by Swati MH
Maybe the pregnancy won’t be viable.
Tears seep through my hands as a low rumble forms in my chest. What am I going to do? I jerk when I hear the slam of my bedroom door, shaking the room almost as violently as each cell in my body.
So much for climbing mountains together.
For the next two days, I skip all my classes, wallowing in self-loathing and despair. The darkness inside my room is only a mere fraction of the gloom growing inside of me. It’s been two days since I’ve eaten more than a few crackers and the same since I’ve changed my clothes.
“I don’t want this,” I voice aloud to an empty room, my head pounding, likely from being dehydrated from the thousands of tears I’ve shed. “I don’t want this.”
That evening, Avni knocks on my door a few times and each time I lie, telling her I’m just under the weather. This last time she doesn’t even care for my explicit permission and enters to check on me as I pretend to be asleep.
Sitting on the edge of my bed, she runs a hand in my hair. I know she’s worried, but I told her earlier not to call my dad. I don’t need him stressed in any way. “Cass,” she whispers. “You haven’t eaten anything. You don’t have a fever or anything respiratory, and I heard you crying earlier. I’m really worried about you. Tell me what’s going on.”
Traitorous tears well up against my closed lids and trickle out from the corners, running over my nose. I try to wipe them inconspicuously, but Avni doesn’t miss the movement.
“Hey. Cass. Please, talk to me, hon. What happened? Does it have something to do with Ben? Did you guys break up?”
I let out a sob. “It’s bad, Avni. I fucked up.”
“Look at me, Cass. Whatever it is, we can get through it. Talk to me. Tell me what happened.”
I turn toward her, wiping my face. Despite the wetness from my tears, my face is dry and irritated from the number of times I’ve swiped my hand across it. “I’m . . .” I sob again, barely able to get the words out, “I’m pregnant.”
“Oh, shit.” Avni’s immediate response does little to assuage my despair. She gets up, placing a hand on her mouth but stands there gaping at me. After pacing for a few seconds, presumably to process the information, she comes back to sit next to me. “Okay, it’s okay.” She grabs my hand. “It’s going to be okay. How are you feeling?”
“Like shit. I just can’t believe this is happening.”
Avni tucks a strand of hair behind my ear tenderly. “Did you tell Ben?”
I sob again, louder than last time, thinking about the text he sent me hours after he left my room. I’m sorry, Cassie, but this isn’t something I wanted. Do what you want with it, but I won’t be a part of it. I’m about to start my dream job at the largest bank in Chicago, and I can’t have any distractions. I want out of this whole situation. Of us.
I can’t have any distractions.
After two years, countless promises and plans, thousands of proclamations of love, that’s what I was . . . a distraction. I still remember the night Ben and his douchebag friends had decided to get piss drunk and pee outside the bar in public. I wasn’t a distraction when I had to bail him out of jail for indecent exposure and lewd behavior, using most of the money I'd made during the summer as a part-time EMT. Money he had plenty of, but never thought to repay me.
There were so many times when he would forget to buy groceries or meals, and then use his silky words to ask me to get something for him because he was too busy studying. So, even though we didn’t live together or it was completely out of my way, I’d acquiesce, thinking he needed me.
But the minute the mountain got steeper than he’d imagined, I became a mere distraction.
Fuck him. He didn’t deserve a response from me.
“We’re over. He wants nothing to do with it . . . or me.”
Avni lays down next to me and I tuck my head in her neck, fresh tears threatening to come out. “Shh. Screw him. He’s always been an asshole.” She continues to run her fingers through my hair. “It’s going to be okay. I’m right here. You tell me what you need and I’ll do whatever I can to help. What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know.” I close my eyes and sigh. “My mind is telling me to do one thing while my heart is telling me to do another.”
“I think you should wait a couple of days to make any decision, Cass. Either way, I’ll be right here for you.”
My throat tightens again. Instead of the guy who should be sharing this responsibility with me--who was just as complicit in our moment of lust--my best friend has to deal with my dissolution. She has tests and graduation to worry about, just like me, but now she has to deal with putting me back together in addition to all of it. She doesn’t deserve this. I don’t deserve her.
Avni holds me silently for what seems to be another half hour before getting up to get me a bowl of soup. We sit together eating, mostly lost in our own thoughts. She gets up and takes my bowl back to the sink and returns to tuck me into bed. “I’ll be in my room all night. Call me if you need me or even if you don’t. But Cass, get some sleep and think about this tomorrow.”
Sleep is the last thing that comes for me that night. I lay in bed, thoughts whirring past me like cars on a speedway, too fast for me to grasp. Save for being the shell for a broken heart, I feel empty. My soul rattles inside me like a single coin in a piggy bank--not wanting to stay but unable to leave.
How could this be happening? How could Ben leave me alone to deal with this? Have I really been that asinine about the type of man I let enter my heart? Someone so arrogant and self-absorbed. Someone who’d only stick around for the sunshine but disappear at the first drop of rain.
