at the table. They’d been a family of four, yet the table seated twelve. “I found out last week.”

  I merely waited for her to go on. At the moment, I had everything under control, and I didn’t want to lose it.

  “It was a shock, obviously.” She fidgeted with her hands on the table and wouldn’t make eye contact. “I know you wore protection—”

  “Without fail.”

  She winced, and hell, so did I. Bad choice of wording. I might have worn a condom, but it’d clearly failed.

  “I’ve spent the past week trying to wrap my head around things,” she went on. “More than that, I’ve been trying to accept it.”

  “Have you?”

  She shook her head and kept her gaze fixed on the table. “I can’t, Avery. I’m finally going to get my life back.” Right. They were set to leave for the East Coast in June. “I’ve never dreamed of kids. The opposite, really. I…I know this probably makes me a horrible person, but I don’t want to be a mother.”

  It didn’t make her horrible. If anything, it was a decision I’d wished my own mother would’ve sympathized with when she was pregnant with Finn and me. For years and years, I’d firmly believed she should’ve had an abortion. So what if I hadn’t existed? But then… Fuck, things were changing.

  “You want to have an abortion.” I put the words on the table so we were clear.

  Taylor swallowed hard and nodded.

  I planted my elbows on the table and tented my fingers against my mouth, unsure of how to process her decision. I mean, it meant the problem would go away. I could go back to my life, and she would start hers in New York. But it fucked with my head knowing there was life growing inside her.

  I closed my eyes and drew a breath.

  “I assumed it would be your wish too,” she said quietly. “It is, isn’t it?”

  “Unquestionably,” I replied, opening my eyes again. “But don’t you have a voice in the back of your head wondering if it’s the wrong decision?”

  She looked queasy. “No. I’ve been searching for that voice. I just feel…I don’t know. There’s guilt because I don’t hear it.”

  I leaned back and folded my arms over my chest, bringing one hand to rub my jaw. My skin itched, and I felt uncomfortable as hell, even more so when I started thinking about my purpose in life. It was a road I should steer clear of. I’d survived childhood, I’d coped with my teenage years, and now I was living. Now I was, at long last, in a good place.

  My mind traveled to Jake and everything he’d fought for, not to mention everything he’d never gotten the chance to see, to experience. To have.

  I swallowed a burst of emotion and threaded my fingers into my hair, tugging at the ends.

  I needed to set my brain on mute.

  “It’s your choice, and you’ve made it,” I stated in an attempt to derail my line of thinking.

  Taylor squinted slightly and tilted her head. “I won’t do anything until you’re wholeheartedly on board.”

  “And what if I never will be?” I asked, frustrated. At a fucking loss. Christ, I’d never had to consider anything of this gravity before. I’d just found out, goddammit. But yeah, no, something didn’t sit right with me.

  I groaned and scrubbed at my face for the umpteenth time.

  “Okay, you clearly need time to think, Avery. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  I shot her an irritated look. “I’m very aware, but what good will it do?”

  “Well…” She became flustered and shifted in her seat. “I mean… I don’t know what I mean.” She shook her head quickly. “That’s a lie. What I mean is, if you discover that you really want to be a father, there are options. Maybe I could, you know, go through with the pregnancy and then…”

  She trailed off. There was no need to finish the sentence.

  I stared at her blankly, wondering if she was serious. Wondering if she was being incredibly naïve, wondering if she was an idiot or extremely selfless, wondering…if I could actually go that route. As in, was I even capable?

  It was laughable and straight-up batshit crazy.

  Taylor was right about one thing, and it was that I needed to think.

  “Are you serious about that offer?” I asked quietly. Imploringly.

  I needed her answer to be yes as much as I dreaded it.

  She nodded, though.

  Fuck. Now I had to consider all the possibilities in order to make up my damn mind.

  “I have to go home,” I muttered.

  “Okay.”

  I drew a shaky breath and stood up.

  Taylor followed me out, and we paused in the hallway.

  I glanced at her. “Whatever decision we end up making, you’re not horrible. We haven’t been reckless.”

  That made her eyes well up rapidly, and I could sense she was losing her composure. I swallowed hard and hugged her to me.

  “I’m not judging you, Taylor. Understand?”

  She whimpered and nodded.

  “We’ll figure this out,” I said.

  I hoped.

  Fourteen

  Abortion. Go on with my life like this never happened.

  Or…

  Become a single father and raise a child on my own.

  I took a drag from my smoke and refilled my glass with bourbon.

  I’d gone through the motions after coming home, showering, changing into comfortable clothes, and filing some shit from school I had to go through. Then the nausea had made a swift return, and I’d donned a hoodie and stepped out on the patio with a bottle, a glass, and my pack of emergency smokes.

  At some point, Pipsqueak had shown up, but I wasn’t sure she knew I was home. She used the front door now that she had a key, and she was busy doing her thing in the kitchen.

  I kind of wished the darkness would keep me hidden.

  I took a swig of my drink and slouched back in my chair.

  Abortion. Go on with my life like this never happened.

  Or…

  Become a single father and raise a child on my own.

  I snorted quietly. What the fuck was I supposed to do with a kid?

  Abortion. Go on with my life like this never—except, I’d never be able to forget it. Just like I’d never forget being five years old and making it my goal in life to ensure that Finn survived our mother.

  I could feel that dormant urge being brought back to life, and it scared the shit out of me. The urge to protect, the need to be important to someone else. But a child? A baby? As a parent? I blew out a heavy breath and emptied my glass. Then I lit up a new cigarette, having forgotten the oth
er, and took a drag. The old one had fizzled out in the ashtray.

  If I went through with this, I’d be solely responsible for another person’s well-being. They would be mine. And that thought caused something to flutter and clench in my stomach. I swallowed hard and entertained the idea for a brief second. I’d be part of something I’d never experienced before. I’d share a bond with someone who’d be completely reliant on me.

  The rational side of me was quick to interject with the fact that I was listing the wrong reasons to have a kid. Because they were. They had to be. One didn’t become a parent because they wanted to feel needed or loved. But fucking hell, imagine the feeling… I mean, technically, I couldn’t. The idea, though.

  I remembered a time when I considered a smile from Finn the best thing that could happen. If I managed to squeeze out a giggle, it’d make my year. Too many times, it’d been after a beating. We’d been allowed to lock ourselves into our room, mainly because our mother didn’t want to see our faces, and I’d put all my energy into comforting Finn. Distracting him, cheering him up. Funny expressions, tales of faraway adventures… He’d liked it when we’d hid under his bed and pretended it was our fort.

  I took a pull from my smoke as my vision blurred.

  Fuck, how I missed him.

  I jumped slightly when I heard the door slide open, and I was quick to wipe my eyes.

  “Oh my God, Avery?” Pipsqueak walked farther out and closed the door behind her. “I didn’t know you were home. I saw the cigarette glowing and some shadow, so I wondered if Darius was here.” She hugged herself, probably because it was pretty cold, and sat down across from me. “Since when do you smoke?”

  I cleared my throat and straightened a little. “It’s just sometimes. When I’m drunk or I’ve had a bad day.”

  “Oh.” She eyed the bottle of bourbon. “Are you drunk?”