None of this should only be my burden to bear. But I have too much dignity and self-respect to go and beg for his support. I won’t ask for a single dime, no matter what I decide to do.
Every time I settle on a path forward, I find myself rethinking it. My hand travels inadvertently to my flat stomach, like maybe if I try hard enough, I’ll sense the changes taking place inside it.
I’ve had my entire life planned out--finish college, get into nursing school here in California so I could be close to Dad, and become a nurse practitioner. Ben and I would see each other every month either in Chicago--where he would work for a couple of years--or wherever I got admitted. A baby was not even in the remotest of possibilities for the next several years.
I wasn’t ready to be a mom. I was barely a decent daughter.
Life doesn’t always wait until you’re ready.
I’d always wanted to be a mother. That was never out of the question. The question was, could I be ready now? Was there any way for me to make this work, however untimely?
As I lay staring at the ceiling, I will myself to think through how it would all work. Should I raise the baby myself or give him or her up for adoption? If I decided to keep it, how would I support him or her while going to nursing school? There’s no way Dad would be able to help with his own unreliable health, and we don’t have any other close relatives I could rely on.
It was times like these that I feel the loss of my mom the most. Someone I could confide in, whose shoulders I could cry on. I’d like to think she would have told me that no matter what I decided, it would be okay. Even though Mom and I were never close, nor was she the type I’d model my own motherhood after, I knew she loved me in her own way.
However, I knew I’d be a different kind of mother one day. Someone involved, supportive, and nurturing. Someone who’d be happy with the child I’d been blessed with instead of the child I’d wished for. I know, without a shadow of doubt, that I’d be there for this baby.
This baby.
My breath halts momentarily and my heart tumbles with the realization of where my thoughts have led me. I had been so sure two days ago that I didn’t want this baby. But now my thoughts carried me in a different direction, where I was imagining what this baby would look like, how I would raise him or her, and what kind of mother I would be.
The blood test at the health clinic on campus confirms that I am indeed pregnant and likely around six weeks along. Lost in thought, I walk back to my apartment to take a shower and grab a nap. Thankfully, I don’t have any classes today, so my plan was to catch up on the two days of work I had missed.
After dropping my bag in my room, I stand underneath the shower, letting the hot water pour over me. My heart begs for a flood to wash away the remnants of the tension inside my bones.
“Hey, how did it go?” Avni watches me hesitantly as I walk into the living room, a towel wrapped around my head.
I shrug, unwrapping my hair and throwing the towel on the couch. “I’m definitely pregnant.”
She nods somberly. “Did you decide what you want to do?”
Collapsing onto the couch and throwing an arm over my head, I declare the words that will change my life forever, “I’ve decided to keep it.”
Avni comes to sit near me, placing a hand on my leg. We both let the weight of my words sink in for a few moments before she breaks the silence. “It’s going to be okay, Cass. I know you might feel like your life has been turned upside down, but in my heart of hearts, I really believe it will be okay. I’m always here for you.”
I place my hand over hers. “Thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
She smiles. “Besides, I can’t wait to meet my little niece or nephew.”
An image of Avni holding my baby moves across my vision and my eyes fill.
I can’t believe this is happening, but it is happening.
22
Cassie
Six Years Ago
Over the course of the next month, I continue to attend classes while battling morning sickness. Thankfully, I’m small enough that wearing an oversized sweatshirt helps me avoid becoming the subject of the latest campus gossip.
I visited Dad last week and told him and Paula as well. Dad was shocked but told me he’d support me however possible. I’d told him that I was able to defer nursing school for a semester, so I’d have a chance to settle in to being a new mom. Paula jumped at the chance to play grandma and said she would be happy to help me while I went to school.
By the end of my visit, we were talking about ultrasound dates and baby names. Even though I didn’t know the sex, I’d always liked the name Avery. I’d name him or her Avery Glen--the middle name after my Dad’s foster mom, who was as close to a grandma as I had growing up.
It’s become a routine in the evenings for me to read everything I can about the baby’s development before going to bed. It helps me to know what to expect in the upcoming weeks and months. I’m even getting used to the changes in my body and feeling cautiously optimistic about the future. This wasn’t the map I’d envisioned for myself, but it’s the path I’ll be walking.
Even though I know it’s too early for the baby to hear my voice, I imagine him or her feeling the vibration. So, each night I hum the tune to When You Wish Upon A Star, remembering how my mom did the same when I was a little girl. Each wish made upon a star would now include the little being growing inside me.
Everything is falling into place.
Until it wasn’t.
Sometime around the eleventh week of my pregnancy, during my microbiology class, a tight sensation in my abdomen rips the breath from my chest. I keel over, hoping it’s just a cramp due to dehydration, when I feel something wet coat the inside of my underwear. All my senses align to the awareness momentarily before I shove my notebook and phone into my bag and pull it over my shoulder to hurry out of class. I see the stares from a few students as I rush through the back entrance toward the nearest restroom.
“No, no, no.” My throat constricts and my chest burns as if stabbed by a thousand hot blades as I push the door open. Finding the nearest empty stall and throwing my bookbag onto the floor, I drop my tights and panties to my knees. “Oh, God!” The prick of tears blurs my vision as I see the streak of blood.
For the next twenty minutes, I sit on the toilet, shaking with fear and holding my stomach. I’ve read and memorized the phone numbers and messages scrawled around the puke-green stall, matching the color of my skin. “It’s going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay. It’s probably nothing. I’ll just go to the clinic and get confirmation that everything is fine.”
After lining my underwear with some toilet paper, I slowly make my way out of the bathroom to the health clinic. Another hour and several dopplers and an ultrasound later, I’m inside a patient room with an OBGYN and a nurse. I already know, without him even uttering the words and based on the pitiful look on his face, what will come out of his mouth.
“Cassie.” A sigh before he puts a hand on my shoulder, lightly squeezing it. “What you experienced today was a miscarriage. I am so sorry. I know this will be a difficult time for you . . ..”
The rest of his words come through from an underwater cave. Instead, my ears fixate on the sound of the muffled conversation outside of the room--a door closing, someone laughing. Life moving routinely, untouched by the ice inching over my heart.
I did this. I asked for this.
I never wanted this baby and now, I’ll never have it.
I don’t remember how I got home. I don’t remember who put the papers in my hand--descriptions of what to expect over the course of the next few weeks. I don’t remember which voices of reassurance and concern--maybe my dad, maybe Avni--mingled above my bed as I lay there, numb and empty, kindred to my own womb.
All I remember is that my heart feels like it is secured by fraying rope.
23
Vik
She’s asleep, curled into my chest, her breathing finally steady after hours of unrest. I’m still processing everything she told me last night--the untimely pregnancy, the miscarriage, the guilt. It’s clear she’s become a slave to the blame she carries with her day after day, unwilling to let herself be happy. Atoning for what she believes to be her sins by working day and night at the NICU. Fearful of giving away her heart for someone else to crush.
I tuck a stray strand of her hair behind her ear and gently place a kiss on her head. Her lashes lay like dark feathers on the pillows of her cheek, and I silently count the smattering of freckles on her adorable nose, like cinnamon sprinkled over cream. She wiggles deeper into me as if chasing the warmth from my body, and I’m more than happy to tighten my grasp around her. I’ve held her like this all night--first when she opened up about her heartache and after, once the tears were dry. It feels so natural, so right, to be waking up beside her, like I could do this every day.
Like she could be my every day.
Something shifted between us last night--something imperceptible but monumental. We helped each other across a chasm. She, albeit reluctantly, let me chip away at the ice surrounding her heart while I let her take the keys to mine. Keys I thought I’d forever lost. But there she was, holding them firmly in her hands, ready to make a home inside my damn soul.
Even as her heart fractured, recounting the events from her last semester of college, I kept asking myself how the fuck I was going to walk away from her. All I wanted to do was hold her, protect her, promise her that I would never hurt her like her asshole ex-boyfriend did.
I wanted to tell her that I’d always be there for her. That I’d never leave. That she could count on me.
I wanted to say so much more. But some wants and desires, no matter how many stars they’re wished upon, never become reality. She’s my want, my desire, my wish . . . but she isn’t my reality.
Her lashes flutter against my skin before she gently opens her eyes, looking at me from the co
coon inside my arms. “Hi,” she whispers.
“Hi.” I meet her sleepy gaze. Even with her disheveled hair and the remnants of dried tears around her eyes, she leaves me breathless.
“What time is it?”
“Right around five. I need to get ready for work. I have surgery starting at seven.”
She nods but doesn’t make an effort to shift. I run my hand through her hair before leaning in to kiss her lips. Even though I’d meant for it to be just a peck, I linger a little longer and her hands wrap around my neck, pulling me in deeper.
“God, I want you.” I feel myself lengthen and my heart quicken. “I want everything about you. Your laughs, your tears. These lips and these hands. I want to be buried deep inside you--body and soul.” I focus on the softness of her lips against mine. “I want all of you.”
Finally admitting what I’ve been holding in for the past few weeks feels both terrifying and freeing, but I already know my admission won’t be reciprocated. Still, I don’t regret it.
She opens her eyes, stilling in my arms and I can see the layer of emotion pooling inside them. “I . . . I can’t, Vik. I can’t give you anything more.”
“I know,” I whisper, wrapping her closer into me, even though my heart is splitting into two. “But it doesn’t mean I can’t want those things.”
We lay there, entangled in each other. Me, trying to assure my heart that she’s right. That I don’t have enough time to ask for anything more from her. That this was not part of the terms of our original agreement she’d set forth, and it would be unfair of me to ask for more when I’ll be leaving in a few weeks. Her, with her lips against my chest and melancholy floating in her eyes.